underway: chapter three

[My story at sea continues. If you're new here, I suggest starting with 'on failing,' followed by underway: chapter one and underway: chapter two. Thank you for reading!]

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I thought that getting past buoy number two would deliver us from our seaborne hell. It did not.

For hours, as turbulent waves pushed against our bow, as the wind tipped our sails close to the waterline, as I shivered uncontrollably with fear, I’d envisioned a salvation from the elements once we made it past buoy number two, far enough out of the Bay. We all had. There was a collective belief on board that things would get better, as if there was going to be an imaginary wall separating the before and after of the mile marker. The hope of respite is what kept us going.

But the conditions did not abate. Our hopes were dashed as we set our southern course and found that there was no such relief to be had. Disappointment ran rife.

Perhaps this is just what it’s all going to be like, I thought to myself. Exhausted, I gave way to the wild rhythm of the sea, my hips and my torso moving in sync with the swell, my head bobbing in debilitating fatigue.

Eventually—in what could have been minutes, or hours, as all time felt lost to us—the asthmatic attack of wind that we’d suffered finally caught its breath. The air calmed. Puffs of fourteen knots filled our sails and gently sped us forward. The seas, however, were still foreboding, lapping high against our hull, foaming white as waves crested in the black night.

“I’m going to go forward,” Garrett told us. “We need to drop the mainsail to get out of this washing machine.”

My empty stomach constricted. Going forward meant that Garrett would leave the relative safety of the cockpit and walk along the deck, which was slick with saltwater. The movement underneath us was jerky and unpredictable. I prayed for a god I’m not sure I believe in for him to stay on board, to not slip and fall into the unforgiving water. Breathe, I told myself, breathe.

I couldn’t bear to watch, so instead I listened as his shoes squeaked against the wet non-slip surface. The boom, left loose so we could lower the mainsail, swayed back and forth. Suddenly, a blast of wind forced the boom against Garrett’s stomach with a deafening bellow. I sprung to my feet, ignoring the pain shooting up my calf in response, and scanned the deck. I found his legs, and followed them until I saw his arms wrapped around the white metal spar.

“I’m okay!” he called.

I gripped the dodger, refusing to take my eyes off of him again. As he began dropping the sail, part of stackpack—a net-like contraption that holds everything in place—broke. Like an errant ribbon, layers and layers of white canvas fell away from him, threatening to dip into the water. Things were going horribly wrong.

“I need sail ties, now!” he yelled. I reached into the port cockpit cubby and pulled out a few red and blue polyester ties. Gripping the boom with one hand, he reached the other out to me. I strained on my toes to hand them over.

Moving as quickly as he could, but with patience and focus, Garrett started to pull the limp sail up and fold it on itself on top of the boom. Done, he lashed it in place with the ties.

I heard more than saw his steps make way back toward us, felt his weight drop down into the cockpit. I exhaled sharply. Another crisis averted.

Now things were calmer, but tense. The weight of the day’s events pressed down on my eyelids. I yawned, and hobbled down to the cabin around 9:15pm. Garrett followed to layer on his foul weather gear.

Embarrassed by my lack of stamina, disappointed in my weakness, I asked if I could go to bed.

“If you’re tired, you should definitely sleep,” he said. This was a kindness, but also a dismissal. I was of no help. It was a strange, unexpected place for me to be in; as if I’d gone from being the co-lead in rehearsals for a play to the understudy once the curtain went up. I didn’t know where I fit in. My shoulders slumped with the thought. In that moment, I realized a shift in my relationship with Garrett. He was a captain, now, not a husband. He needed to be a captain. His focus needed to be entirely on keeping us safe in the squall that was whipping through our sails. But this was also the scariest thing that I’d ever been through. I wanted to collapse into his arms and have him hold me until the storm passed, until we made it to our destination. Yet that wasn’t an option, and I understood the role that I needed to play.

“Thank you,” I said, and retreated further inside of myself.

