SailBlog

Tonight offered up one of those astounding moments of beauty...one that surprises, revealing the awe that comes from seeing creation that surrounds us with energy.

This blissful day is waning and the winds are building as another front approaches...there is little, but just enough rest for the weary... I was working below on the computer when I became aware that the day was getting away from me ... I could sit on the computer when the world is crashing and the deck furocious over the next so many days.

And at that moment, I looked up to the companionway, just to see the Great Albatross, with the huge diamond of white on its back, fly so close, swooping towards Inspired Sanity's cockpit so that I recognized it from below... It was as if it was peaking below to see if I was here...

I grabbed one more layer of fleece, as the evening cold was setting in and came above...There were albatrosses everywhere...dozens. Most were the common smaller ones, all white bodies with dark brown wings...distinct colors... At one point, I could see a POW WOW of a dozen or more of these larger whlte and dark Albatross all sitting on the water a bit away. Then one dropped right behind IS landing on the water...I began an introduction and it gathered up its wings, beat them against the water, paddling with its feet until it took flight...quite clumsy to see. It always amazes me as they circle IS over and over, coming in close then afar, then wandering off far in the distance to come back around a bit later...

But there were the larger Albatrosses of mottled colors..all greys and whites, blotches and markings...each very distinct...like the one with the huge white diamond. I am getting to recognize a couple others, with features I can remember..

And tonight, there were at least a dozen of the grey Albatrosses...a solid color dark grey... I have seen one or two before...but tonight the whole flock was here.

Then there was a single tiny storm Petrel, flitting on the waters surface grabbing whatever it is that they eat from the surface...I can't wait to get home and research these behaviors that have now been puzzling me for months and months.

There was a large flock of the dark brown petrels, now flying like huge squadrons of Blue Angel jets in the newly freshened breezes.

And tonight, there was a new flock of smaller brown birds...reminding me of the Prions or the other smaller birds that were white bodied with dark wings, small in size and wing movements, of high repetitions and tight swooping flight curves... but these were all dark brown..solid colored, and a whole flock of them careening around together, again like a stelth squadron making flight patterns.

I watched until I was getting chilled as the sun was starting it's last hour of descent to the horizon, amidst a cloud cover but rays of light making there way under the clouds to the horizon...a classic vision representing the power of God in the beauty of the last evenings light. Rays of light... a revelation of the inward truth revealed in the light which I can tuck into my heart for the evening... with great hope. The sun will return in the morn.

I will be anxious for it to come as the dawn always brings a relief from managing the gales in the dark, as somehow i hold my breath in the night...hoping nothing calls me onto the deck that I have to manage. Though even as I try to make things ready before dark so that minimal sail changes are required during the night, I anticipate that I may be dousing the jib pole later tonight. The winds are going to shift even farther NNW in the night forcing me to point the boat nearly to a beam, and the jib will backwind on the pole if I try to stay on my 120*T course...especially as the winds and seas build and the boat tends to veer farther left and right while the steering vane is managing the large swells.

At that point, I will furl the jib, release the jib sheet from the end, but leave the pole sitting on the bow pulpit as I will need it again later, when the winds back again to the NW then WNW. Going forward on deck in big conditions in the night is always unnerving a bit, regardless of being tethered. But ... I will have done it a hundred times by the time I reach home. Yet, still each night that Inspired Sanity is managed through the night with minimal escapades on deck, is a great blessing, a sigh of relief as we make it to the dawn.

The Seas are mounting...the sounds are intensifying as the crushing of the seas rolling under IS are more consistent and we surf down the fronts a bit before the wave wins and forges ahead rolling under the stern and finally the bow. I was amazed this morning as I was listening to the incredible variety of sounds that IS and the sea make...it is a cacouphany of high pitched whistles, rushing, gurgling, moving sounds, that start far away, approach and then get louder as the seas impact the hull, and roll forward. I can here the swishing of water on the decks in very high light sounds, trickling along the rail, and then the sound of the rigging and sails beyond the ocean sounds...the water takes on an infinite facets as it maneuvers and takes Inspired Sanity along with her, at once cuddled into the seas and the next being bashed side ways with a cross wave that is playing games with us.

Unfortunately, we may find the seas once again on the beam with this storm, and the motion and breaking waves on the rail will take on a more violent nature as they do, hitting hard...I have considered steering more SE to stay with the wind to the stern, but the farther south we go, the less easting we do which is the real direction we need to be going...as well as, the farther south, the more intense the wind and waves will become during the following few days of fronts.

I really don't want to go south tonight, belaying the intensity of the storms just a bit longer. The different between 25kts of wind with 35 kt gusts and 30kt winds with 40+kts of gust is wildly different...it seems to be one of those crucible points... once the winds stay steady at 30kts the wildness of the conditions seems to hit a new eschelon I have been fortunate to avoid for the most part this trip...

It is so strange... last trip...I lived in 30-40kt of wind it seems. But I was younger... and at this point I was totally fatigued but was nearing my stop in NZ... I was almost there. On this trip, we are nearing our halfway point. It is hard to even think way back to the end of July when IS and I left the mooring in Bristol...

Yet, I had to admit today, as I was taking in a remarkably beautiful day, that I am not ready to be finished yet... I am just getting to the point of illumination, where my study and discovery is finding answers to the right questions, so that I can finally clear away the old and harmful conclusions that I am ready to let go of so I can go on to a new way of living... no longer surviving, but living.

sweet dreams my friends who take the time to read these blogs...I could not hold back from sharing this evening...I have been so oppressed it seems by the daunting moments lately and this one was so lovely as to truly put an experence to the words so of O'Donohue in Divine Beauty.

Fairest of Winds and the Love of the Ocean, Only Gratitude. Inspired Sanity and I...