It’s 3am and I find myself hanging from the bow by my ankles, the torrential rain washing the salty sweat off my skin and the beating wind bollocking the boat around sporadically. Don’t worry, this is not an act of piracy, merely a demonstration of superior teamwork. Two-man the winch, one the helm and another grips me tightly as I am lowered to try and unwrap the impressive knot that the chain has formed around the 50 kilo anchor. It’s the third time tonight the storms have dragged us offshore, and the crew has had to transform from our sleepy state to manually haul the eighty five metres of chain aboard to reset. Maybe not everyone’s ideal tropical getaway but I LOVE it. Life is a constant whirl of unpredictability, and it’s so nice to acknowledge that really it is the natural world that holds the power and we cannot fight it.
I am fortunate to find myself aboard Karaka, a character-rich, 52ft steel hulled-ketch that Captain Tom bought for one dollar in 2004 and has since circumnavigated the world aboard. Crafty solutions are hidden in every corner, we have a coconut cracking, milking and shredding station. We are dehydrating mangoes, fish and coconuts on the deck. Our bimini shelter funnels freshly collected rainwater into a tank. A half-cut gas bottle, hung on the rear deck, plays host to campfires most nights, attracting a fruit salad of neighbouring sailors who jam to the rowdy sounds of French revolutionary songs bellowed out on a piano accordion. I was recently upgraded to shaking a salt shaker in our ramshackle orchestra
I joined the crew in French Polynesia for the leg through Kiribati and the Marshall islands, three spectacular parts of the world that are difficult to reach (other than by boat), and sadly some of the first countries predicted to disappear under rising sea levels. To witness and immerse in these beautiful places and teach at their schools while immersing in their cultures, (particularly those that live in such harmony with the natural world) is an honour, but also painful knowing they will feel the impacts of over-consumerism first.
I already don’t know what day it is. Or how long I’ve been here. Sailing on rotational watch does strange things with your sense of time. You live in a small space alongside five other people, yet in ways you are going through day and night alone. Slow time activities become things to look forward to, the grinding of coconuts into milk, the gutting of fish, the kneading of bread, putting on a harness in the nude to go poop down below. Life is emergent, moment to moment. The deep blue beneath us, the only consistent. Awe inspiring to drift well beyond the smells and sights of land.
Just as one island blows me away with its phenomenal natural beauty and heart-filled people, the next raises the bar. Coconuts and mangoes everywhere! I’ve found paradise. In one atoll we paddle for days across the lagoon with just a machete, finding crabs and coconuts to sustain us. It’s wonderful to feel so supported by an ecosystem.
Closely followed by spectacular sunsets, my favourite aspect would have to be the dolphins. They never cease to amaze with their joyful play. I am adopted by a pod as I kayak across the bay. Later, while snorkelling, they surround us again, weaving in and out playfully before diving to depths my ears won’t compress to yet, so my soul swims on with them instead.
Rain falls from the sky and drips from the ceiling, down the walls. The boat sags from side to side, with no puff of wind in sight. We find ourselves ~seven days into this deep pause amidst the doldrums. Tropical staph infections have imbued any slight gap in the skin, turning them into angry, painful abscesses, and these have dulled the mood, alongside the windless nights. We each suffered crazily but quietly, I even started naming and speaking to my wounds. Sailing will prove to be my most challenging adventure modality, While I have thru-hiked on trails for months, cycle-toured through six countries and paddled rivers from source to sea, to willingly surrender any control over our direction or destination to the wind, has been a totally different challenge. To relinquish knowing and let go of being able to contribute, instead having to trust what will be, has been an initiation into a new way of relating to the world.
As the wind finally re-discovers our sails, I admire the phosphorescence streaming out behind us, and soon hear that familiar blow-hole sound. A grin stretches from ear-to-ear as the dolphins squeak and zoom around beside us, no longer curious eyes and cheeky smiles, just blurs of energy and sound in the night.
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