Dear Friends,
It is Monday morning. I have been hashing out emails since my coffee shop opened at 6:30. The crew arrives today carpooling in 2 different cars. I got to Beaufort on Saturday morning. It has been a productive 2 days. Everything seems in order. There are always things to do around a boat...but nothing major left to do. It is mainly odds-and-ends at this point. We have to load the rest of the provisions, fill the water and fuel tanks, wash the boat down one last time, and settle a few oustanding local accounts.
Things are in pretty good order at work. I have reconciled that I will never really be caught up and some things will undoubtedly not get done. I have made peace with that. I continue to try and do as much as possible and then it will be done. No emails, no phone, etc. I look forward to that part of things.
I have never been very good at inaction, and this is proving no exception. I have been a little surprised of the "pit in my stomach" that seems to recur the past 24 hours whenever I stop doing something. It really is time to get started.
Weather is always pivotal on any passage. I refuse to look too early. It never pays off. As of this morning, it looks like Tuesday and Wednesday will be breezy..20-30 knot on Tuesday night. It is a little unclear the wind direction but it looks like the wind will be either SE, S, or SW. I am expecting SE which isn't perfect but much better than anything out of the north that would stand up waves in the Gulf Stream. If we get lucky the wind be S or SW (prediction south of Hatteras Canyon). That would be perfect. Beaufort's latitude is 34.718 and Bermuda is 32.2254 so there is not a lot of south that has to be made. It is mainly east. First, the chore is heading through the stream. I expect arrival in Bermuda on May 21. I will update everyone then.
We should be off the dock around 8:30 AM tomorrow...that is exactly high tide. Maybe, that is a good omen.
Thanks to everyone for their support and understanding these past weeks and months. I especially owe Katie a huge thanks for all her love and understanding as we beat a path back and forth between Winston Salem and Beaufort. There were a lot of hours of driving, cleaning, preparing the boat. Morpheus is ready. I feel as ready as any old-man of 55 could hope.
I finish with a quote of a new piece of art that Katie bought for the boat this spring:
"You cannot cross the sea by staring at the water."
Best wishes to all. I will draw from everyone's strength and will update in Bermuda.
Cap'n Rick
So I drove Davis and Catherine down to Beaufort, NC on Monday, 5/16/11 to prepare for departure the next day on their Trans-Atlantic cruise aboard Rick and Katie Rauck’s sailing sloop, the Morpheus. During the entire drive down to the coast, at dinner that night, in the bar together, just the 2 of us having a farewell shot of whiskey and Red stripe, and in the coffee shop the next morning, Davis was hopeful – nay, almost insistent – that I change my mind, jump on the boat with no valid passport, and do the first leg to Bermuda with them. God knows I wanted to, but…other duties called. My decision was made easier by the knowledge that I will be catching up with Morpheus for the last leg from the Azores to Spain, but this fact comforted Davis little. He clearly and sincerely wanted me to go along, but his angst also had to do with his natural anxiety over undertaking such a formidable challenge. All of the departing crew and captain manifest this nervousness in various ways during their last hours ashore. For instance, Rick had me rush off to the store to get a tea kettle because Katie could not immediately locate the one in the galley – no way could they sail to Bermuda without a tea kettle!
ReplyDeleteIn regards to Davis however, he carries an amazing amount of superstition and worries with him wherever and whenever he goes. Underneath that bravado and kindness and good looks, is a naïve boy who sometimes (not often) get very afraid of the demons out there. I pray he will conquer some of these fears out there at sea over the next 3 weeks, alone on countless monotonous watches with only his own thoughts to keep him company. Over our last shot, I asked him to slay me a sea dragon and lay it at my feet when I see him in the Azores. I think he got my meaning.
“Monotonous” is not to say the voyage will be boring. To say that would foolishly ignore the huge challenge and huge risk Davis and his fellow crew have chosen to take. There are whales and gales and icebergs and other hazards that must be navigated. There is the constant physical and mental strain of living and surviving on a fickle and tempestuous ocean over the next 35 days. And there is luck – either good luck or bad that must be factored in to any experience on the high seas. I am a firm believer in the adage that you make your own luck. But in sea-faring conditions, luck becomes less quantifiable. Out in the middle of the Atlantic, even the strongest vessel with the most able captain and crew can founder. By contrast, even the most inexperienced sailor on a leaky boat can sail through peril safely into port. I don’t know what the deciding factor that ultimately causes luck to be good or bad. But my experiences on the water over the years has helped me narrow that nebulous factor down to faith in 2 things. Faith in a higher being that has some greater plan that I have no chance of ever understanding or changing. And faith in the boat you are sailing.
ReplyDeleteSo I said a prayer to God asking that he deliver Morpheus and her crew safely across the pond. And then I had a much longer conversation with Morpheus herself, considering she was much more tangible, more immediate, and therefore potentially more receptive to my concerns.
Morpheus (as most women do) actually began the conversation. After Davis and I had our late night toddy, we returned to the boat and retired for the night. Davis became familiar with the starboard cabin berth he will be sleeping in for the next 40 days. I lay awkwardly on the setae in the salon, but slept fitfully, still tempted by the pull of the sea for myself (wanting desperately to jump on board this next morning), but more by the worries of any parent about to send their child off into harsh and unforgiving world. I contemplated the periodic humming of a small electric motor that I finally concluded was either a slightly confused bilge pump or part of the refrigeration system on board. After about 3 hours of tossing and turning, and listening to the night time sounds of a ship at dock, I got up to investigate the particularly annoying beat of some loose halyard banging on the metal mast.
On deck, in my boxers a 12 second rain shower 0n my bear skin washed away any lingering sleepiness I might have still possessed. The relentless cadence turned out to be the slack signal flag cord left untied earlier in the day when Rick and Lauren and I sent MacRae up in the boatswain’s chair to cut away a tattered flag from the upper back stay. I tied the obnoxious cord off tight, started back to bed, but then felt a distinct impulse that pulled me instead toward the bowsprit, one of my favorite spots on any vessel. There I settled in, and studied Morpheus in the full moonlight. I looked at her rigging, her lines, her deck, her helm. I leaned over and looked at her bow, her water line. I walked her length and tugged on the life lines, and dodger and any place I thought someone might be grabbing in earnest over the coming days. I tried to imagine a worst case scenario – Morpheus getting knocked over in a gale.
I asked Morpheus if she was ready for the voyage. She did not say no. I asked her if she could successfully make it to Spain. Morpheus softly rocked at her mooring, but still gave me no positive sign. Just then, the wind stopped blowing, the bilge pump cut off, and the moon came out from behind a rain cloud. And in that instant, time froze. Morpheus seemed to physically settle down into the water on her dock lines. And though she was floating, I suddenly sensed that I was standing on solid ground. Solid, hallowed ground. I asked her one more time “Are you bringing my boy home safe?” Somehow, I knew the answer was yes. I went back to my berth and enjoyed the best 1 hour of sleep I have had on land or water in a long time.