Good Friday. In this context, it has always been difficult for me to understand the use of the word “good.” In Malta today, as COVID lingers like the plague it is, Good Friday takes on an even darker tone. The Archdiocese of Malta suspended the celebration of public Masses on Easter to contain the spread of coronavirus.
On Good Friday, according to the Bible, the son of God was whipped bloody and humiliated as he carried a cross upon which he was nailed before finally being put to death. Good Friday? Historians believe it was simply a question of etymology, a word developed from an older name, possibly “God’s Friday.” Theologians look at it differently. Good Friday is holy, they believe, because on this day when Jesus Christ gave his life in sacrifice for people’s sins it was an embodiment of compassion, love, and empathy.
I think about this as I walk the narrow streets of Valletta on this tiny island with 359 churches. I look out at the rounded dome of the Basilica of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the iconic spire of St. Paul’s Anglican Cathedral. Easter Sunday Mass, with the parishioners of Malta and Caravaggio’s masterworks in St. John’s Cathedral, is canceled. I resolve to dig deep into my faith to recognize the true meaning of Good Friday.
Please click Follow at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.I will always respond to your comment when I have an Internet connection. And I will never share your personal information.
You can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish, my boat speed (or lack thereof), and current weather as I sail into the Mediterranean by clicking this satellite uplink: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish. Click the “Legends and Blogs” box on the right side of the tracking pagefor en route Passage Notes
It has been 181 days, 12 hours, 17 minutes since Flying Fish was last underway. But who’s counting? What matters is that I am sailing today. I am departing Turkey where, despite the struggle of the pandemic, I was warmly welcomed. My destination today is Malta, 680 nautical miles due west.
I will transit the Greek Dodecanese islands. These ragged nuggets of rock piercing the sea are the tops of mountains that once stood upon the great plain of the Aegean. The Cyclades come next. I hope to sail inside the crater of the drowned volcano at Santorini. Sadly, I will only be able to see the storied whitewashed villages of Santorini at a distance from the deck of Flying Fish. Greece is still in COVID lockdown and entry is not permitted to those holding U.S. passports.
Peloponnesos will pass to starboard, its forbidding coastline hanging from the southern tip of Greece like the roots of a wisdom tooth. The people here are descended from Spartans, warriors who successfully defended this ancient trading route of silk, pearls, and opium from both the Ottomans and Romans. Weather in the Southern Ionian Sea can be equally fierce. Authors Rod and Lucinda Heikell write that the twin capes here, Tainaron and Maléas, “have acquired a reputation as minor Cape Horns.”
What follows is 425 miles of open water to the geographical center of the Mediterranean–Malta. Although the European Union is still closed to Americans, Malta (a member state of the EU) is currently admitting travelers holding U.S. passports, if they meet certain conditions. Flying Fish, because of an extended time spent in the “corridor country” of Turkey, meets Malta’s entry conditions.
Malta is located about 200 miles north of Libya and 200 miles east of Tunisia. It is one of the world’s smallest and most densely populated countries with a population of nearly 500,000 people living on 122 square miles. The ancient Greeks called the island Μελίτη (Melitē) meaning “honey-sweet”, probably for the endemic subspecies of black bees living on the island. There is a unique natural history in Malta. Pleistocene fossil deposits reveal the existence and extinction of dwarf hippos, giant swans, and pygmy elephants. With creatures like that maybe mythology was closer to real life than we imagine.
Mythology and region have always been conjoined in this part of the world, and Malta has a long-standing relationship with both folklore and the Catholic faith. Christianity came to Malta in the form of a shipwreck. In 60 AD, St. Paul the Apostle had been arrested for his religious teachings and was being transported to Rome by ship. A Mediterranean storm overwhelmed the vessel. New Testament Acts 27:41 describes the wreck: “But striking a reef, they ran the ship aground; the bow stuck and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the waves.” St. Paul survived by swimming ashore in Malta where he continued to preach the euaggelion, the “good news,” of the gospel.
“But striking a reef, they ran the ship aground; the bow stuck and remained immovable, but the stern was being broken up by the force of the waves.”
