Navigating the seas of reverie 4

Dedicated to Bucko Billy Sims

Bells from distant harbors echo over the vast ocean. Anchorages left astern with the new moon's crescent fall into shadow and sink below the headland. Echoes of future landfalls are heard over the dim sea while courses drawn on a dog-eared, yellow chart note the progression of points that make up the perpetual departure of Old Hand.
The slanted cross of the waypoint rises on the GPS screen and the light on the Sierra Echo buoy flashes a mile to starboard as I sheet in a for a close reach with the wind on the starboard bow. To the west, above Point no Point, the dark hills of the Kitsap Peninsula stands vivid against a red sky streaked with lime green and violet clouds.

“Time we switched on pilot house light, lad.”
My face is suddenly revealed, glowing red in the wheel house window.

Illumined by the masthead light, the gracefully curving staysail draws us onward, its rise and fall foretelling every shift of wind. From the darkness ahead the tolling bell off Foulwheather Bluff is accompanied by sea lions barking from the wildly swaying buoy. The swell is steep past the headland, but we are finally able to ease sheets and fall a few points to the west northwest on a faster and easier point of sail. Smashing into the rut of the seas, Old Hand is set on her beam ends as the wind rises to force six.

“Good job we tucked a reef in the main.”
“That it is.

We are just able to lay the Foulweather buoy and, taking it's black profile to starboard, we sail past with but few yards to spare. Rain begins to pelt the wheel house windows and the mournful sound of the bell is heard over the howling wind as Old Hand pitches into seas built up by cold wind blowing from the far north. The confusion of cross seas make it difficult to pick out the Kinney Point light off the south shore of Marristone Island.
Squinting into the radar screen McWhirr's face seems lit by the fires of hell.
“Fall off a few points to west. There's a deep draft bearing down on us from the north east.”
“A few points west it is, sir.”

On we plunge into the darkness, the bow lifting high and falling into the phosphorescent troughs of steep waves. The wind sings a tremulous note in the rigging and a fan of spray strikes the working jib with wrathful vehemence.

Suddenly, in the lee of Marristone Island, the wind suddenly falls and we ghost into the peaceful waters of Oak Bay and head for the Port Townsend canal.
As we steam through the cut, I peer anxiously aloft. Our mast seems about to scrape the steel I-beams of the bridge. But we motor safely past the rip rap surrounded piles and open the wind-ruffled waters of Port Townsend. Leaving the naval instalation at Wallan Point far to starboard, we motorsail past the pulp mill's foul plume blowing athwart our course. The shadowy hulks of fishing boats moored off Boathaven fall astern, and we hand all sail before dropping anchor under the dark towers of Port Townsend.

