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Water Log
The satellite picture is a zoom shot of Nassau, as close as the quarter mile view of Buena Vista Park from Twin Peak. I can see a swimming pool, spidery palms, beaches piped with waves. Then the ocean, like a jostled tray of printer’s ink, green, black, indigo. That’s how close this amazing celestial camera gets. I see a boat, but not the one I care about.
My seafaring man is sixty-nine years old, sailing with two slightly younger ones. They are in the midst of a 1200 mile voyage, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Virgin Islands. Our only connection is this satellite map, an orange line tracing where the boat has been and teardrop call-outs showing transmission locations. Up close, at the biggest magnification, I can see streaks of clouds and the fifth marker where they are now. The water looks like aspic and the ocean floor under it is pitted and channeled like the moon.
The Nassau dock is the last point before the longest leg of the trip. He’s sent me an email, the only written contact we’ll have. I open it and almost gasp—it’s nearly 2000 words. He is not prone to lengthy expository writing, so just seeing all the words is like a satellite zoom shot—I’m looking at a detail I’ve never seen up close.
I say I want the big adventure, the one that will bust me wide open, maybe throw me on a sand bar. I’ll feel the water under me drain into the sand. Flattened, my naval will draw against my backbone and I’ll stop breathing for a while. Then I’ll know every inch of my self and—here’s the hoped for miracle—know what to do next.
“The first leg was hell for me personally,” he wrote, describing the onerous watches and terrible power of the seas and the wind, having no control over time or even destination. “Bottom line, having to be somewhere at some particular time… is TOTALLY OUT OF MY CONTROL. I cannot make things go any faster than they are going to go. I cannot get off the boat and get on a plane.”
Today the marker showed them well out of Nassau harbor, the shoreline gone and no islands around. All I’ll know from the map is where he’s been, not where he’s going or when he’ll get there, and there’s no date stamped airline ticket saying he’ll be back.
The satellite picture is a zoom shot of Nassau, as close as the quarter mile view of Buena Vista Park from Twin Peak. I can see a swimming pool, spidery palms, beaches piped with waves. Then the ocean, like a jostled tray of printer’s ink, green, black, indigo. That’s how close this amazing celestial camera gets. I see a boat, but not the one I care about.
My seafaring man is sixty-nine years old, sailing with two slightly younger ones. They are in the midst of a 1200 mile voyage, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Virgin Islands. Our only connection is this satellite map, an orange line tracing where the boat has been and teardrop call-outs showing transmission locations. Up close, at the biggest magnification, I can see streaks of clouds and the fifth marker where they are now. The water looks like aspic and the ocean floor under it is pitted and channeled like the moon.
The Nassau dock is the last point before the longest leg of the trip. He’s sent me an email, the only written contact we’ll have. I open it and almost gasp—it’s nearly 2000 words. He is not prone to lengthy expository writing, so just seeing all the words is like a satellite zoom shot—I’m looking at a detail I’ve never seen up close.
I say I want the big adventure, the one that will bust me wide open, maybe throw me on a sand bar. I’ll feel the water under me drain into the sand. Flattened, my naval will draw against my backbone and I’ll stop breathing for a while. Then I’ll know every inch of my self and—here’s the hoped for miracle—know what to do next.
“The first leg was hell for me personally,” he wrote, describing the onerous watches and terrible power of the seas and the wind, having no control over time or even destination. “Bottom line, having to be somewhere at some particular time… is TOTALLY OUT OF MY CONTROL. I cannot make things go any faster than they are going to go. I cannot get off the boat and get on a plane.”
Today the marker showed them well out of Nassau harbor, the shoreline gone and no islands around. All I’ll know from the map is where he’s been, not where he’s going or when he’ll get there, and there’s no date stamped airline ticket saying he’ll be back.