–New Testament Acts 27:41
Religion and art are also integrated into the culture of Malta. There are no fewer than 359 churches in Malta and many of them feature the works of Old Masters. The St. John’s Cathedral in Valletta is a Baroque crown jewel with “intricately carved stone walls and a floor that is an iridescent patchwork quilt of marble tomb slabs.” (A sign reads: “Stiletto Heels Not Permitted.”) Painted ceilings and side altars chronicle the life of the namesake of the cathedral. In the Oratory is displayed the Caravaggio masterpiece, The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. I hope to celebrate Easter Sunday Mass here.
When I am asked why I leave the comfort of home on these extended journeys, I can only respond that I am moved by a sense of place. I want the see the headlands where Spartan warriors defended the Spice Routes. I want to touch the earth that supported dwarf hippos and giant swans. I want to immerse my body into the water where an Apostle of Jesus Christ swam ashore after a shipwreck. These are the things that motivate me to raise the sails today and press onward.
Please subscribe (for free!) at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and please consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.I will always respond to your comment once I have an Internet connection.
You can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish, my speed (or lack thereof), and current weather as I sail into the Mediterranean by clicking this satellite uplink: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish. Look for en route notes and log excerpts on the right side of the tracking page.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan this week announced the end of COVID lockdown restrictions for most parts of Turkey including Didim, where Flying Fish is undergoing final preparations for departure westward and the continuation of her circumnavigation. Didim is also the location of an archeological site, the Temple of Apollo at Didyma, where pilgrims consulted an oracle and received a divine prophecy of future events. Some divination would be helpful in these uncertain days. Released from lockdown, I spend the day wandering among the marbled Doric columns of the Didyma ruin and reflect on the bizarre history of this place. Maybe the oracle will tell me how the proverbial winds will blow for Flying Fish in the coming year.
Didyma was once the most renowned sanctuary of the Hellenic world. Some of the earliest archaeological pieces discovered here date back to the 8th century BC. In its heyday, the colossal Temple of Apollo was larger than even the Parthenon in Athens. Its size and influence grew around a small natural spring which was believed to be the source of the oracle’s prophetic power.
Apollo was one of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology. He was the son of Zeus, the king of the gods. In the Iliad, Apollo is a healer. He cured people during pandemics, yet he was also a god who could bring about disease and death with a shot from his arrow. Apollo was a god who could spread disease, but he could also prevent it. He was a god of limitless power.
Apollo was said to have been born under a palm tree on a floating island named Delos in the Aegean Sea. When his mother Leto gave birth “everything on Delos turned to gold and the island was filled with ambrosial fragrance. Swans circled the island seven times and the nymphs sang in delight.” Apollo’s birth fixed the floating island of Delos to the bottom of the ocean. It lies 100 miles due west of Didyma and Flying Fish.
I became fascinated with Apollo because of his distinction as a patron and protector of sailors, a duty he shared with Poseidon. In mythology, Apollo is seen helping heroes who pray to him for a safe journey. Once, when he spotted a ship of Cretan sailors caught in a storm, he assumed the shape of a dolphin and guided their ship safely to Delphi. When the Argonauts were foundering at sea, Jason prayed to Apollo for help and the god used his bow and golden arrow to shed light upon an island where the Argonauts found shelter. Apollo helped the Greek hero Diomedes escape from a great tempest during his journey homeward, and he sent gentle breezes that helped Odysseus return safely from the Trojan War.
If a god had such powers over mortals then surely, it was thought, he could also foretell the future. Temples to Apollo were built throughout the Aegean but among the most extravagant was the grand temple to Apollo built over a sacred spring in the Anatolian region of what is now Turkey. Rows of Ionic columns were ornamented with reliefs of griffins and gorgons. A frieze above the columns featured monumental heads of Medusa. At the entrance to the temple there was an altar for Apollo, which, according to Greek historians of the second century AD, was made of the blood and ashes of sacrificed animals. A festival was held each year in Didyma called the Didymeia. Pilgrims walked 20 kilometers along the Sacred Way from Miletus to Didyma to participate in the celebration of Spring. Poets, musicians, and artisans strolled among the courtyards. A theater and stadium at the temple hosted events. Believers consulted the oracle. In the oracular procedure, reconstructed by historians and archeologists, a priestess inspired by Apollo sat on a foundation above the oracle spring. It is likely that the priestess delivered Apollo’s predictions in classical hexameters, as at Delphi. Nothing was written, however, and there was no record of whether the oracle predicted what would happen next.
