Asea, afloat, alone.

On passage between continents, you are closer to the ocean floor than to any other human, which means you can’t call for help because no one’s coming for you. Slip off the back transom and literally no one will hear you scream, as your boat slowly meets the horizon in front of you.

In the vastness of the ocean, your line of sight to the the edge of the earth is only 2.9 miles. That’s all. And this makes you literally one rogue storm, wave, or sleepy tanker captain away from complete disaster.

Why would anybody do this, on purpose? For those of us who venture this passage and even seek it out, the danger and disconnection somehow makes perfect sense.

For at least one aspect of our special kind of crazy, this song by Andrew Duhon sums it up pretty well.

The Presence of Reverence

In the presence of something greater than yourself, when you step outside of the weighted shadow of the perpetual shitstorm that lives in your head, quiet and calm await. The competing worries of what you haven’t done, have to do, need to do, might do, may not do, and forgot to do … vanish. In this moment the clutter of your overburdened mental desktop clears and you find a singular focus.

Clarity.

Only those who have been there know what the unmistakable presence of reverence does to you.

I envy Dottie, who’s first watch ends at 9pm, and then extends again from 3am to 6am. She gets to see the sunset, gets to be with our turning planet and say good night love, thank you for this day. Then again on second watch for the sunrise (good morning love, thank you for this day).

This form of reverence purges self-importance like a detox for your soul. Seeking out this form of reverence is like a child putting themselves in time-out. A self-imposed reminder to think about how small you are in this world.

Because at sea, you can mitigate all the risks you want, but you know that our Mother Mother Ocean allows our passage. We are here by her leave only, and it only takes one casual off-hand swipe of her wind or wave to be swallowed and forgotten, as millions have been before us.

Here by her leave.

The Beauty of Structured Inconvenience

Veruca Salt is a great character. That Willy Wonka poster child of pride and privilege who wants everything and Wants. It. NOW.

Her character is a caricature of unlikability, but honestly how different are we from Veruca? We want instant connectivity to everything all the time: the restaurants and channels and posts and people and produce from Peru so we can have out-of-season fruits and veg all the, all the, all the time.

You literally have the entire world at your fingertips, yet remain vaguely disappointed like a sour stomach of the soul that it’s not more, better, faster, cheaper.

But when you’re at sea, on passage, your world focus pulls in as your sphere shrinks down, anchored to the here and now. Suddenly you’re keenly aware that you can’t have everything you want all the time … Veruca. All your world and everything you own, touch, and see is within 46 feet of you. The 2 other people around you are literally the most important people on this earth.

In our home in Raleigh, NC we had closets full of things, shelves full of stuff, and drawers full of junk that we never managed to throw away because we might need it one day or something, maybe, whatever. All our things and stuff and junk piled their worthlessness around us, surrounding us with meaningless shit. Even worse, we lived in it every day and thought it was great!

At sea, nothing is superfluous. It’s there because it’s needed - it either is being used, will be used, or you hope to god it won’t need to be used. And our rule had become that, if you get an item you lose an item. So choose what you lose, then lose it. That means you’re left with what you love.

So on passage you’re surrounded by importance, not irrelevance. You are buoyed by the use and utility of each thing, not weighted down by the burden of all the crap you don’t actually need or want. Zero sailors are hoarders because there is just no space for it, physically or mentally.

Risky Business

Another reason to be concerned about an ocean passage is the clear and present danger of it all. I say that sarcastically because face it, all of us live in a risky world all the time. Death and injury perch around every corner, lurking in plain sight, camouflaged in the boring banal activities we totally take for granted.

Research from the Rhode Island Hospital (Provicence, USA) estimated the relative likelihood of death for everyday activities and sports. For every million people,

• 9,901 of you will die from just driving your car

• 364 of you will choke to death on your food

• 125 will die from sunstroke

• 37 from random sharp objects that are just … around, and

• 17 of you will die from a hornet, wasp, or bee sting.

By contrast, the deaths per million sailing people is 1.19. Bear in mind that even this tiny number includes the yahoos and goombahs who sail while drinking far too much and knowing far too little.

So your ordinary suburban life is far more susceptible to death and dying than sailing oceans. But when people learn that you live in a suburb, no one talks to you with widened eyes and says, “you’re so brave, how can you do it?”.

So I guess if you just do the math, your take-home message is that - to be super safe - you should hop on a boat and sail across the open ocean for weeks at a time. Alternatively, you could live the dangerous cul-de-sac life by hopping in the car, hitting the drive-thru on your way to an outdoor picnic on a sunny day, where you cut your food with that Swiss Army knife, right there on the ground beside the bee’s nest.

Good luck.

The Bottom Line

In the end, we sail because it calls us. You mitigate risks just like you do when you ski, or drive, or walk across the street. But this calling is different because pulls from a place deep within the chest, headlong and heartstrong to the sea.