Grebes paddle across the bows as Phyllis, my Sabb, two cylinder diesel engine, provides the steady, thumping pace. Old Hand steams into the channel, giving the south shore sands of Eagle Harbor a wide berth. Once past the red nun marking the southern extent of Tyee shoal, I head up into the wind and raise jib and staysail before falling off on a port tack, close-hauled into a twelve knot northerly breeze.
Something in us is endlessly departing into the rarefied air of spiritual quest, and the soul is forever receding into mythic seas on courses, set in youth, upon imaginal meridians.
“Ready to come about, Mister Spencer, and try to keep us off the beach at Yeomalt point.”
“Ready about.”
I have a habit of addressing myself like this when alone at sea. But sometimes, in my bi-polar dialogue between captain and first mate, there are mutinies which needs be put down with a firm hand.
Call him/me, Captain McWhirr.
Turning to port, I reach through the wheel house door to let go the the starboard jib sheet and secure the flogging jib on the opposite tack and we settle into an easy groove with Yeomalt point looming off the bow.
“Steady up.”
“Steady it is, Captain.”
Every casting off, no matter how modest the voyage, holds the promise of high adventure.
Grand embarkations, like Watteau's Voyage to Cytheria, show jaded yet frolicsome gentry waltzing down to a moored lugger awaiting passage to Aphrodite's fair isle.
Epic Adieus ring down through the ages. There's Agamemnon's dramatic farewell and blood kin offered to the gods for a fair breeze toward the final act on Windy Troy. Oaths hurled into the winds teeth bring down the curtain. Soliloquies are delivered in drawn out scenes at the taffrail, and swords are brandished against a blood red sky in a Hollywood version of the ultimate departure.
“Prepare to come about. We'll never make our offing at Yeomalt Point if you don't stop dreaming and skip lively, mate.” McWhirr is testy this morning.
“Ready about it is, sir.”
Under her gracefully curving genoa, the brilliant white hull of a classic yawl glides over green water dappled with cobalt blue reflections of sky as she runs before the freshening breeze toward Tyee Light.
Now we are on an easterly heading toward the shipping lanes and Magnolia Bluffs beyond, to gain Easting before the long board past Skiff point. But the wind is backing to northward and we may not make it with out Phyllis' assistance.
The wind continues to freshen, and after another tack, Old Hand is pounding into seas made steep by the wild contention of wind and tide, hell bent on making our offing clear of the rapidly drying shingle on Skiff Point. Through the port shrouds, gulls and herons gather on the mudflats of Murden Cove, only now showing with the fast ebbing tide.
~~~
The atmosphere was electric that September morning in Laguna Beach. I stood in front of my dad's house and and looked over the expanse of ocean spreading before a clear, blue sky and beheld long lines of swells advancing from the far south. Carrying my fins and kneeboard, I walked down Virginia Way past chicken shacks, bamboo and peacocks strutting in the dust of Southern California real estate, to the steps at the top of the 10th Street break.
Its the same travail Aeneas underwent in founding the promised land of Alba Longa and begetting the vast progeny that, to his day, rules the occident as decreed by the All Mighty.
On the beach, all was deserted. All appeared benign enough, until, far out on the horizon, on a reef I'd not known existed, a deep blue line approached and lifted to a height that seemed to touch the empyrean's lofty manor.
Huge, green walls stood up on Mysto Reef, peeling with uncanny precision from left to left to right, and the shore break was a raging mass of white foam tossing lobster pots and wrecked galleons.
Go!
Why must we hurl ourselves into the spume at Neptune's mercy, when we might be placidly lounging, beer in hand, before the latest remake of the same old sea story, far from even the remotest chance of drowning? There's something that calls like the siren's lydian melodies from behind this storm. A whole cast of players inform this chubasco, come from the primal intelligence to crash in fury upon my young person and reprove green hubris.
“Blast it, lad, we'll have to make another eastward tack to make our offing.”
McWhirr's hail rouses me from reflection to see his saturnian profile etched against the sky, his gnarled hand grasping the weather shrouds with overly dramatic emphasis.
Indeed, the wind backing further to the north is rapidly putting us on Skiff point.
“Ready about.”
“Ready Captain.”