In the red glow of the cabin lights, I peeled off my woolen cap, my rain boots, my white and yellow jacket, and my heavy sodden bibs. I moved into our bedroom and, shutting the door behind me, yanked off my shirt and bra. Shivering, I balanced myself against the bed as I took off my pants. I brushed my teeth, naked, staring at myself in the mirror like I had just over fourteen hours ago, a lifetime of experience between now and then. I found a warm change of clothes, borrowed Garrett’s heavy knit sweater, pulled the cap back over my ears, and climbed into bed.

The v-berth was a mess of blankets and pillows and backpacks and gear; we’d made it just as much a space for storage as sleep. I burrowed under whatever I could pull over me, my skin still icy under my pajamas, and shut my eyes against the night.

With my eyes closed, all of my other senses came alive, stirring me further and further away from slumber. I was cocooned in a symphony of terrifying sounds. The engine buzzed in perpetuity, groaning as it pushed us through heavier swells. We’d never run our engine for that long before and I became terrified that it would overheat and stop working. If the engine failed…

I couldn’t follow that intrusive thought down its beckoning path.

I silently admonished myself to stop thinking of worst case scenarios. But it was hard, in the thralls of this nightmare. For once, I couldn’t envision an exit plan. I was utterly and completely subject to my environment.

My gut, hollow, roiled as the seas tossed me around in my bed. The emptiness was nauseating, persistent, vocal. The ibuprofen that I’d been pounding to ease the pain of my sprained ankle rubbed raw against the lining of my stomach.

I can’t do this for the next eight months, I thought to myself. I wanted to pull my hair out. I needed a release. My cries, lost in the hum of the engine, did not give me the break that I needed. What have I gotten myself into?

I reached into the drawer next to our bed and pulled out a pair of bright pink ear plugs, rolled them between my hands, and carefully inserted them into my ears. But they did nothing to drown out the noises of the sea, or of Thisldu. There was no escape.

I held myself, curled on my side in the fetal position, knees pulled up tight to my chest, for hours. Sleep did not come. I was warm and I was dry, but I was not rested. The v-berth became my safe space. My hideaway. Feeling cowardly, I ventured out into the saloon around 2am. Layering on my foul weather bibs and jacket, harness and tether, and lifejacket, feeling at least dressed the part of a sailor, I put on a brave face and went up top.

The seas were calm. Glassy and black and smooth like oil. At last, we had found peace.

Garrett and Phil were shivering. I didn’t ask if it was from the cold or their adrenaline wearing off.

Phil was behind the wheel. Garrett sat, arms crossed, looking out at the expanse of darkness surrounding us.

“Did you sleep?” he asked.

I shook my head no.

“You?” I asked back.

“I couldn’t,” he answered.

“I was able to sleep for an hour,” Phil chimed in. They’d been rotating at the helm every two hours, but staying together in the cockpit. I sat next to Garrett, leaning into him for warmth. I wanted to rest my head on his shoulder or climb into his lap and have him lift the burden of my despair, but could see that my husband was far away. He was still the captain of this ship and would not relax until we made it to port. So I held in my emotions and stared out at the water with him instead.

The moon had dropped, making it hard to tell where the sea ended and the sky started. It was as if we were floating through ink, the glaze of stars overhead reflecting in the watery black surface below. I wondered where the moon had gone—I’d never realized that it doesn’t always stay out all night—and caught myself marveling at the Milky Way; something I’d never truly seen. All of the sudden a flare went off in the distance. A bright green light dropped from above and cleaved through the air, sizzling with a flash as it hit the water. I could feel the rumble of its descent in my chest.

“Is there a boat over there?” I asked.

Both men looked.

“There aren’t any nav lights in the distance, and I don’t see anyone on the radar,” Phil said, glancing between the iPad docked above the wheel and the spot I pointed to.

“I thought I saw a flare go off,” I said.

“Ah—it was a shooting star,” Garrett told me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you sure? It was huge, and bright green. Did you really not see it?”