The Temple of Apollo at Didyma was plundered and destroyed in 494 BC by the Persian king Darius, known for his skill of deception and of lancing his enemies. (In an interesting footnote, Darius was said to have been crowned after winning a wager with three other candidates for the monarchy. They agreed to meet before daybreak, each on his horse, and the first horse to neigh at the sunrise would be named the new king. Darius cheated. His servant made the horse neigh by letting the animal smell scent rubbed from the genitals of a mare. The horse’s neigh, accompanied by lightning and thunder from a storm, convinced the other candidates to accept Darius as the new king.) During the raid of Didyma, the Persians carried away a bronze cult statue of Apollo and it was reported that the sacred spring ceased to flow. The oracle was silenced. Didyma remained a ruin until 331 BC when Alexander the Great, who by the age of 30 had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world stretching from Greece to northwestern India, conquered the Persians and re-consecrated the Didyma site. Callisthenes, the great-nephew of Aristotle and historian of Alexander, reported that the spring had once again begun to flow. The temple itself, however, seemed forever doomed.
Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods located across Rome and replaced them with his own.
Cassius Dio, Roman History Book LIX
Didyma was looted again in 277 BC, this time by the Galatians as they raided Greek cities in Asia Minor. Then pirates plundered Didyma in 67 BC. Julius Caesar declared Didyma a refuge for people facing persecution but still, the Temple of Apollo lay in ruin. Another Roman emperor, this time the notorious Caligula, also tried to resurrect the Didyma Temple of Apollo. Historians focus on Caligula’s cruelty, sadism, extravagance, and sexual perversion, presenting him as an insane tyrant. Once, during some games at which he was presiding, Caligula was said to have ordered his guards to throw an entire section of the audience into the arena during the intermission to be eaten by the wild beasts because he was bored. Caligula had the heads removed from various statues of gods located across Rome and replaced them with his own. He began referring to himself as a god when meeting with politicians, even dressing occasionally as Apollo. Meanwhile, Didyma languished.
The Roman emperors were not yet done with Didyma. In 303 AD, the emperor Diocletian sent a delegation to Didyma to ask the oracle what he should do about the growing number of Christians within the empire. The Christians were accused of upsetting the gods and preventing accurate prophecies. The oracle’s supposed response inspired Diocletian to launch the most severe and systematic religious persecution of Christians in Roman history. They, too, were thrown into the arenas with wild beasts. This marked the end of the oracle. And in 1493, an earthquake destroyed the Temple of Apollo at Didyma. It was never rebuilt.
Modern Didim is now a place fueled by a tourist industry that has gone into stasis during the COVID pandemic. Vacation villas pave the hillsides. Massive hotels remain virtually empty. The ruin of the Temple of Apollo at Didyma is incongruously located in a high-density neighborhood of modern apartment complexes. It is difficult to reconcile the immense history of Didyma–funded by the riches of Croesus, destroyed by Darius, resurrected by Alexander the Great, defiled by Caligula–with the current reality of people going about their business in Didim. There are banks and real estate offices, a home goods store, gas stations, mobile phone stores, and recently re-opened cafes and restaurants. And then, as you pass the Mine Market Liquor Store located near what was once the Sacred Way, there is the monumental Temple of Apollo. The ruin has been sparsely visited since COVID. It is as if daily life during the pandemic has made it too difficult to revisit the past. I walk alone among a great field of fallen columns. In the southeast corner of the ruin, next to the screaming face of a carved gorgon, I see a sliver of green among some moist ground. It is the sacred spring emerging from the earth.
