Serious Joy

Now out of the hurricane belt, I’m thinking of other belts. Specifically, those on the travel lift in the nearby boatyard. This week I made an appointment to haul-out Habibi during a morning high tide on August 16. One benefit to daily distance swimming is physical exhaustion—I don’t have the energy to freak out over yet another hurdle in this sailing life. We’ve cleared so many!

Another benefit to daily salination and salutations (stretches): the tide o’ Happiness is slowly rising, with serious Joy in the offing. I am connecting with other artists and single-handed sailors, which is a comfort. “Familia,” said Bruno at the BBQ hut recently, “not amigos.”

Like the tangled jib, I am loosening the lines that bound me so tightly on the voyage north. A marina-mate accused me of panicking, but that’s not what happened. I dealt with every scary event in due course: unable to pull in the mainsail (reef it) because the sudden wind was so fierce, so the battens bent around the mast; unable to furl the jib properly for the same reason, so it reversed itself as I heaved on the lines to roll it, leaving bloody blisters as well as a few meters free at the top of the sail to shake the boat and rattle my teeth; the preventer snapping free and allowing the mainsail to accelerate during the gale, shearing a bolt from a mainsheet pulley; the inability to stop for respite for hundreds of miles. No panic there, Mister Not-on-the-Boat Blamer—I couldn’t afford it.

The heat here is also enervating, and I spend most of the middle of the day supine in front of a fan covered by a wet sheet, a spray bottle beside me. Some nights I hose myself down and stand astern at the rail watching the moon, grateful for any errant breeze.

Do I want to sell Habibi and head for more temperate climes? The thought has crossed my mind, but I don’t quite see it. She called me two years ago, and I listened. I cleared out all the crap the previous owners left behind, and made a home. Yesterday I watched the other floating homes near me shift and move in the tide, forward and back in our slips. Sunset cruisers amplify Maori and Hawaiian music as they return to dock, with rhythmic drumming and shouts of war and glee. Don’t fuck with us! We are badass navigators!

Indeed. Serious Joy.