Sailing

I returned a few days ago from Plettenbergbay where I did some wonderful sailing on the bay. I’ve been going there since I was 21 (nearly 30 years! – amazing). Like so many Hobie Cat sailors who have sailed elsewhere confirm, the sailing conditions in Plett are ideal. I was inspired to write this poem after a day’s sailing on my boat Thunderchild (see pic). My first Hobie Cat was called Uncontrollable Urge – I have never come across a better name for a boat! And I share a boat with a friend parked at Fishhoek called Born Free – so the names of my boats capture what the poem below is all about! Delight in the freedom!

Sailing – Jan 2015

Cloudy
Hot and humid
Gentle winds
Sailing alone
Always risky,
But a meditation like no other
Just the palm of the breeze
In the sails
The swishing kisses
Of the waters against the hulls
As firm land recedes, with it goes all the cares, anguishes and desires.
We suffer on land
And find freedom on the seas
That’s the real secret of
The ancient mariner.
Mists swirl around the bay
Transforming distant mountains into giants of creation
The swells get higher, steeper
And in the trough, just water all around –
pure utterly blissful silence
Broken only by swishing and the clinks of the boat
A seal breaks surface
Looks curiously, snorts
Ducks and slips away
Reminding me that no
Matter where, we are watched.
As Thunderchild glides further out
The fragility of all life surfaces to my smiles
One small bolt holds up the mast, a tiny plastic plug keeps water from sinking the hulls, a rope thinner than my baby finger keeps up the sails – and all old, breakable and yet that is what I have faith in.
Is this the fragility of life?
The real truth we mask with
Our certainties?
All our beliefs upon which
So much is built –
Just fragility, breakable in
An instant. And then all
Else changes ……
Why are we surprised?
We know how fragile the bolts, plastic plugs and thin ropes are, yet we blame, anger, deny, and wish for another moment.
Would I drift away into the mist?
Sink into the dark waters with their supposed hostile predators?
Float into waves crashing onto the rocks?
Who really cares?
It’s my risk – leave me
To my fragility!
Leave me to my risks!
I roar not ‘cos I want to be heard, but ‘cos no-one can hear me.
I’m free
Only the patterns of nature
Hold me
Go away all land
Keep to yourself what I must carry
I’m no longer there for you
I’m floating now
Free
Sublimely fragile
And just for one absolutely perfect moment I’m fully completely utterly sublimely alive!