The Call of the Sea

 

For those who have heard me talk about being at Sea all those years ago, ELEVEN in November this year, who have listened to my tales, my "no shit, there I was" anecdotes, or watched me get quiet, and perhaps a bit sad, while staring out to the distant horizon and wondered...

 

Why?

 

What is it about being cold, wet, afraid, seasick, bruised, sunburned, and nearly drowned, (sometimes all on the same watch!) that could possibly make him want to do it again?

 

How does being ordered around by more experienced men and women make you want to yield control of part of your life to them voluntarily?

 

These people, men and women, young and old, with the knowledge of the grey-green tortured seas of the North Atlantic in a gale and the bright blue and white of the trade wind blown tropical seas in their eyes, share something few people in our modern age ever have.

 

The knowledge of the SEA, the living breathing restless Sea, and that is a hard knowledge to attain.

We can experience the Sea, by analogy, in the gentle gliding across a water's surface on a sunny day in a small boat, or the chugging of a great ferry, or a powerful cruise ship on the way to an exotic port of call.

 

BUT.

 

To stand at the wheel of a Tall Ship, or the tiller of a small one, her sails straining to the pulse of the great ocean of air above us, with the cold blue green of the salt one beneath, trying to match the ships course to the invisible magnetic lines born in the great fires of the Earths core, that is a kind of natural knowledge and tying together of things. All people are alone at that wheel, for it is our muscles and mind alone that control and guide 200 tons of iron and steel, and all the souls aboard, through darkness and storm, or balmy bright trades, around shoals, and past mighty automated behemoths with no visible crewman on watch, or simply across a vast empty circle of rolling waves.

 

To stand on the fo’c’sle alone, in star filled tropical night, or spray slashed windy day, scanning the vast sea ahead for anything that might threaten the ship, is also to stand firmly with ones self. We do not stand lookout alone, our thoughts are always there and while we are told not to chat with the lookout, the internal chatter can be very loud indeed when we stand our first watches. But as time goes on that chatter dies away and the vast sea itself becomes the other with whom we speak.

 

The Sea is a dangerous and terrifying place, it is also incredibly beautiful and serene by turns. It is mightier than anything humans can create, in its force it is implacable and irresistible, but it harbours a life of almost unimaginable complexity. It is where all life on Earth came from. This great thing that spans the globe does not care about us in the slightest, nothing we care about is of its concern in any way. We may damage it, perhaps permanently, but we will never control it.

 

It is said "And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." This also applies to the Sea.

 

The Sea eventually climbs into your mind, it becomes part of us, it shows in the eyes of those who pass the test of being alone with it. It marks its human children in a myriad different ways, recognizable only to those others who share that mark.

 

One cannot remain unchanged once you have known that.

 

Even 1000s of miles from its shore the tug of that fearsome, yet beautiful power is there.

For me that tug is ever present, a reminder of great adventure, a reminder of time passing, and of shipmates fondly remembered.

 

Ten plus years ago does not seem that long, especially when one considers the ageless Sea upon which we sailed, but in a human life it is.

 

Perhaps someday, before the ultimate "watch below" is called by that great First Mate who has the con of all lives, I will again get to be tossed upon that great power, if not...

 

I have done it and that is what matters.