Sabbatical At Sea
It's kinda, sorta, falling into place...
After some funky light-windiness the trade winds finally turned on and nature’s air conditioning kicked in. The difference at anchor was palpable and welcome. In the sweaty sauna days prior I kind of got into the tropical mindset, embracing my drip and appreciating the clever cooling mechanisms and adaptability of the human body. But with hatches open, and cooling air whistling through Laughing Gull from stem to stern, life got better. Way better. I lost my moist sheen, and sleeping was a lot easier. It is amazing how attuned you become to every change of humidity and temperature, and every breath of wind, when there is nothing insulating you from the outside world. It can be physically uncomfortable at times, but that is how you know you are fully alive and connected to something that is also alive in its own way. And when conditions are good, you feel immense gratitude and satisfaction. Throw in some electric-hued sunrises and sunsets, and a cup of coffee or a beer in the cockpit listening to classical music or jazz, and it is hard to imagine being anywhere better.
Not everyone in the Pigeon Beach anchorage took advantage of the change. A massive Tradewinds (irony alert) charter cat anchored right in front of me and ran its two generators non-stop. No hatches were opened, no wind whistled through their hulls, and the charter guests were treated to bone-chilling AC anytime they were aboard (endless AC appears to be standard on charter yachts now from what I have observed). I got to inhale diesel fumes, while they lost all connection to the oceanscape around them. Cocooned inside their vessel and blithely running up the human carbon tab, they were unable to gaze at the stars above or hear the soothing susurration of small waves gently running up onto Pigeon Beach. Why bother, I wondered.
Thirty years ago most sailboats didn’t have mechanical AC. Today, the majority do. I know how unlikely it is that anyone closed up inside that floating Tradewinds motel thinks much, if ever, about what we are doing to the climate, and what we might do differently. But the world would be an amazing place if they did (and maybe they will soon enough).
Still, Paradise is sometimes lost (sorry, Milton). Despite the beautiful, welcome, trades, the Pigeon Beach anchorage started to get overcrowded, and an annoying wrap-around swell announced itself by fully encouraging Laughing Gull’s rock and roll tendencies. A loose cable in the mast punctuated every roll with a loud slap that entered my brain like a worm and started to eat its way deep into my sanity. So I did what anyone in a home that is mobile would do. I upped anchor and moved to a different part of Falmouth harbor. It lacked a beach, but wasn’t as rolly and featured some nice boat neighbors.
There, I settled into “city” life. I joined the Antigua Yacht Club for a month. I re-provisioned at the grocery. I found some tolerable running routes. To maintain my anti-recluse regime I went to a North Sails reception, joined the Salty Dawgs for a Thanksgiving regatta to raise money for the National Sailing Academy of Antigua, Later, I went to Thanksgiving dinner at the AYC (the awesome Angie, who runs the Clubhouse Restaurant there, made me a great vegan dinner). I even hit the local pickleball scene and played in a tournament.
Hanging in Antigua this way, I finally started to feel like I am refining this floating experiment—whatever it is—into a pretty good place. After more than a year of living this life, and contemplating the question of why I am out here—a question I have spent plenty of quiet moments turning over in my mind while staring at the sea or the heavens—I have started to think of myself as being on sabbatical from modern consumer culture, which to me feels increasingly destructive and oblivious to reality. Living on Laughing Gull I can be a minimalist, and freely make choices that feel right to me. I can also read, think, and imagine alternative futures that might make more sense than the cultural, political and economic realities that are currently failing so badly.
Most of what I imagine—a completely different economic model that is not based on consumption and relentless growth; a transition away from ethno-nationalist states (and all their warring) in favor of a global human project that unites humanity to resolve conflict peacefully, and more effectively address climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, inequality and other planetary challenges; and a human outlook that invests the natural world and all non-human species with rights and moral consideration—would be laughed away as wild hallucinations that are well beyond political possibility.
For now, that is a completely accurate assessment. But that is okay. I (mostly) don’t mind sounding like a wind-blown crank. To be sure, I often second-guess myself and my choices in order to self-evaluate the Personal Crank/Kook Factor (PCCF). But in the end, we all have to live according to our values, and I wasn’t very happy living like a “normal” person. I have always been a bit of a contrarian and a bit of a utopian, which is probably a pretty healthy combo these days. And all real change starts somewhere, with people trying something different and imagining something different than what is. I am a big believer in the promise of social contagion, in which how people live and think affects others around them. And if new behaviors and thinking “infect” enough of the population you hit a tipping point for change. I guess I would like to try and be a (good) virus.
Looking to a better future, and exploring alternative ways to live and understand our relationship with the planet, helps keep me sane and engaged in otherwise depressing times (though I am acutely aware of the impacts of my unusual choices on my family and friends). There is lots of other worthwhile stuff out here on sabbatical: beauty, elation, challenge, physicality, problem-solving, risk management, constant change and, maybe best of all, no cable news or pharmaceutical advertising. In any case, it is way more fun to unleash the imagination in hopeful directions than to waste time scrolling through the hellscape of the current status quo.
Last night I lay in my bunk, looking up through the hatch at the stars of Orion hovering directly overhead. A light breeze played with my sheet, while my mind played with the potential and possibilities of….“Donut Economics.” This is Planet Laughing Gull, in one vignette. A voyage to—somewhere. Somewhere interesting. I hope.
Next up: Superyacht Gomorrah.
Things I Am Reading:
A few years ago I read, and absolutely loved, Richard Powers’ The Overstory (if you haven’t read it, it is remarkable and thought-provoking). I eagerly read his next book, Bewilderment, which was interesting but didn’t quite nail it for me. But his latest, The Playground, is another exceptional book, and I am halfway through it now. It is especially for anyone who cares about what humanity is doing to the oceans. Like me!
Keto, a SeaWorld killer whale who killed a trainer just months before Tilikum killed Dawn Brancheau at SeaWorld Orlando, recently died at Loro Parque in the Canary Islands. In 2011 I wrote a deep deeply reported feature on Loro Parque, Keto, and his fatal attack on Alexis Martinez. Martinez’s death was a loud warning alarm about the frustrations and dangers of killer whales in captivity that SeaWorld mostly ignored, until Brancheau was killed. After her death, trainers no longer swam with the orcas.
Since I am on the topic of orcas, I am saddened to read about unregulated hunting of them in Saint Vincent, not far south of where I am now. It is easy, and tempting, to condemn the practice. I would like all killing of whales to end, everywhere. But if you want that to happen you have to be willing to address the fact that many whale hunters are extremely poor, and desperate to feed their families (I have much less sympathy for whale hunting that is to “preserve culture” rather than feed hungry mouths—culture is important but sometimes it has to evolve with reality). That means being willing to do something about the massive disparities in wealth between rich and poor around the world. A big cornerstone of my “future-thinking” aboard Laughing Gull is the idea that a sincere effort to more fairly redistribute wealth globally is a key to unlocking solutions to many global challenges, from climate change, to population growth, to habitat destruction.
Chart Of The Day:
Well, since we are talking about it…
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