SAILING INTO A CAVE OF DIAMONDS

I stare at the sky for hours. I watch the sun drop into the ocean. I watch as the blue heaven flowers from yellow to tangerine to pink to grey to black. I watch the stars pop bright against the moonless night. Such a glow, I feel as if I was sailing into a cave of diamonds.

I search for a shooting star, but don’t find one until I stop searching for it. I must look up without needing anything from the sky, and only then, shall I receive. The sky can teach one so many things. I really should remember to look at it more often.

We are still beating our way to the eastern side of Rangiroa. Long tacks. The zig. The zag. The drip. I have found a favorable current on starboard tacks- which carry us northeast- one knot, what a gift! I wonder if it’s from a tide flowing into the lagoon? If so, I hope it doesn’t turn against me, when it flies back out.

My friend, the wind, is flowing light, 10- 15 knots, but we are soaring at 6 +, even with the jib reefed a smidge. I am grateful even though the wind lied to me. She is blowing, yet again, north of east not east or even slightly south of east like she told me she would be. She can play her little games, we’ll still get to Ahe, even if it takes us seven days.

Brianna and I don’t think about our lack of progress. We play music and dance all around the cockpit. We dance to anything, except for heavy metal. It makes our insides twisted and dark.

Speaking of dark, a boat makes you realize how precious everything is; water, fuel, life, gas, sun. Nothing can be used in excess. This type of conservation can’t really be taught either, the moments without have to be experienced, in order to grasp it. The batteries got run down yesterday by so many electronic bits and bobs. Now we have nothing on and must wait for the sun to rise, high enough and beyond the clouds enough, to fill us with its juice.

I know I could run the engine, but I think I have an oil leak and I’m being too lazy to lift all the wood that is separating me from the engine. I danced all of my energy up and away.

Plus, I like sailing without any instruments except a compass. It keeps me instinctively in tune with the atmospheric forces. I love that I can feel a shift or quickening of the wind; even down below, even if I’m sleeping, even if I’m dreaming about eating eucalyptus with a panda bear, I will wake up, because my body just knows. It’s like osmosis or something- the elements seep into me and I seep deep into them, until we become a balanced one. I never want to loose this and if I become too dependent on an instrument, I will.

There is a big ring around the sun. It means a change is gonna come. Change is always uncomfortable at first, and let’s be honest, sometimes it hurts like hell, but there has never been a better thing than change. To hold a life filled with change, is to hold a fortune.

The boobies are back again today. It got me thinking more about this whole situation. Maybe Pluto shared my secrets with all the other boobies in the world and now they follow Juniper just to get a better glimpse of the gal who holds such secrets. Maybe I am the laughing stock of boobie town!