With Enterprise
My soggy bones found warmth in the relative stillness where I was perched just inside the cabin. I was on edge—anchored precariously in a tideway dozens of yards away from Sergius Narrows, KACHINA bobbed and swayed in the swirls of current as they anxiously made their way west for Salisbury Sound; her anchor held fast against the ebb.
The surging current expressive of the consigned state of confusion and reflection I found myself in. When I carefully backed KACHINA from her berth early this morning, I did not think this was where the day would lead. A mid-summer storm and a nervous deck hand forced a change in plans. Even a few hours ago, I was sure I would be carefully navigating a path through the persnickety kelp path I've been told winds into Mirror Harbor.
I have witnessed the raw and unchecked wilderness jar and unnerve folks unprepared to confront the discomfort of the wild. And more broadly, the discomfort that the wild touches within them. Today was another example.
Even before we poked out of Salisbury Sound, I knew it would be far from smooth sailing. The last two years cutting my teeth as a ship handler on Southeast Alaska's Alexander Archipelago's forbidding waters have taught me how menacing even a moderate breeze can be. Evan, my dearly loved friend and deckhand for this misadventure, had less appreciation for what the marine forecast would be like on a small twenty-five-foot, three-thousand-pound sailboat. No longer protected by Kruzhof's ramparts and exposed to the immensity of the Gulf of Alaska, I felt the apprehension growing in Evan's throat. Evan and I know each other well. Together we have navigated uncharted waters of disaster response, handled extortion in Africa, and chided one another for years like brothers. It usually takes few or no words to know what the other is thinking and how we are prioritizing problems and their solutions.
Not long after we passed the confused convergence of breeze, currents, and swell at the mouth of Salisbury Sound, the swells built in, and a stiff westerly breeze required taking a reef in Kachina's mainsail. Evan dissented quickly; knowing the conditions would change just around the bend, I argued we should give it another 30 minutes. I was confident that we would get around the north end of Kruzof to find the predicted southerly weather. However, fewer than ten minutes later, Evan reaffirmed that he did not want to be out in Alaskan the snot. It made sense-- he had no reason to trust Kachina and me on the water. Even his comment allowed doubt to wriggle into the folds of trust and confidence I have in the vessel of which I am the steward. With a moment of agonizing reprieve, I was certain that the reefed mainsail and spilling jib would allow her to carry us through the nine-foot rollers and stiff wind.
I don't know when exactly they started, but as I mulled his concerns and felt the challenge of the decision to turn around, tears hopscotched down my cheeks, mixing with the drops of rain and sea spray that dampened my face. Mopping my tears, I faced the wind, spray, and rain that were doing their best to whip me away from this spot. My mind flashed out of the present to the rare moments of happiness I’d had in the last two years; trying to hold my responsibilities at bay as I quarreled with the sudden loss of a dear friend, the strains added with the onset of the pandemic. I had just felt so numb for so long. Here, at the precipice of the unknown—a dance with the open ocean and my sweet little boat, it was good to feel anything at all. Joy and enterprise; a test of my skills, confidence, seamanship, my boat, was the apogee in the high that had been building through the days leading here. As I choked the lump in my chest back down, I knew there was a correct answer to Evan's request, which meant shutting down everything that I was feeling at that moment.
I yelled back over my should for him to ease the bow across the wind. As I broke the lines from their cleats and their cold fibers worked across my hands, if only temporarily, I was again numbed.
