Perhaps it is better to start with the end. Or impressions at the end.

Last night the moon was full, and we were coming down our rumb line as the wind continued to push us along at five to seven. We had simply and quite easily slipped into a three on and three off schedule.

A boat underway, in passage on the open sea is not the same as a boat underway anywhere else. The meaning of time, the relevance of it are lost along the rhumb line. It is simply a matter of speed, current and heading. There is an abstract suspension of time as the vessel slips along under the most primordial and basic emotion in the world.

The power of the wind.

One suddenly is drawn into a small intimate world akin to a return to the beginning of life. A return to the womb. Without engine, the sounds are drawn as though one were sitting in the midst of a finely tuned Japanese garden, and you are able to tune in and tune out the various sounds at will. The timbre and volume are consonant and resonant, complimenting one another in a symphony of endless motion translated to fluid poetry.

There is the gurgle of water in the scuppers and drains, exiting the stern and alongside in a rush of bubbles the same as the champagne we now sit and drink in quiet contemplation of something only a sailor can understand. There is the cymbal crash as the bow hobby horses up and over the swell, proud and graceful. There are small creaks and groans as the boat leaps ahead on its course like a stallion with a bit in its mouth, spurred on not by metal gouges, but by the ancient and unseen wind. The wind that has blown long before we arrived on the scene, and will continue to blow long after we are gone.

And then there are the voices, heard every so often in the quiet of the task.

The commander asked me at dinner tonight as we shared stories, drink, laughter and friendship about the voices.

“Did you hear them?”

“Yes of course” I replied. And therein we launched into a protracted discussion about the mechanics of the voices. Scientifically I guess they could be described as a combination of the various sounds together which produce a certain range that the human ear is tricked into thinking are voices…..

I think though that maybe they really are voices. Voices of those who have gone before us.  They are not speaking to us. They are speaking to the wind, to each other to the sea. They are not meant for us to hear and understand. They simply belong to the entity we call our boat . They do however comfort us and tell us we are not all alone out there.

At dinner the commanders commander, Kim with a genuine curiosity asked D if she felt confined, claustrophobic out there. After all 35 feet is pretty infinitesimally small in a giant nothingless ocean.

The sailor nee former Port Captain weighed the question with careful thought. She replied (as anyone who has overcome the demons that tie us comfortably to shore); “no….not at all”. She explained that the boat becomes a world all in itself, and the sea instead of being a big open nothing place is filled with wonder and things only someone who goes there can understand. It never crosses your mind. How can one be confined in the open ocean?

At 0630 this morning we crossed into the Brazos Santiago Pass and the rhythm and roll of the sea shifted to a glassy blue Laguna Madre. The smells of land permeated the air and we were once again transformed into terrestrial beings. For me the communion was over for the time being. For D it had just begun.

She too had heard the voices.

Have you?