“Didyma” The Oxford Dictionary of Classical Myth and Religion, Simon Price and Emily Kearns
“The History of Apollo’s Temple at Didyma, As Told By Marble Analyses And Historic Sources“, Barbara Borg and Gregor Borg, Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg
“Darius I” World History Encyclopedia, Radu Cristian.
“Hymn to Delos” Callimachus, Greek poet and scholar at the Library of Alexandria 310–240 BC
“The Iliad” Homer
Please subscribe at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.
I hope to be underway aboard Flying Fish in late March 2021. Once the voyage restarts you can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish into the Mediterranean, and onward, by clicking this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish
Okay, full disclosure: Sometimes I do not know which is the correct way to turn a wrench. I think with a different part of my brain. I can sail upright through a gale. I can calculate in an instant the photographic exposure of a bird flying against a fading sunset. But ask me to change the impeller on a diesel engine and I’m a deer staring into the headlights of an 18-wheeler.
After four months on the hard, Flying Fish was re-launched last week in Didim, Turkey. Sailboats, like all machines (and many people), do not work well after sitting idle. It’s the Tin Man syndrome. It requires attention, motivation, and lubrication to start moving again. Complicating things is the fact that my beloved 46-foot cutter is not a simple sailboat. Systems designed to make sailing more efficient and enjoyable often bring about the exact opposite result. In an effort to attract buyers, marine manufacturers stuff modern sailboats with features many sailors like me are challenged to repair themselves. And it is not just the sophisticated stuff like air conditioners, computer-driven engines, and high-tech navigation systems that baffle boneheads like me. It’s the simple stuff, too. Like why put a threaded shaft bearing that needs frequent maintenance into an area of the bilge that is inaccessible with a wrench? Or, why design an engine that requires partial disassembly to service a simple but essential engine cooling impeller.
When standard engine service is necessary on a new vessel, Certified Factory Authorized Technicians are often required or warranties will be voided. That level of service can be tough to find in remote places like Fatu Hiva or Pukapuka, or Sumatra. So when I pass through major population centers I have the engine on Flying Fish serviced by pros. Earlier in my voyage, a Certified Factory Authorized Technician I hired in New Zealand asked me, “How do you access the impeller?” I said, “You’re the one making the big bucks. You tell me.” Soon there were two Kiwi technicians onboard scratching their heads. And then there were four of them–all Certified Factory Authorized Technicians. Bewildered, they then called in a carpenter with a reciprocating saw who said, “These guys tell me I need to cut a hole in the cabin floor (a gorgeous new teak-and-holly cabin floor) for them to access the impeller.” I said some bad words and pointed the Certified Factory Authorized Technicians, and their carpenter with the Sawzall, to the dock.
A kind sailor named Matt Stence from the sailboat Nimbus was watching the departing parade of mechanics. He said, “Hey, let me try.” With his face squished against the engine’s flywheel, his shoulder in the bilge, and his hand bloody and bent at an impossible angle, Matt blindly removed and replaced the impeller on Flying Fish. There is a place in heaven for people like Matt Stence. I have never been able to reproduce his effort.
Eighteen months and 750 engine hours later, it is time to replace the impeller again. Flying Fish is in a reputable boatyard with trained Certified Factory Authorized Technicians. “It is a difficult job,” I tell them when they arrive. “It’s not impossible but I cannot figure out how to do it,” I say. “It will only take one hour,” the service manager assures me. He tells me to watch and learn. Four mechanics open their toolboxes and roll up their sleeves. I feel their confidence; there are no reciprocating saws in their toolboxes. But the mechanics cannot access the impeller with a blind hand under the engine as Matt Stence did. The lead mechanic asks for more tools. Then he begins to remove the heat exchanger, essential for cooling the engine with seawater. This will allow him to access the concealed cooling pump and impeller. He unclamps a hose and suddenly there is a fountain of seawater in the engine room. “Close seacock,” he tells an assistant, who tells the service manager, who translates and then asks me: “Where is seacock?” When the seacock has closed the ingress of water is stopped. I feel chest palpitations. “Is everything okay now?” I ask. “Yes,” the service manager says, facing the engine room “Is okay, except for a little fire.”
A little fire…?