Later, after a stroll on the deck, I say:
“It's a beautiful evening, Skipper."
The golden glow of the oil lamp illumines the hourglass while McWhirr scans the chart, compass in his gaunt hand, sweeping vast arcs across the eastern straits.
“Best we were under weigh at 0800 hours."
Though, at times, I am exasperated by McWhirr's terse manner, we are of one mind about wanting to make all passages under sail, prefering to use Phyllis only when necessary. An early start will give us plenty time.

~~~
Stars vanish one by one with the violet traces of dawn and the smooth water reflects the waterfront's red, earthen glow. The town hall tower tolls six bells as we fall to kippers and joe around the salon table.
McWhirr stikes me as a bit off this morning. Something in his glaucous eye--like a landed mackerel.
Swatting at something invisible before his face, he says:
“I had a strange dream last night.”
My ears perk up this pronouncement, so unlike his normally reticent manner.
“A dream, Sir?”
“Aye, I was wandering in a lovely green field.”
“Indeed?
“Let it be. Our rendevous with slack water is at 1400 hours.”
Now this is strange. Being a confirmed Francophobe, he's not given to bandying about such high-fallutin' terms. Something is amiss.
“More joseph, sir?”
Smiling serenely he says:
“Aye, that'll do nicely, old son."

We are underweigh across the Admiralty Inlet entrance with the last of the ebb, while keeping Partridge Point fine on the port bow.
I stand by the the mast, uncoiling hallyards.
“Ready to set the Main." Calls McWhirr from the helm.
“All ready, Skipper.”
Perhaps he can smell a wind somewhere.
As I haul on the halyard, the mainsail rises, brilliant white against the cerulean blue sky.

After crossing the Admiralty Inlet traffic lanes we bear away west-northwest.

"Good lad. Now lay our course 318 degrees. That'll carry us past the Romeo Alfa buoy. Call me if the wind rises.”

McWhirr has gone below for a spell, entrusting the solitary weight of command to me.
To the sound of Phyllis' rhythmic thumping we float over the flat water while Porpoise wheel below the surface and again rise in graceful arcs, flashing toward distant Hein Bank.
Upon darksome terrors of the deep we steam, over seaweed rising from lost schooners in graceful arabesques to entwine Old Hand's keel in a languid embrace.
Partridge Bank recedes into a perfectly calm sea off the port quarter.
The rig of a ketch has hove in sight, its white sail hanging motionless on the straits. Reflected from polished fittings, light scatters in incandescent beams. Even the gulls seem stalled-- flattened against the dome of sky while the torpid heat drives all energy from the weary face of the world. There's nothing to measure time's passage but the hypnotic heave of the glassy swell tolling the bell buoy's diapason over the boundless surface of the main.
We are West of Smith Island early. Nothing for it but to head to and wait for slack water and listen to the lugubrious monody for a dearly departed breeze.
To the far west, a laden deep draft looms, hull down, out of the blue haze.
An icon mounted above the radar screen's mandala shows Gabriel standing north up; guardian of the Boreal quarter where come cardinal winds from the northern Salish Sea. A blip moves toward us through the seven concentric circles like a wrathful Deity seeking tribute; an Archon holding Old Hand in irons within the lower spheres and from whose deliverance we yet nurse a forlorn hope.
The way point cross of the GPS fixes this fleeting moment on the motionless sea where all time converges. Vast spaces are enclosed in the mystic rose of compass points, and binds our present passage to ancient voyages beyond the worlds edge where the sunlight's vertical descent meets the reflective sea and time intersects infinity.

How long, my son, I have yearned to tell you...They are spirits owed a second body by the fates. They drink deep of the river Lethe's currents there, long drafts that will set them free of cares, oblivious forever.

Hmmm. 1400 hours and slack water. The flood will kick in soon.
Maybe I should wake McWhirr. No, I can command this vessel as manfully as he. He needs a rest. There was something odd in his normally salty manner--like a beatific glow.

The ominous blip on the radar is now five miles off and bearing steadily on our position. Which way will it turn?

“Skipper?”
No response.
“Sir?"
Hurrying below, I call again: "Captain!"
I rush to the forepeak. "Where...?"
He's gone.
A tattered paperback lies on the pilot berth. It's Virgil's Aeneid . Opening it at random, I see a passage underlined in bright yellow:
From me learn patience and true courage, from others the meaning of fortune.

McWhirr has absconded to the far shore, cut his painter and withdrawn through the diaphanous veils of occultation. In a realm between the offices of master and mate he floats supine. Like the stone effigy from an ancient line of kings he sleeps; hands crossed over his long white beard, hourglass laid aside, in surrender to to the ebbing stream where all noble hearts must finally hie. He is the true sovereign of the watery sphere which has long held me captive. He is the enlightened aspect of my inner Captain Bligh, the Noah of my being, guiding me safely past treacherous maelstroms where the faithless whirl forever amid skeletal hulks and drowned chain.

I'm roused by the sound of halyards frapping against the mast and go on deck. To northwest the horizon darkens with catspaws padding southward and the genoa is soon unfurled before a freshening breeze. The somnolent spell cast over the straits is broken. I set my course after the dolphins wake toward Hein Bank, furthest extent of Old Hand's reach into the deep blue marine.

Aloft, the immense wingspan of a crystalline white eagle soars in the high cirrus toward the Western entrance, where the great indraught of the Pacific flows past the promontory and into the open inlets of the soul. It's a messenger to mind me of my former estate, a call of return to my forgotten kingdom.
The Goddess of the living waters is heard singing over the ocean, absolving Old Hand's crew of impiety and forgetfulness of her benign reign. Yemaya, Ardvasura Anahita, Our Lady of the Reef: all praise is of you and your healing waters by which we live.
Even McWhirr has seen that this is what the winds demand.

```
With the rising wind, we point the bowsprit toward Salmon Bank. On this heading Old Hand will be set by the current back to north east through Cattle Pass at the height of the flood.
The skipper looks up at the foresail. "Now keep the genoa filled, lad."
"Aye, Skipper"
"Blast it, the genny's fouled on the forestay. Head up!"
I have a habit of addressing myself thus when alone at sea.
Captain Spencer is a horn-fisted salt with little tolerance for nonsense.

