In a calm moment, the camera came out to record a moment at sea.

The flavor and memory of a sail are influenced by numerous factors, the obvious being weather. Bad weather whips up knarly seas…causes uncomfortable conditions…creates sea sickness…and down it spirals. Good weather, on the other hand, is what drives sailors to make the next voyage.

Which way you meet the weather is the second most powerful influence. Heading into it is appropriately called beating; traveling with the wind, running; and something in between, reaching, is the best of all.

Entertainment on board surely adds or detracts from a sail. Satellite TV and DVD’s are options for some but on Woodwind, the ship of simplicity, we stick with books and they most certainly paint a passage with genre. We’ve had a multitude of spy-sails with V.I. Warshawski and Hercule Poirot along as crew. Any trip with Oprah’s book picks causes us to pull into port with a higher I.Q. One of my favorite memories was a horrific passage from Martha’s Vineyard to Bermuda but I loved it because Ann of Green Gables came along for the ride.

The several hundred miles we logged this past week began with a few days of Virgin Island’s hopping in sweet conditions accompanied by brainless reading. Midweek we started a three day beat from the BVI to Antigua in mild wind but no matter how you twist it, a beat is a beat. Pounding along, sooner than later, things will wear and they did. Running lights went out, the GPS shorted, ropes frayed, a block exploded and finally the bob-stay popped. And then the wind got mean. The last forty miles, from Nevis to Antigua, took twenty-four ugly hours.

Oddly enough, the memory of the last passage will not be the bashing or days of discomfort. Instead, it will be a remembrance of the read. Our literary crew included Barak Obama (Dreams From My Father) and Daniel Schorr, (Come to Think of It.) With them we drifted back in time to events and decisions that led our country and the world to the place we are today; a place of hope.

We share that hope and take it with us to foreign countries. We also hold the hope that the next sail is downwind!

posted by Jan


Jan