Presuming that I have ‘clicked’ all of the correct keys and have avoided clicking the ‘wrong’ keys then I have just uploaded pictures of a trip no a voyage, an adventure that I the great pleasure of taking during the summer of 2013 as a guest aboard a frigging 750 foot military sealift vessel that was captained by my most capable nephew Joe!! We left Seattle early one morning and then four days later we sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge just before sunrise on an in-coming tide. This trip allowed me to experience a number of very important ‘firsts’. The first time aboard a military supply ship (if I told you what I saw aboard either I would have to terminate you and most likely I would also be ‘disposed of’. Suffice to say that Noah could have carried a lot more species if he had access to this sweet lady. The first time I’ve exited the Straits of Jan de Fuca and taken a LEFT to head south rather than a right to head north up to Barkley Sound on the west side of Vancouver. This is most cool, the first time I never saw land for days and experienced sunset and sunrise on the open Pacific Ocean. And very special too, the first time I traveled under the Golden Gate Bridge aboard a vessel. Those of you who know me well know that sailing and being on the water is a passion on mine. While sailing I can become skinless – blended with the ship, the sails, the water, and sea air such that ‘I’ is not the most pronounced identify this is me. Among my greatest desires is to sail an ocean. I went to law school in San Francisco and from my study desk I could see the sleek and beautiful Golden Gate Bridge from my study chair. I dreamed and set a goal that one day I would sail under the Bridge. But for the crash of 2008 I would have taken the summer to sail my S/V Paradise to Hawaii and back. But that story didn’t get written. The part of the voyage I sought and continue to seek is to experience a long sailing tack from here to there. To me the long tack aboard a sailboat offers an very unique opportunity for reflection. Rather than the quick pace and change of daily living, the long tack allows one to slow down, to change one’s interior body clock, to in a sense to ‘shut up and listen’ to whatever our existential journey offers. Now I have yet to actually experience this but you can tell I have created a beautiful depiction of what I expect to one day enjoy. The apparent contradiction to this trip I took with my nephew is that I could do it because I sold my sailboat. I have lived and loved sailing the San Juan, the Gulf Islands, Desolation Sound, and Barkley Sound. I can find most spots going backwards. And yet that is really all I’ve experienced. Not bad but I decided that the time had come to detach myself from even an object as dear to me as Paradise. I know I had the right decision to let go and trust in the unknown because I feel at peace. For me to live new I had to let go of what was familiar to me, my own boat and sailing locally, in order to be available for a ‘new’ wind to fill my sails and take me to places I’ve never been to before. So this trip as show by the pics is one of the first new adventures I have had. Next I will post the pics of Jim Thompson and I of our trip up Rainier to the 8500’ level. As guide to the pictures, there are the ‘on board’ , the sunset on open ocean, and the very early morning entrance to San Francisco Bay under the Golden Gate bridge, and finally arriving at dry dock. As an aside my nephew and the crew under his command timed their arrival at the dry dock so that there would be about a foot of water under the ship’s massive keel. Joe is an exceptional Captain. The other officers and crew aboard conveyed by their conduct a very high level of trust and confidence in Joe’s skill and most important for any captain, his judgment. I hope that my written words may convey to you how very special a time this sailing was to me, not the last of which, only the first, and even may light a spark in you to seek new adventures. OK the Star Trek music is playing in the background.
Posted on: Wed, 05 Nov 2014 02:11:42 +0000