Last night I took a 40-foot Beneteau just like the one pictured from Long Beach to Los Angeles; it was my first time single-handling a boat this size, only a few days after single-handling a sailboat for the first time in my life. I had to do it in cold and wet seas, and half-way through it was pitch dark. Naturally I felt a bit like that 16 years old kid who circumnavigated the world by himself last year, Zac Sutherland (Incidentally, I'd just spotted him at the boat show I was at that day). Anyways, I wanted to share the experience, because it was really something. The whole world is closing in around you, the elements are in your face and the ball is in your court.
We were heading almost straight into the wind, and so you had to motor, but by launching the main sail and taking tacks up, you could have some fun and make this an exercise in sail trimming (which I dearly need--I've been a bowman in racing, and for years left the trimming to other guys). I was also following my step-dad on the catamaran he had, but he was getting further and further until eventually I lost the light at the top of his mast in the darkness. I had to gain back on him. the bow kept plunging into the sea and spray would hit me in the face (Wow, is this really southern california?!), but I was playing music like Zero 7 and Kate Nash and I knew I wasn't far from the shore. At the same time, you're constantly reminded that being alone on a sailboat, you can make one silly stupid mistake and go overboard, take a boom to the head, and you'll be done.
There I was, thought, feeling adventurous. I was thinking about those lonely solo circumnavigators, how it would feel to take off by yourself, and I remember now a quote from a sailor who was among the first to try going around the world, solo, without stops: "You can't do it for the fame, you have to do it because it's your passion"(Find a movie called "Deep Water" about it---you'll see amazing footage of this race in 1968, and get a clear idea of how it felt.). There was even one French sailor, Bernard Moitessier, who went all the way from France, down to South Africa, all the way under Asia and through the worst storms in Cape Horn, up the Americas and finally, almost home, turns around and quits the race, telling his wife he "wasn't done yet". He went halfway around the world again to finish in Tahiti. Now, there is a man who enjoys is solitude; I for one, I don't think I could: I need to be around people, I need to socialize, and so I'd need my girlfriend or wife or friends with me. (Mental note: I need to find a girl who enjoys sailing.) But I would dearly love to go and take off, absolutely.
