BLUEWATER
BLUEWATER
by William "Randy" Thomas
Once again we gird for sea:
New lines roved.
Sails overhauled
40-pound sacks of food
Hoisted inboard and stowed below
The crew strangely pensive,
Standing motionless at odd times
Lost among distant islands,
The wastes of the open sea
This is the big jump:
Point Loma to Taiohae Bay, 3,400 miles
Across Mercator’s dark meridians
Not a rhumbline course,
We intend to keep our easting
As much as one can plan,
Such a vast and shifting ground
Farewell Coronado!
Dana’s port,
Refuge to fledglings on a stormbound coast,
On 8 March we taxi to the red sea buoy,
Make sail,
And offer Celerity to the wind
Two days fair
Off Guadalupe a small gale
We decline the combat,
Lie ahull that night
Thea sights gray land in fog next evening
Last outrider of a lost continent,
The island is gone by mid-watch
We are alone at sea
Stars wheel, comets flare,
The sun arcs from horizon to horizon without pause
Each watch we scan the sky for signs
Mackerel to the west
Off Baja a wild blow
Westerly, clear skies and strong
We scud sou’east, the little tri
Rocketing off the crests,
Slewing crazily
In a welter of foam
(Piver never mentioned cross-seas much)
On deck there!
Hand the main,
Cast the tire drogue astern!
300 miles in two days
At 16 North the trades
They blow fresh, more east than north,
Whipping the crests off a steep southerly swell
The ensign crackles,
Hulls resound to pistol shots,
Tennis serves, heavier blows
Three on, three off:
A demanding yoga
Fatigue and bruises mount
The captain’s temper flares
A shaky sunsight, balky halyard Trigger storms of rage
Our only consolation: speed
1,000 miles that second week
The doldrums loom,
Stretch like some grim gauntlet
Before the promised land
Visions of squalls and breathless calms Windships reeling across an arid plain
It is the time of equinox Night watch
Clouds roil, sparks fly,
The stars are blotted out
Patter of rain,
The sky upends
Wind!
Roar of a cataract!
I huddle toward the flickering compass light,
Then stand, shouting,
Celerity planing like a speedboat
Over moonlit, flattened waters...
The equator must be close
Sunlines a cruel hoax,
With declination zero
Dead reckoning dances,
While Poseidon brews a more insidious plot
Deck! Randy!
The lower shroud is gone!
Crash of dreams wind hissing seas Glimpse of wire sighing through the night
Heart and bowels contract
1,400 miles to nearest land
I bat dark thoughts away,
Clap spare line to the broken shroud,
Through a block at the chainplate,
Thence aft to a winch,
Taking up hard
The mast stands
Fresh horror at first light:
A spreading contagion -
Rust
Port lower and both main shrouds, checked and served before sailing -
Stranding
The backstay appears fragile to the touch
That morning we cross the line,
Jury rigged with anchor chain,
Bulldog clamps
Birds cry The sun booms down
The wake of our passage
Fades 20 yards astern
We might be spellbound,
‘cased in amber
The sea so blue
It seems to bleed that color from the sky
Why do we venture here?
Amateur argonauts, trembling
As the extent of our transgression grows clear
Where flying fish whir
Like shoals of silver locusts,
And the eye, however unreasonably,
Constantly seeks the distance
For land, a ship, some sign of men,
And finds instead empty mocking horizon
It is the pilgrim’s lament:
That the way to paradise Is strewn with pitfalls
Would we settle
For paradise less than this?
It is the alchemist’s dream:
To transform spirit into finer essence
Whoever dreamed
Of a crucible such as this?
Sun, sea and salt sky
Day 24
I am resigned
To a Flying Dutchman’s tour
Through endless Pacific wastes
To helming forever
Beneath an inquisitor’s sun, stars
Like dust on the sky
The wind, though light, never fails
Celerity glides like a sorceress,
Her jibs hard-edged against Orion
Te lapa bursts to starboard -
Flashing green underwater lights
A sign the Polynesians knew
We turn that way
Or the boat turns herself
Dawn, noon, nothing from the spreaders
We are lost
Hot and disgusted
I gain the deck, sluice, glance up
A gray line slants into the sea
A cloud
Yet not a cloud
Thea! Land! Land ho!
Ua Huka Island,
A seven mile speck
In the ocean’s blue immensity
Nuku Hiva
Appears briefly at sunset:
Jagged spires on a smoky skyline
I heave-to at midnight, wake Thea
To smell the fragrance of the tropics:
Tiare, copra, frangipani,
A dozen more exotic scents
Off Taiohae Bay at dawn,
We slip past the Sentinels, the Pilot’s bold cross
Surf laps like cream
On a long sand strand
Tropic birds flit like butterflies
Among impossibly green ravines
French bungalows, flame trees,
Jeep traffic on the foreshore
Eight yachts at anchor
Let go!
The hook splashes,
Celerity Curtsies, bobs,
Furls broad wings
Bird cry
Churchbells
Silence
To cross an ocean under sail,
A dream of many, for some
A fever relentlessly raging until the thing is done
Who can tell
The depths of this sea-change?
Strangers to land,
No longer of the sea,
We stand motionless, embraced
To seaward, one lone sail
Stands inshore
Photo Captions:
Celerity sailing south, close-hauled far out at sea -Will "Randy" Thomas photo
Plotting Sheet 42N 125.5E Sept 18 '78 southbound from Victoria to San Francisco -Will "Randy" Thomas photo
Southbound in a hurry -Will "Randy" Thomas photo