The world around me was brand new. I’d been living on it for 30 years, and had never witnessed the moon set or seen such an explosive shooting star. What else would we see over the course of the next few months? If I could even do this for the next few months. The possibilities and the expansiveness wrapped around me like a weighted blanket as the cold and the quiet and the wonderment of it all eased the anxiety in my chest. When my eyelids started to droop, I decided to crawl back into the comfort of my bed. Within minutes, I fell into a dreamless sleep. It was 4am.

I woke some two hours later with the dawn. Garrett was not next to me; he hadn’t come to bed. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and scooted down to the floor. The engine was still humming as I brushed my teeth, and the ocean gently slapped against the hull alongside the bathroom as I splashed sink water over my face. I changed, slowly, gingerly, favoring my throbbing ankle, and set out to join the boys.

Garrett was behind the helm, his eyes serious, the rest of his face hidden behind a cream knit cap and white neck gaiter. The morning was cold. Phil sat facing the stern, pillows propped behind his back, an old yellow blanket thrown over his lap. He held a coffee cup up to his lips in perpetuity, the mug itself hard to see beneath his thick white gloves, his face also hidden behind a red and blue ski hat. They’d braved the night together, mastered the seas together, had been to hell and back together. I was there, too, braving a different version of the past 24 hours, but not like them. They were silent, exhausted, but with a sense of accomplishment under their belts. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat opposite of Phil, and soaked in the tranquility of the soundless morning. It was only the three of us, and our boat, and the Pacific ocean, for miles and miles and miles.

The sea rolled out below us like a soft blue carpet. The brown hills of California broke the horizon to our left, while a cluster of seagulls gathered on the waves to our right. I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face before I saw it round out of the mountains. The three of us sat in a sedated, comfortable silence and watched the day break over the ocean.

I cut into the quiet with a question for each of them.

“How do you feel?”

“Good,” was all that Garrett had to say. He wouldn’t let his focus drop.

Phil pondered my question before answering.

“It was a very cold night,” he said. “I slept for about an hour. I feel so happy that the beat out of the San Francisco bar is over and now we have pleasant conditions. It’s so different. If I’m being brutally honest, from about 9:00 p.m. to midnight, I thought I was going to puke everywhere. I felt really sick for hours. I went below to get something and it hit, and I just thought, fuck, I can’t make it. But then I went back up and I was on deck all night long and we saw such beautiful stars, shooting stars, and phosphorescence, and...I don’t know.” He shrugged.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. He only nodded.

By then, we only had about 20 miles left until we reached Santa Cruz. Garrett was sick with worry that they wouldn’t have a spot for us; when he’d called to make a reservation earlier in the week they said they were under construction, only had limited visitor slips, and wouldn’t let anyone reserve one in advance. We couldn’t humor the possibility of not getting a slip. The only alternative was for us to keep going. But each of us was at our breaking point. We had to stop.

At 8:50 a.m., we tied up at the Santa Cruz Harbor fuel dock and sent Garrett to check in with the harbormaster. Phil and I held our breath until he returned.

“They have a guest slip for us,” Garrett said, “let’s move her on over.” My eyes filled with tears of relief.

It took all of five minutes to move off of the fuel dock and into our temporary slip, and less than ten minutes for the boys to celebrate with two-finger pours of whiskey in plastic glasses. I declined their offer, but should have maybe taken them up on it. Because shortly after, when the boys crashed, I found myself wide awake.

Had I been able to, I would’ve gone for a long walk to clear my head and take in our new surroundings. But my sprained ankle kept me trapped on board. Thisldu was both my sanctuary and my cell. I crawled into bed next to a snoring Garrett and stared up at the vintage postcard stamp pattern of our porthole covers, thoughts bouncing around in my head. Sleep would not come. Not until I unlocked all of the fear and fury coursing through my veins. I needed a way to process what we had just gone through. So I reached for my phone, opened up the Notes app, and started to write.