Call me Ascanius.












I

Navigating the seas of reverie 1

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.”

Navigating the seas of reverie 2

The horizon darkens cerulean blue with the advancing swell. Waters around me eddy and swirl as the towering face jacks up on Mysto Reef. Lifting its translucent arch skyward, the massive wave breaks like the crack of doom as indignant pelicans take flight.
The following sea bears down like judgement day, forever stalled in mid career; a constant moment leaving me spellbound by its lofty grandeur. I'm lifted high on the watery messenger from Africus' torrid zone, that's come to break in a crescendo of spume on my home town beach. Far down the glistening green wall I behold the western realm of infinite light and repose.

Where has he gone, that apparitional self, who looked into the hollow maw of fear?

*****
In a garage sale, in a dream, I found my old copy of the Aeneid among carved wooden heads intoning prophesies from a laurel shaded altar.

In his wheelchair, dad held vigil from a South Laguna hill, searching the horizon for whales. A watch held in his once stout heart, vestige of the ancient clan, now closeted amid the holies like an old hat. There, shelves of brown lore lay darkening in the suburbs; now dusted off for our perusal, only in dreams.
On the cover was Baskin's drawing of Anchises, hoisted on the shoulders of his fated son, fleeing the streets of burning Troy.

“We are becalmed, mate.” McWhirr's voice seems far away.
“I thought there was always a breeze in Port Madison.” I say.
“Always a memory of one, anyway.”
The boom swings and the mainsail flogs to the sound of pans clattering below. To the North, an abomination of a container ship rounds Jefferson Head, pushing a bright bow wave as it turns southeasterly past the Sierra Foxtrot buoy.

McWhirr, taking his pipe out of his mouth, says:
“How about we crank up old Phyllis and motor over to Indianola Marsh and drop the hook?”
Ducking below, I release the compression levers and bear down on them again as Phyllis springs to life with a steady, thumping rhythm.
Now back on deck, I uncleat the topping lift and drop the main boom onto the gallows before going forward to lower the jib and secure it to the stanchions. Returning to the pilot house to turn the wheel to starboard, I head for the anchorage just off the marsh, passing sodden fishermen tending lines hung over bent gunwales, looking bereft of hope for even an anemic cod.

“Three fathoms. Let go here Mister Spencer.”
“ Aye Captain!” I send the CQR anchor splashing into the depths and pay out twelve fathoms of chain.
Old Hand slowly turns to face northeast.
“The flood has set in already.” observes McWhirr while taking bearings off Point Monroe.
The clouds have lifted to the East where the sky turns violet before falling off to slate gray above the snow covered Cascade Range. Gulls wheel their plaintive cry overhead, dropping white poop into the water forward of the starboard bow.
“ Have I ever told you about the wave I caught in Laguna?”
“I seem to recall the one you didn't”

Let it go then. That was another lifetime. Another has signed on as swab this voyage. I was but a nipper who beheld the hollow countenance of Saturn in the form of a towering breaker long spent on a Southern California shore. Just as now, he faces down from the Northern black clouds; a stern inverted profile mirrored on the sea. He's rough-hewn on the rocky peak yonder, endlessly stumping his sluggish round and enclosing our modest endeavors like the laurel tree's shadow circling over the household gods, ever counter to the golden sun.

“Guess I'll turn in. Goodnight Mister Spencer.”
“And pleasant dreams to you Captain.”
McWhirr goes below and soon the stillness is broken only by his regular snore.

I hear a rush of air from over the rail. A fine mist shoots up and hangs, dispersing into the black sky, before gently closing over the deep sounding whales back.

It's a spirit spout beckoning our ship toward far latitudes where the dark isle enfolds my father's wrack. The whale left this memento falling back into the source this gentle night, calling us to the eminence beyond the Eastern mountains. What salvation can we hope for from that quarter? What windy advent heralds vistas brighter for being reborn? I see beyond the blue peaks to a presence shining from the Seraphim's mansions, an Orient that looms all the more lucid for its absolute inscrutability.
I drift off with Old Hand's easy rocking on the waves abeam.
The night is a vast inter-tidal zone, where I lie aground in dreams until a remembrance intoned, as if from a wooden head inside my own, sings: Wake from the dream of life and see.