This text was one which I was happy to get onto paper. I feel this way because I have a journal, poems, pictures, and rapidly fading memories of my semester at sea experience; but never something really concrete that solidified my experience the way this paper did. This experience changed my life in ways I could barely begin to describe. At first it was difficult to know where to begin. As I did begin though, it was as if I couldn't get it all out fast enough. I wrote it honestly; but not nearly as beautifully as the experience itself was to me. Beauty is a terror, and I stood transfixed by her rage, almost blinded by the purity of her blue eye.
I had never really considered the definition of nature to be of any real significance or importance in my life. I had thought this way simply because I had a casual acceptance of nature and her abilities - I had also considered myself to be only a 'nut' in the huge machinery which operated life as we know it. Therefore, my theory of nature had been not only vague but also indifferent and apathetic. I had no real sharp, clear vision of the consciousness which I now know I am a part of; however small. My awareness of nature was both expanded and enlightened by my experience in the Sea Education Association's semester at sea program. This program is through Boston University, directly taught by professors of the Woodshole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.
The beginning of my journey began in Miami, Florida, February 14, 1992. Having seen pictures of the vessel that was to carry me I was ready to be impressed - she was beautiful. One hundred and thirty seven and a-half feet long with eleven and a-half abeam, she had masts which soared one hundred feet into the air and sails which promised aching muscles to haul their five hundred pounds into the wind. The crew stood waiting for us silently, arms crossed in front of tan chests, and solemn faces outlined by craggy sun-formed wrinkles.
The first few days of our journey was a conglomeration of learning over one hundred lines on deck, realizing that for the next six weeks no one would get a full night's sleep, shooting the stars with a sextant to get our position, shooting the sun during the day, using LORAN and other sophisticated ship's equipment to calculate our position via satellite. My days were so full, it was as if my body were going through the motions and my mind was soaking up all completely vital information which I was responsible for every day. Eventually, I, as well as others, found myself so completely wrapped up in my thoughts - suddenly I felt completely alone in the mist of thirty four other people. I decided I could deal with this situation in two ways: first I could either open myself up to all the amazing things taking place around me or totally withdraw into myself. Obviously, I chose the first option. It's so hard to describe what happens to you.... Let me describe how one spent the time on ship and approach it that way.
The way the crew and the students were split up were into three watches (groups of people): A, B, and C watch. The time during your day was very structured for you. Your watch was responsible for the ship every third time period. The periods of the 24-hour day were split up as follows: 1:00-7:00 PM was afternoon watch, 7:00-11:00 PM was evening watch, 11:00 PM-3:00 AM was death watch, 3:00-7:00 AM was dawn watch, 7:00 AM-1:00 PM was day watch, and then the cycle would begin all over again. Not only was your watch responsible for the ship during your specified time, you were also responsible for getting your homework done: Nautical science, Maritime Studies, and Oceanography projects.
The trip was split up into three sections. The first two weeks were virtually a basic training of all the systems on the ship: as I said before, lines, what was where, shooting stars and the sun with a sextant and computing all the calculations correctly, etc. The second two weeks your watch had one person responsible (one of the students - it rotated) for everything that occurred during your watch time. The third two weeks the student in charge was held completely responsible if something went wrong - whether it was your fault personally or one of your immediate mates. And if something went wrong, YOU were responsible for figuring out how to fix the problem. For example, I was acting captain when we were in shallow waters trying to skirt stag horn corals right outside our port in Roatan, Honduras. My lookout on the foreward deck watching our depth was a little slow in telling me the water was to shallow to go any further. Needless to say, with a three million dollar vessel, this is not a small deal.
Now that you have an idea of how we spent our time aboard ship, I can begin to describe the experiences which shaped my redefinition of nature and her powers. During the first week of the trip I was on bow watch and it was 2:30 in the morning. I was swinging my legs back and forth and leaning back against the ship. I happened to look down and saw that as she cut through the water, the surf lit up with green phosphorescence on either side of her hull. As I looked more closely in the water around me I noticed huge green flashes of five feet in width and length. I found out later that these are creatures whose structure is extremely fragile and if you even run your hand gently through them - it will destroy their life, but their light is so bright it was unimaginable that a gentle touch would destroy them. As I was sitting there I remember shivering because I felt that I was the alien being there, not them.
My mate Pam and I were out on the tip of the bow (which sticks out from the front of the ship about 13 feet and is roughly 20 feet above sea level) folding a sail which had just been hauled down. There was a storm approaching and the swells were easily 20 feet high and the Corwinth Cramer was sailing about five knots. We had harnessed ourselves in and for balance, each time the ship went down into a trough, we paused, and as she rose back up again to the top, we resumed folding. We were chatting and the ship began to go down into a trough, and kept going, her bow driving straight into the ocean's surface at least twenty feet under. Being harnessed to the bow, we were hauled under as well. I remember being trapped by my harness and forced under as the ship went down, and as she came up again, thousands of pounds of levered pressure slammed my body back into the whiskers and my shin against the bow. As we came through the surface again, I looked at Pam, down at my shin, and started shaking so hard my only thought was: if this happens again, I'm going to lose it. It didn't, and we unharnessed our belts and crawled back toward the quarter-deck where the captain spoke soothingly to us. I looked down at my watch and saw that it had stopped, and at my shin where the broken skin was already swelling to the size of a golf ball, and started to laugh hysterically. I was humbled.
It turned out that this was only a tap on the shoulder compared to storms and forces I witnessed later. I remember one dawn watch when I was on bow watch and I was asked to climb to the top of the mast on a dare. There was supposedly a message there that a former student had written. The sun was coming up and as I climbed to the top I noticed that the winds had calmed. As I reached the top ten feet I experienced a sense of elation I have never felt. I looked forward and saw the moon setting, sitting barely above the horizon silhouetted by black, directly across from it on the same plane was the sun surrounded by bright blue the sky was absolutely cloudless and I realized it was the vernal equinox. I have never seen such perfection in beauty, I wish I could stick my head in the computer and show you how it really was; never seen something so lovely it was almost liquid. I received an entirely different message than anything anyone could have ever written.
Perhaps another mind-altering time was a swim call off of the Colombian coast. I and my mate Pam, we assigned to be the last to climb to the top of the masts and watch for sharks and jellyfish, the water was so clear you could see straight down for at least thirty feet. There was only one ladder for everyone to climb back on the ship and all the crew and students were in the water. After the last person had clambered out of the water we were climbing down from the masts and happened to glance around and saw a 15 foot nurse shark swimming slowly past our ship and into the distance. Pretty sobering.
When I returned home and spent my first night in a real bed, I have never felt so lonely in my life. I had entered an alien environment and become a little alien myself. I couldn't hear the water rushing by my bunk, I couldn't feel the hot air taking the sweat from my skin, I couldn't taste the salt on my hands, I had removed myself from a direct link to the consciousness which I had never known I had entered. It was a gradual process that resulted in an anchoring of my sanity and soul to the sea and her winds and clouds and swells. It was almost a physical pain to be torn away from such an environment which is so close to the Id persona that exists within me. I went and sat on my porch, listening to the faint ringing of the gear of the sailboats on their thin masts and fell asleep on the uncomfortable wooden floor of our deck that felt similar to the one I had slept on so many times before and the sea heaved underneath me.
My watch started up again when I was on the plane from Miami back home.