[About this picture: the sun was inspired by Rothko, or more accurately, a seat cushion.]Life on land is different from life at sea. For example, when you park your car you don´t have to think about tides. Here´s another example: on land, you can walk more than 43 feet in one direction. In sailing, everything is always moving and often in a direction which may hurt you. Also, you can throw aluminum cans right into the ocean because they rust so fast it´s better for the environment than a landfill.
Well I was sitting around on our last passage, mulling these incredible thoughts, when Aaron came down below after a satellite phone call with his parents. (I´m a terrible daughter and rarely shell out the $1.20/minute. Sorry guys, but now you´ll think twice about raising a daughter with a respect for money. Ooooh, zing.) (Aaron also has a respect for money, but that doesn´t help my case). ANYWAY, Aaron came down, and I looked up as he was replacing the gigantic receiver on the wall and he said to me, "My mother is cleaning the basement."
Ordinarily, this kind of news wouldn´t shock anybody. But this was an extraordinary situation. "NO WAY!" I thought. Right at this very second, while we are skimming about the waves in the Pacific, lacking ordinary creature comforts, a real live person is certifiably wandering about a basement in Virginia vacuuming, throwing things out, labeling things, (hopefully color-coding), and just generally existing in a completely different environment to ours. I guess maybe I was just hungry for a run or some fresh fruit or any number of things unavailable on the open water, but for some reason, I just loved the immediate novelty of land life at that particular moment.
ANYWAY (world´s longest intro), I do really like being at sea. As it fascinates me that somewhere in Bangkok, someone is walking up stairs while I type at an absurdly small desk in the Galapagos, I thought maybe it might, just might be somewhat sort of interesting to hear what life is like on a boat...
So, here is a 24-hour period, in my real life, aboard Aldebaran on this past passage: (I actually wrote this on passage; that is how authentic it is.)
Today, I:
1. Started writing this week’s article
2. Emailed Heather our position (She emails it out to friends and family so they know we’re alive) (and in the case of my parents, so they can plot us out on their wall-sized map.) (How cute!) (Come to think of it, if anyone wants to be added to the forward list, let me know)
3. Chatted with crewmates. We went over “What it means to be on watch” which was a frank plea for people not to watch DVDs at night because it endangers everyone’s lives. Everyone was okay with that. We also refreshed our “Abandon Ship Procedures” because there are a lot of killer whales in these parts that sometimes ram boats. I am in charge of passing out life jackets and bringing the ditch kit and medical kits into the life raft. (I briefly wrote about shopping for ditch kit items in one of my first posts—Hmm store brand, or name brand enema kit?)
4. Made dinner: coconut shrimp with pineapple sauce, rosemary potato bread, broccoli, brownies (I started the bread in the early afternoon) (Gosh that was an important clarification)
5. Made myself available for the 50-hour engine check because I keep missing the checks and really had no idea how to check the oil level and was growing quite embarrassed of this fact. I also changed the Racor and primary fuel filters. At last, I have been illuminated.
6. Read 4 pages in The Wealth of Nations. (Easily distracted. Vowed to read more tomorrow).
7. Finished up my day watch (Which is from 5pm-8pm). This usually includes a stunning sunset. Today there was a wide banner of purple, red and yellow as the sun simmered over the horizon. It was warm, composed and happy.
8.Took a gander at, OMIGOD, the Southern Cross AND Polaris upon George’s urging. I was steering, listening to my iPod, when I saw his head poke up the companionway. He loves to point out that the Southern Cross and Polaris are both visible in the sky from where we are. I think he’s mentioned it the last three nights. It’s still pretty cool though.
9. It’s getting late, it’s around 9pm and so I had better hit the sack. (I’m not kidding). My night watch is from 4-6am. (Shouldn’t it be morning watch?!?!) I am already starting to think of what to listen to. I’ve been trying to mix it up from the usual. Last night, I listened to Christmas music, Avril Lavigne, Weezer and The Sea and Cake. I guess you could say the night started out low and reached a significant elevation. I have really no idea how the Christmas music got in there. (Good god how embarrassing. And in April, nonetheless). I think it was on shuffle, and some Harry Connick Jr. song came on or something. After that, the obligatory Mariah Carey All I Want For Christmas is You (except in this case, it was All I Want for Christmas is Poo, because I can´t take that song seriously) induced a really stunning lip-synch with a flashlight microphone that I’m sorry to say only a few phosphorescent plankton managed to catch.
10. Instead of, let’s say, pondering some way to solve global poverty, this is what I thought about during my night watch:
(PREFACE: Being on watch, listening to music, steering while everyone is sleeping… It’s a big blank space out there, an endless white room from a dream…. And watches provide 5 hours a day for thinking about THE MEANING OF LIFE, PRECISELY HOW QUICKLY I WOULD DIE WITHOUT CONTACTS, WHAT TO MAKE FOR DINNER TOMORROW. Not very often in normal life do you have two solid blocks of hours to sit and stare into nothingness. So much thinking can be dangerous. This is a very up-close and personal look at what I think about when I’m alone for hours and hours. Are you ready?)
Okay. I amused myself by:
1. Planning out a play list and menu for a party I may or may not have in the far-distant future.
2. Singing sailing-related renditions of Britney Spears’ songs:
“But wait a minute, isn't this the screw I dropped into the ocean?"
"Yeah, yes it is,"
"But I thought when it fell into 2-mile deep water, that was the end of it."
"Well baby, I went down and got it for you."
"Aww, you shouldn't have."
“OOPS I ... DID IT AGAIN. I played with your mind, oh baby baby, oops, you think that was the last 5/8ths in screwwwww, that I lost it foreeever…”
3. Getting excited for all these things I want to do at home like play more viola, create several large and impressive paintings, go to more shows, make a nicer easel, take Spanish, or maybe Chinese, take salsa, go to cooking classes, learn more about engines, study and dropkick the shit out of the GMAT, read more of gosh darn everything, read that damn book on Pi I never finished, sail more, windsurf more, do sweet things with the RTW program, think about buying another bike, make a dress out of this sweet fabric I got in Saba, save money for more travel, and on and on... and then realizing there´s no way I´m going to have time... :( :( :( :( :(
AND
3. Picturing fanciful variations on the scene at O’Hare airport when we arrive home.
a. Running over to the Hudson News stand, tearing the newspapers off, ripping apart magazines, throwing them all over, rubbing them together, sitting in a stew of current events, then yelling, “OH MY GOSH, what’s happened!?!?!”
b. Showing up wearing a combination of every indigenous costume we’ve seen on our trip, but acting as though this is just a change I have undergone. I am just worldlier now and there’s nothing funny about it. Sorry family, but if you think I’ll go back to jeans after the beaded leg-wraps of the San Blas and green leprechaun-like hats from the Ecuadorian Andes, think again.
c. After somehow managing to capture and retain a Galapagos Tortoise, attempting to pass through customs while riding it.
d. After somehow managing to capture and retain a Galapagos Tortoise, moving it in to my new apartment, casually introducing it to the roommates when they inquire. “Oh Fluffy? Yeah, he’s a tortoise. You don’t mind, right?”
e. After somehow managing to capture and retain two Galapagos Tortoises, having long-since set up a “tortoise- friendly” environment in my apartment, searching the Internet with “getting tortoises to mate,” “songs that put tortoises in the mood,” “tortoise mating in captivity”, “how to raise captive Galapagos tortoise babies”.
Yep. Yep. That’s it. Nooo string theory. Just ridiculous daydreams. I’ll think of something useful tomorrow…
Whew, so I guess the secret´s out: passages can get sliiiiightly boring.