The seawater leakage has shorted exposed wiring in the alternator.
“Please sir,” the manager says urgently. “Turn off electricity.” I pull the master switch to shut down the batteries.
“A little fire?” I ask again, incredulously.
“Is okay,” the manager reassures. “No fire, only sparklets.”
Sparklets…?
In the end, the issue resolves amicably and professionally. The technicians address my concerns and disassemble, clean, and test the alternator. The seawater impeller is replaced. The engine is cleaned and reassembled. No human beings were harmed in the making of this drama.
I understand that it is on me to maintain and fix what breaks aboard Flying Fish. It is the captain’s responsibility, especially if he is sailing shorthanded, to see that his vessel is seaworthy. Some sailors have it–they can build a boat with their bare hands and fix anything that breaks with their eyes closed. And some captains like me have trouble remembering which way to turn a wrench. There are resources available to me when systems become too complicated for my artistic-oriented brain to compute. The kindness of strangers like Matt Stence is one welcomed resource. There is also a helpful organization called the Island Packet Yacht Owners Association, men and women who have seen and resolved nearly anything that could go wrong in both simple and sophisticated boat systems. You never know how many friends you have until you need help on a boat, and the long-distanced IPOYA members have always had my back. There are circumstances, however, when you need boots on the ground right now and you have to call in the calvary.
Today is one of those days. The mission is addressing the shaft stuffing box bearing that allows no access with a wrench. The bearing needs adjustment because if it is too tight it can burn up the shaft seal. If the bearing is too loose the ocean can enter the sailboat and everything gets wet as the boat sinks. I go online to look for ideas of how to adjust the correct tension on the two large bronze nuts of the stuffing box bearing. The yacht owners group has some excellent suggestions. Try heat and penetrating oil, is one idea. Another Island Packet owner writes that he tightens and loosens the large nuts on his bearing by pounding on their edges from above with a hammer hitting a crowbar. It works for him but not for me. I have visions of the crowbar slipping off the nut as the force of the hammer drives the crowbar through the bottom of Flying Fish. There is one more option and it saves the day–using resourceful local boatyard engineers. They are going to brainstorm the problem and make a tool from scratch that will adjust the shaft bearing nuts.
The three engineers arrive, walking shoulder-to-shoulder like the Ghostbusters down the dock. They introduce themselves. “I am Mehmet,” says the first one. “I am Mehmet,” says the second one. “I am also Mehmet,” says the third, who speaks English. “We are the Three Mehmets,” he says proudly. “In Turkey when you are in the company of three people named Mehmet it is a sign of good luck! Make a wish and your wish will come true.”
Meeting people like the Three Mehmets, and receiving the kindness of strangers from around the globe who help me in a time of need, makes me realize that my wish has already been fulfilled.
Please subscribe at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.
I hope to be underway aboard Flying Fish in March 2021. Once the voyage restarts you can follow the daily progress of Flying Fish into the Mediterranean, and onward, by clicking this link: https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Flyingfish
“There is a witchery in the sea…“ –Richard Henry Dana, Two Years Before the Mast, published 1840.
On this day three years ago, Flying Fish slipped the lines from her berth at Safe Harbor in Key West and was underway on a passage that has carried her nearly 22,000 miles and two-thirds of the way around the globe. Along the route there have been wonders and joy, injuries and illness, moments of fear, revelation, and accomplishment. There has also been disappointment. This year, as the COVID-19 virus infected the world, Flying Fish traveled 5,000 of those miles alone–from Thailand to Turkey–on the deck of a freighter as I waited impatiently in quarantine on the other side of the world. I certainly do not seek sympathy for being separated from a boat when millions of other people are separated from their families, some permanently. These are days in which we all live in some form of isolation–physically and emotionally–as a result of health issues, personal decisions, or just simple fate. My isolation was self-imposed when I set off from Safe Harbor. It has been a journey both inward and outward, and one with eyes wide open. Here are some of the thoughts and lessons learned from these three years aboard Flying Fish.
