Off the coast of El Salvador. Smelled a wood fire last night, perhaps someone cooking, the scents of humanity blown out to sea. Someone asked me once what I miss at sea. Smells. There are no smells at sea, except those we create ourselves on the boat. No musty leaves, no dust, no asphalt, no cut grass. I think the lack of smell is what makes the deep ocean so inhuman.
I have a new toy, one that is destroying old friendships. When Gunilla came down, she brought a GPS chartplotter. I had asked for it because we would be sailing along the coast down to Panama, and I felt it would be safer. It is a wonder! Its little screen shows detailed charts of anywhere in Central America. And it shows exactly where we are. It has reduced my navigation work load from hours per day to minutes.
And yet it is soulless. I have a special relation to the stars, the planets, the moon and sun. I know them by name, by sight. I know their schedules, when Sirius sets and where on the horizon. I know their personalities, Antares, red and burning at the heart of Scorpio. As I write, the moon is just rising, and I am not surprised, since I know where the moon is always, even when she is on the other side of the planet. She is a close friend, a confidant, who I see every day. I depend on her, but she is so familiar that I don’t express my gratitude very often.
I depend on her. I suppose that is what worries me. I depended on her. This new chartplotter makes all these friendships with the heavenly bodies unnecessary. I feel a sorrow and sense of loss. I look up and I WANT to depend on these old friends. I want to need them. But now I don’t. I think one day I will leave all the technology ashore and rejoin my friends.
We will be ashore in a just twelve hours. That is exciting. But I’d still rather be at sea. Since Gunilla came down, we have joined with other boats, other couples, cruising south, from harbor to harbor. Ours is now a life connected to people, chatter on the radio, dinners ashore, plans, conversations till late. I am enjoying this new way to sail. But oh how I miss the solitude of nights alone at sea.
Today we passed many fishing lines drifting at sea. Guatemalan fisherman come out here in open boats and set the lines, hundreds of yards long, with dangling, baited hooks. For us in sailboats they are a danger, just waiting to hang on a rudder or, worse, foul a propeller. I can’t believe these young fishermen do this, so far from land, in tiny, open boats. Last year three Mexican fisherman lost their engine and drifted for months, for thousands of miles, finally drifting to the Cook Islands. What desperation drives people to seek a living like that?
We are traveling with two other sailboats, new friends, safety in numbers, perhaps. We stopped yesterday in the middle of the sea to swim, jumping off our boats, laughing. I had never done that. As a singlehander, I live by the creed, “If you fall off, you die.” I have branded into my psyche the imperative that you never, ever get off the boat. So I am always connected to “Ventura” by a harness. I have never jumped off her into the water, never in all these years, even when I have been becalmed for days. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Until yesterday. What better sign that my singlehanding days are over, at least for now?
Gunilla is slowly getting to know “Ventura,” adapting to a place that is as personal to me as the inside of my lungs. I think it is hard. I am trying to be sensitive to her plight. And yet “Ventura” and I are a unit. She is an extension of my body. I know without looking where each line is, each cleat, each flashlight. I don’t think about where things are on “Ventura” any more than you think about where your chin is when you scratch it. And now Gunilla is here, and the flashlight is not there when I reach. It is as if the combined David/”Ventura,” the organism that we have become, is losing its motor skills. I am starting to see “ventura” as a boat, rather than as an extension of my body.
It is a different way of sailing, of being with the boat and the sea. Not necessarily a bad way, just different. The dolphins have been absent the past few days. I think they sense the difference, too.
On the other hand, there are the turtles. We have seen hundreds, perhaps thousands. They drift, seemingly asleep, quite large, surprised when we get too close, swimming away, though I hit one a couple of nights ago. I’d like to stop and talk to one.
We’ve had little wind the past three days. On the one hand, that was fine while crossing the gulf of Gales, the Tehuantepec. But we have been motoring almost constantly, only sailing a couple hours at a time now and then when a gentle breeze passes by. The engine has been a problem, stopping repeatedly. It may be than I have dirty diesel in the tank. It sounds like fuel starvation, the engine slowing and then dying. I have changed fuel filters five times now, a messy job, especially in the heat on a rolling boat. The fuel filter is mounted deep inside a cockpit locker. But maybe the problem is solved. The engine has run for well over 24 hours now without a hiccup. But it roars. In this heat I have removed the covering from the engine compartment so the engine would cool better. But Gunilla and I have to scream to hear each other. I trust we can remember to not scream when we turn the motor off.
Fair winds,
David