The water was a grey indigo on its way to black. The sky was deep violet on its way to black. The horizon fast disappearing. It was close to the moment where the sky and the water join into one dark abyss. Venus was still in the sky to the west lit brightly by the sun already receded below the horizon. The water was waveless but textured with tiny wavelets.
The only motion of the boat was that created by the repeating strains of forward motion as the winds filled and receded from the sails. In short it was the kind of night where progress is slowly made, seas are gentle and a sailor can again fall in love with perfection of being on the water, independent and intensely comfortable floating in the space between heaven and earth. Reflective, relaxing, and profoundly present in the gift that presents in present.
Sometimes even when you are surrounded by perfection you get a look at yourself as you see another sharing the same space.
She came out of the darkness. A shadow of sails announced with a green dot of navigation light as our courses converged. Not enough light to see her at a distance but enough to see her form at 40 metres. A sleek hull of 35 feet with the shadows of people and the murmur of voices in the cockpit. A shouted hello echoed back with a wish to enjoy this perfect night.
There is a magic to boats crossing in the night. It is like mirror but not a mirror. The dim lights of the cabin show through the portholes, the light reflecting off the water. You can hear the water pass her hull; you can hear the sails rustling. For a moment as she slips close you see what you love about sailboats. The profounds sense of freedom that only a sailboat and a sailor can understand. A sailboat is a portal that can traverse 70 percent of the planet with both the mercy and the gift of nature.
A sailboat as a portal is pure potential and pure freedom. A sailboat is a both a catalyst for dreams and the path to their realization. A sailboat transports you into the true rhythm of the world away from the rhythms of man. A sailboat makes you at once a spectator and participant. A sailboat enables the ancient drives of our nomadic genes. A sailboat is a self-contained universe one of the few conveyances of the modern world that still has the capacity to exist off grid as a matter of course. The sailboat enables the sailor who longs for a simpler life.
As she passes behind me and I’m reconnected with what matters. The sailor is a seeker of freedom. It is the freedom to choose, to venture, to stay, to leave, to race with purpose, to idle in an anchorage, to stay away from the violence of nature or to ride into its dangers and exhilarations. The sailboat connects you to the different domains of man and the domains where man is alien. She takes you into the company of whales or the camaraderie of other freedom seekers.
The sailboat is one of the last accessible portals to freedom and freedom is truly the most natural state of man. Many never get the chance to appreciate that. The rat race drives the passion from people and demands obedience by imprisoning them in cages of debt and endless want. To go venturing in a small sailboat is to reject those cages and to aspire towards the gifts of experience above all else. The universe wants you to be free. Well, it wants me to be free, I know in my bones as I lean back against the safety lines and savour the taste of perfection.