Sunrise

We’re straight cruising through squalls over here. 32 knots of wind. Mast shaking. Everything wet. Big swell in short sets. Spray over bow. Pelted by waves. Prims leaking. Food hammocks breaking. And my foul weather gear aka foulies, which are supposed to keep me dry, are keeping me wet.

Still it doesn’t make me miss the dry land.

Sava is seasick. He puked shortly after reeling in a Big Eye Tuna. And Josh is feeling hot, sounds almost feverish.

I’ve only been seasick once. It was dreadful. But sometimes land makes me sick. I guess it’s landsickness. When I get it, it comes out or nowhere. Bam, I feel nauseous. When I start to feel this way, I go for a sail. It’s the only thing that makes me feel normal again. This happens on land a lot.

I love being out here. Even now. Even in these conditions.

My body is moving around like a serpent as we ride the waves. One part of my body goes up. Another down. Then it twists into a circular motion then back up and back down. It’s almost like the feeling of falling and jumping at the same time.

The only downer is the leaks inside the boat. These prisms leak no matter what I do. It’s because there is water in the core of my boat. Beneath the decks. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes. Mushy balsa wood. It was too overwhelming to think about so I let it go.

And the darn leak under the lazarets that forms a river inside the cabin is a nuisance still. I thought I fixed that a thousand times.

Josh and I tried a lot of little tricks to stop the prism leaks today, but in the end I stuck a bag over each one and taped around it.

It looks pretty trashy, but we are dry-ish now.

Keeping water out of Juniper is an endless battle. And with enough time, these leaks could make me crumble. Tell me, what causes you to crumble?

Another maddening thing is that the depth sounder alarm just keeps going off. Every 5 minutes. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. I don’t know why it does that when are in depths so deep. Maybe there is a whale beneath us or maybe we heel way out of the water. It’s a strange occurrence that haunts us for an hour then goes away. Then come back. It likes to bug us most at night. Sava hears it now even when it’s not going off.

Early this morning one of the food hammocks busted and an avocado smashed all into my settees and wall. It was everywhere. It’s greenness.

Whose hungry?

Nobody on this ship. We barely eat fruit all day. Last night we shared a small salad, but nobody finished it. I think it’s nerves.

We’re still settling in.

Josh said sometimes Juniper or the sea will make unusual sounds and he thinks “This is it, we’re going down.”

I know where he’s at in his head. For some reason, on this trip I don’t feel as jolted by Juniper’s noises. I already know them and I already trust her.

Sava doesn’t seem to be bothered by anything in the sea except for me. He says I’m different offshore because there are too many rules.

The rules are for safety and take place during a persons watch, like: check bilge, check batteries, mop up saltwater, log book, etc. I also asked that we keep our stuff tidy since it’s one massive communal space and also that we hang wet stuff in the shower or on lifelines. It seems pretty normal to me, but yea we didn’t have these rules interisland. Offshore is a different ballgame than island hopping. And I guess I’m different too.

We spend our time repairing things, sailing, sleeping, and mopping up saltwater.

So much stuff has gone awry that I asked Josh if he thought that the bananas were
to blame. I never sail with bananas and neither does he. They’re bad luck for sailors and fishermen of the sea. Josh said, “I’m not superstitious, I’m sortofsticious, but I’d never get on a boat with bananas.”

We have a whole bunch of bananas on Juniper! They came straight from a tree on Big Island. Some friends gave them to me as a parting gift and they are sailors so I accepted.

But we couldn’t risk it anymore and now that rack of bananas is floating in the sea. Along with my surfboard. Weep.

My watch is almost over and the sea is trying to rock me to sleep. Eyes barely open. It’s a moment after sunrise. The sky is orange. I like sunrise because after sunrise the same breeze feels lighter. After sunrise, I can see again the things that I could only hear. After sunrise, the waves are no longer ghosts that beat drums and rattle my cages.