“My wife and I, right before we go on passage, we seem to get quiet.”
I’m thinking back now, all the way to February 27 of 2016, the day before we cast off on the first leg of this circumnavigation. Andrew and Leslie threw a cast off party in San Diego, and surprisingly about fifty of their friends and family from Salt Lake and/or Las Vegas traveled all that way to join the handful of friends we had collected more locally to alternately fret and revel in the air of anticipation that comes with casting off to sea for a circumnavigation. The party was primarily located on the ground floor of a hotel suite just across the way from my marina slip. I can see everyone drinking, chatting, steam clouds of roaring laughter bubble up every so often and float on the humid night breeze hanging over me.
I see Andrew and Leslie coming down the wooden docks, chatting with a man and a woman, their two smaller children leading the way with short legs and smaller feet padding the weaving path that children lead: looking over the edge, pointing at a dock bird, propping a foot on a dock cleat - maybe curious if it moves? As they arrive before me, I feel the assessing gaze of the gentleman land upon my bow.
“Very nice! Yes!”
“Oh, thank you," I say.
“Nice dodger!” There is some surprise in his voice. “Yes, that is a good dodger.”
“Oh!” I think, “he must be a sailor.”
They took the full tour, and I can see both he and his wife not just imagining but knowing what it will be like to sail far offshore within me. At the time, even Andrew and Leslie didn’t quite have this sense. Then, he says, “quite the party!” Yeah. “When my wife and I prepare for a passage, we go really quiet for a few days. It's different."
Leslie's belly rumbled a little bit. I know her fear, “no kidding, what if we leave to all this fanfare and fail in the first hundred miles?" I can see some red heat of embarrassment rise around her ears, in fearful anticipation of what could happen. She smiles and pushes it away.
“Yeah, but my family - we are the party kind.”
And this is true, too. They do love an excuse for a party.
That was almost four years ago, now. And maybe, you can already tell where I’m going with this:
Andrew and Leslie are preparing for the Indian Ocean crossing, and at least Leslie has grown....quiet! Will wonders not cease? Leslie isn't much for quiet. We all know that. But this time around, she is doesn’t have much to say. When friends in Langkawi ask her if she is getting excited, she said, “yeah!” or when they ask how she is doing I watched her smile, nod, and say, “good.” Are you nervous? “Of course.”
That’s it?
She is also struggling to write. She’s been fussing around with all sorts of alternative blog ideas, gussying up the page a bit, playing with the new interactive google map route she found. All good! But she can’t seem to break into the word bank in her soul.
“It's okay, Leslie. Move over, I’ll do it.” I told her this morning as she stared at the blinking cursor for the third day in a row this week. “This is a ‘ship's log’ after all, isn’t it? And, I’m the ship.”
“Sounds good, Sonrisa.”
So, here she sits with me while I dictate and she types. (Boats can’t type, silly, we don’t have hands. Or fingers, for that matter.) The cat has her chin resting on Leslie's hip. Leslie scratches her behind the ears and on the underside of the neck until she gets enough of that and starts observing the photo edits from her “Writing Mews” Post.
“There are thoughts and feelings about this upcoming year, of course." Leslie says to me. “They roll across the top of my mind like squalls: sadness at leaving Lankgawi friends, the normal passage fears, and the good stuff, too. I’ve learned not to grab a hold of any one thought for too long. I have to let them float on by.”
“Yeah.” I know what she means.
“It makes it hard to articulate cohesive thoughts on the matter, though.”
“Mmm…? Maybe you can articulate what you are looking forward to?”
“So many things! The water is going to be crystal clear, we are going to see places you cannot go any other way but by sailboat, and the diving is going to be something spectacular. I can’t wait to see the ancient style sailing boats in the coastal villages of Madagascar. And the train ride in Sri Lanka! It’s supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the whole world, Sonrisa!”
“Cool.” I nod, my bow bobbing up and down enthusiastically in the waves. I take notes.
“This first passage should be good, if the wind keeps up like the forecast says right now. Downwind, steady 10-20 knots, a current flowing with us, dry starry nights. The very best kind of passage."
“Yep!”
“I just hope I can be a better version of myself this year." She says.
I tip my head to the side and wait.
“Well, if there is any sailing lesson I've learned from our trip so far it is that ship morale is one of the most important responsibilities we have as crew. The ship is much more safe when it's Captain and Crew are cheerfully uncomfortable.”
“Umhmmm…okay.”
“If there is a safety issue that needs to be addressed, something that needs to be changed by all means I’ll vocalize the need for change and then coordinate the effort to get it fixed. But otherwise, complaints need to be endured in silence.”
I stare back at her and cock one eyebrow to the sky. I don’t say anything, but I’ll believe all this when I see it. Even just a couple days ago she was crawling under Andrew’s skin about some errant comments he made regarding the unsatisfactory messaging content of her new (and apparently free) t-shirts.
“Sonrisa!”
"Well, you were."
Leslie sighs, purses her lips and says nothing.
"The moral of your own story is that you can't sweat the small stuff.”
She sulks. She endures me in silence.
So, yeah. I’ll do the writing for a while. This is my blog now.
