Race 10 - Day 18
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 11
15 April

You Only Live Twice

Today at some point we will cross the International Date Line, meaning “tomorrow” will be “today" again. It is not often you get to gain 24 hours. Flyovers don't count since those hours are lost in the air, watching a movie you missed, or sleeping. But the dateline is just a man-made concept, as is time itself. Time is a concept as old as, well, time. There is no innate need for hours, minutes, seconds, or degrees. Living things have always had their own sense of duration, and when to do things. How does a crocus know when it is spring, a bear to hibernate, a caterpillar to build its cocoon, or for that matter an ovary to ovulate?

These are things one thinks about when you have time to do nothing but stare out at the limitless Pacific and infinite sky. On the micro level, time is critical: how much time do I have to get ready, eat, sleep, etc? On the macro level, however, it loses all meaning: days slip into other days and you lose track of when it is. “Today" and “tomorrow” don't exist. Watch after watch after watch you just sail and have to deal with whatever shows up: sail, eat, sleep, repeat. Sailing day into night into day into night seems like a dream, in some bardo, or space-in-between. It is both otherworldly and entirely mundane.

The notion of “progress" evaporates along with time. The thing about crossing an ocean is that the seascape is thoroughly undifferentiated. It looks exactly like it did when you started: endless water and limitless sky for 360⁰. You might be going around in circles. There is nothing visible to the naked eye to mark your progress as there is on land. On land, you can walk thousands of miles and visibly mark where you’ve been and where you’re getting to each day. What’s on the horizon changes and constantly reveals itself. Here, it’s just more horizon of water and sky. Crossing is an act of faith.

So, how to mark the passage of something that doesn't exist and the “gain” of 24 hours when the sun has not miraculously risen a second time? By ritual of course, as humans have always done. But unlike passing the equator, where pollywogs turn into shellbacks, there is no ready-made ritual for this occasion. My proposal then to address this oversight is that this identical blog be published on two consecutive days. Thank you … in advance.