Patience
When things become complicated I have learned that I have two simple choices: I can either let impatience darken my horizon, or I can seek strength in what I cannot control. When I sail alone, I navigate a fine path between what is manageable and what is not. It is essential at sea to know the difference. On a 1,300-mile passage between Tonga and New Zealand in October 2018, I knew that even the best weather window at this time of year would include at least one full gale raging eastward from the Tasman Sea. We can understand the weather but we cannot control it. On this passage I watched satellite weather maps, and, later, the darkening clouds themselves. As the gale approached I braced for impact. Howling wind and massive breaking seas made it seem as if the world was ending. It wasn’t. It was just a gale. I knew that this would pass. And it did.
Who doesn’t believe in the sanctity of life? But the complex decision of what lives and dies at our hands is a gray area that can only be defined individually. These three years before the mast have given me a different perspective regarding co-existence on this planet. Aboard Flying Fish some days pass with no sign of life, nothing beyond my own beating heart–not birds or porpoise, not even any fish. Fish have been an important part of my life. I earned much of my livelihood as a fisherman. For decades, my job was to catch fish every day and catch as many of them as I could. In this pursuit the fish themselves became something less sentient. Sportfishing was entertainment and fish were a commodity. Catching or not catching represented profit or loss. But aboard Flying Fish, when sea life finally did appear, the creatures around me became companions during my long solitary journey. I loved watching shoals of tuna feed on the surface. My eyes followed the flight of every airborne flying fish. I was fascinated by the predatory saga when flying fish soaring above the wave tops were pursued by dorado from below and frigate birds from above. When I was hungry, I would catch one of the dorado. As one fish came to the boat it was often accompanied by dozens of its brothers. Initially, there was an overwhelming impulse to drop a line back for “just one more.” As the days and weeks at sea passed I wondered why I felt I needed more. I was just one person aboard Flying Fish. Why catch two fish when I could only eat one? I began having difficulty justifying why I wanted to feel the life struggle of another living creature? Two thoughts evolved as I gradually transitioned from anthropocentrism to a modified and more Eastern philosophy that holds all life as sacred: I learned that it is important for me to tread more softly. Equally important, I learned not to judge how others view the sanctity of life. I can live only within my own skin.
I keep a worn copy of Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us aboard Flying Fish. Published in 1951, she wrote: “It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life.” I was horrified when I learned of Indonesian fishermen who poisoned and detonated homemade explosives on their pristine coral reefs. Granted, it is an effective method of fishing. The stunned reef fish float to the surface which makes gathering them more efficient. But how was it possible that those who were throwing explosives could not see that they were killing the reef for future generations? I considered this in the log of Flying Fish on August 25, 2019: “Many areas of Indonesia, including Flores Island, show evidence of reef bombing and cyanide fishing. I spent six hours on the not-yet-bombed shallow reefs of Sabibi Island yesterday. I was immersed in a dazzle and diversity of life that was simply difficult to comprehend. It was also beyond my comprehension that a person could drop explosives and poison a reef like this for the one-time opportunity to put some fish in a basket. That said, who am I to judge? My child has never been truly hungry. But would I blow up a coral reef to feed her?” How do we identify the line between immediate need and preservation for the future? And who gets to define that line?
On the rugged island of Borneo in Southeast Asia’s Malay Archipelago there is a limestone cave believed to contain the oldest figurative art on earth, a depiction of a bull, carbon-dated to 52,000 years ago. Nearby is one of the largest coal mines in the world. Borneo is known for its ancient rainforest, home to wildlife including orangutans and clouded leopards. Soon, because of sea level rise and overpopulation, the Indonesian government will move its capital of Jakarta and 1.5 million new residents into what is left of the East Kalimantan rainforest. I have learned that even in the most remote areas of the world nothing is sacred when global economics are at stake. My daughter Lilly and I hoped to see the remaining wild orangutans so we sailed Flying Fish upriver from the south coast of Borneo. At the town of Kumai we anchored the sailboat and hired a riverboat guide to take us to the headwaters of Sekonyer River in Tanjung Puting National Park. Our destination was Camp Leakey, named after the legendary paleo-anthropologist Louis Leakey. We were amazed by the wildlife: Proboscis monkeys vaulted from the trees along the river. We heard the call of a rare rhinoceros hornbill. A False gharial crocodile warmed itself in the sun on the riverbank. And, finally, we saw wild orangutans. At the junction of two tributaries, the tannic but clear water flowing into the clear Sekonyer became jaundiced yellow in color. I asked what was causing it. Was this mud from a rainstorm upstream? “It’s always like this now,” our guide replied. “This tributary brings the runoff of mining and palm oil cultivation into the Sekonyer. Nothing lives here now.” Nothing lives here except more people with better jobs and higher incomes. But what is the cost to the natural habitat in one of the most remote places on earth?
