Episode #6: Luminescence, Pescado and almost shitting my pants

Will I tell my greatgrandchildren about all of this? Claro que si! How could I ever forget. Even if I take equally or even more mindblowing trips in the future, the things I saw and felt while sailing Patches are now a part of me, the time on the boat a chapter in my book or a scene in my film.

One of the things I love so much about life is that all the experiences, encounters and discoveries, even after they end or disappear, become a part of who we are. As nothing really ends. The sum of all we live is inside of us, creating an ever changing story line. That makes us fluid beings, reality only a bat of lashes. (Wo ist die Realität, wo ham Sie die?)

During the trip to San Francisco, there were a few moments that particularly stuck in my head/heart/soul for different reasons.

PESCADO & CEVICHE

Ok, I learned that the Spanish word “pescado” doesn’t really mean the fish swimming in the ocean, but the fish that has been caught. The fish that was not yet caught and swims happily is called pez. Such a pez bit into what it believed to be some juicy piece of marine life on the 4th day of our trip and thus became a pescado sooner than it had probably anticipated. The marine life was in fact not so juicy but rubber bait which was attached to a long line that Eloy had tied to the rear of the boat. For exactly that reason – making pez pescado. I was on the helm when it happened and was not too unhappy I didn’t have to witness the slaughtering, but WHAT A FEAST we had! The rather large Dorada changed it’s colors a few times before Tom and Eloy briskly suffocated it with Vodka (apparently this is the most humane way to kill a fish – to pour liquor onto the gills) and Eloy sliced it up right there on deck. The boys produced some lemons and we had delicious fresh raw Ceviche for breakfast, I grilled the other half on our little swinging camping stove with olive oil and garlic in the evening and our protein household was restored.

STARS ABOVE AND UNDERNEATH

“The ocean is like heaven, just the opposite, underneath us, stretching just as far down as the skies stretch up” (I am borrowing this from Tom, it was his idea) It felt exactly like that. When you don’t see any land for a while it seems that the ocean is just as vast as the sky. Sea life is probably looking at the element of air just the way we look at water, as something huge and blue and uninhabitable, on the other side, like a mirror.

That thought made me think of this image that I found a few years ago.

I wish I could show you what this one night looked like or even more, what it felt like but my words will have to suffice. The day might have been the 13th or 14th of August (dates or time have a very different and much less important quality out on the ocean) and I got up for my watch at 12:30 am. Maureen told me that there were meteor showers out there when she woke me. I got on board, there were no waves, not one single cloud and I have never ever seen this many falling stars in my entire life. Living in the mountains kinda spoils any stargazing kid from early age, we are just a little closer to them than people at sea level…. But the clarity and size of the velvet skies above a boat on open water is something entirely different, new to me, immense. And that night, the heavens had decided to become a stage for an incredible spectacle and I saw countless shooting stars. But that wasn’t all. Not only did the heavens rain liquid lights on us, the fluorescent, bioluminescent plankton in the water tried it’s best to rival them, decorating every move of the boat with green sparkle! It was breathtaking. Being able to witness nature that way filled me with such deep and profound gratitude for this kind of beauty that is almost too much to bear, that satiates your entire being with sheer happiness.

FEAR, NO LOATHING

Around day 14 on the boat, the wind picked up and the sea started swelling. Considerably. Unfortunately, my first encounter with waves as high as houses was in the middle of a rainy, cloudy night. Meaning: I could not see anything at all. When I got out Marc was on the helm, his face looking very concentrated. That night, I remember checking twice if my life jacket was clicked in properly. Or maybe more often. My time to take over the wheel was approaching a lot faster than I wanted it to and the more I felt the boat climbing and falling down these huge, black mountains of water, the faster my heart started beating. I was shaking. From the cold, from not having eaten much again but most of all, of fear. Marc looked at me and asked if I was ready. I said that maybe not and that I was scared. And that fear was so real! It was a lot more real than being nervous about a big presentation at work or a first date or whatever else happens on land.

What if I would not be able to hold the wheel, what if another big wave would come over us and just wash me off, what if I would slip on the boat that seemed vertical to the ocean?

But I got up. And I took the wheel, hyper alert and full of adrenaline. I realized that I would have to feel the waves rather than see them. And then I did it, I sailed 30 knot winds and 18 foot waves, the rain was beating down on my face and it felt like this could be the end of the world in a pitch black night. But it wasn’t and I felt like a million dollars after I left the wheel and fell into my wet sleeping bag with a deathlike sleep.

DOLPHIN FEATURE

We were sailing on the ocean for an overall time of 17 days. During 2 nights, we could hear them and make out their shapes only ever so slight in the dark, but we never actually saw them. I asked them a few times to come back during the day but they kept away and I was losing hope. But I guess they knew how much we wanted to see them… It took them exactly 16 days to make their appearance and it couldn’t have been better. Maureen woke me up at 4 am (Hawaii time, we never changed our watches until we arrived in SF not to get confused), almost shouting “the dolphins are here”! So I got up and there they were, splendid beautiful creatures, jumping and frolicking around our boat as if to say “ha! surprise!”. It was a wonderful show and I am so glad I got to meet these playful cheeky mammals in their natural habitat.