Race 10 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 11
10 April

Pacific Odyssey Illusions

Was it a few nights ago that we crossed the last of three marks off the coast of Japan and turned northeast to reach in earnest for the New World? Days and nights and watches commingle to make tracking dates difficult, and irrelevant. They say that in baseball, during the post-season, the ball appears smaller, harder to hit, and play more difficult. The Pacific offers the same: the horizon seems further away, the ocean becomes more vast, and the waves reach up higher to meet the sky.

True to form, the Pacific greeted us with a lively night time storm: winds reaching 60kph, driving rain, and a pitch black punctuated by momentary bursts of lightning. Helming was, to say the least, challenging. The wind slapped halyards against the mast, urging the boat forward as a jockey whips a horse. Is it any wonder that Poseidon is the god of oceans and horses?

Out of a cacophony of sounds emerges a mesmerizing tonal dirge. Sirens calling to lure us toward them. Indeed, the folds of our dropped staysail took on the image of a cloak enfolding the ancient warrior-king Odysseus, before he was lashed to the mast.

Today the drama has passed. The winds have dropped off. With no daughters we care to sacrifice, we instead hoist the wind seeker and drop the Yankee. A variety of boat-care chores take over: sail and winch repair, straightening entangled halyards and sheets, and creating new lines and ties to hold this and that. Preparing for whatever comes next. Inevitably, the microcosm of addressing the needs of boat life overwhelms the macrocosm of the immensity of the sea and sky that surrounds us. This is reassuring in a human way. No longer with a tiller, oar, or square sail, yet still with hand to helm, sheet, and grinder, we harness the same forces to beat ceaselessly on, to the end.

From Washington, D.C.

David Laufer