I underestimated the level of mental and physical strength required to sail a boat around the world. It’s just sailing, right? It’s not that complicated. But when things go wrong at sea, they can go very wrong. Minor complications are exacerbated when sailing alone. Preparation is essential but even the most organized and experienced offshore sailors cannot completely prepare for the unexpected. In April 2019, I departed New Zealand for Fiji, a solo passage of 1,200 miles. Flying Fish was in better-than-new condition following a months-long refit in Opua. I was personally tuned up, too, eating “heaps” of healthy local produce and strength training daily in a nearby gym. My April departure date was based solely upon readiness and weather conditions. A dozen different weather routing sources finally established my best departure date as April 13. With a fresh Antipodean fall breeze aft of the beam I set sail from New Zealand to Polynesia. Fast forward three days to Latitude 29° 22′ 56” S and 174° 8′ 58” E, or about 700 miles SSW of Fiji. I am asleep in the cabin. Flying Fish is sailing a broad reach on autopilot in moderate but manageable conditions. All is well onboard, until it is not. I awaken suddenly to the roar of water. My world seems to turn upside down as an awful shower of glass, canned food, cookware, and a drawer full of cutlery rains down upon my head. I leap out of my berth onto shards of broken glass that tear into the soles of my feet. Water is pouring through an open hatch. In my semi-wakefulness I am convinced that Flying Fish is sinking in 13,000 feet of water. The boathas been knocked down–mast to the surface of the ocean–rolled broadside by a wave that must have exceeded by multiples any wave I had experienced since my departure from New Zealand. This rogue wave, perhaps caused by seismic activity near the Kermadec Islands, has flooded the cockpit of Flying Fish with nearly a ton of water. Gallons of seawater are inside the cabin and engine room. The boat is sitting heavy and deep. The breaking wave has stripped the deck of loose gear and canvas. A spare container of diesel on the deck has opened spreading a sheen of fuel oil and noxious fumes across the boat. I am disoriented, hyperventilating, and bleeding from the head and feet. I have never felt more vulnerable. Or alone. When my heart rate slows I realize this was a single, freak wave. The sea is once again normal. I pump water from the boat and assess damage. The hull is intact. The initial sense of vulnerability is replaced by an odd and unexpected feeling of inner strength. With the engine dead and the interior of the boat in shambles I deviate course to New Caledonia, the closest boatyard for repairs. I am still hundreds of miles and days from land but something within me has changed. I feel now as though I can face adversity at sea with a different level of confidence. I go below to make a pot of tea and attend to the debris aboard Flying Fish.
I returned briefly to Flying Fish in Turkey during the 2020 COVID season, but I sailed with a sense of survivor’s guilt. Was it right for me to be on a boat while others were quarantined in their homes? Now, in retrospect, I have replaced that guilt with gratitude. When we can choose the course of our lives we should consider it a privilege and act upon it. When fate chooses a different course for our lives we should seek positives along that route, even when none are immediately apparent. I recognize that this opportunity to navigate the globe is a privilege. I also know that at some point it will end. It may end sooner than I choose. Health, politics, and natural aging constraints are factors that will determine what remains possible for me aboard Flying Fish. It is essential that I live my best life, regardless of whether that life leads me to Borneo or to my backyard. During these three years before the mast I have learned that I cannot waste a single moment.
Please subscribe at the bottom of this page so that you don’t miss a new update, and consider sharing this post with others who might enjoy following the voyage of Flying Fish. I welcome your comments.
Stella Maris Sail 