Author: Kathy DeStefano (Boston, MA, USA)
Website: Click here
Photo location: In the middle of the ocean between Cuba and Honduras
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Categories: [discovery]  [heaven]  [reflection]  

This picture was taken from the aft deck of the SSV Corwith Cramer somewhere in the middle of the ocean. From the configuration of the sails, we were somewhere between Cuba and Honduras, sailing west. We had been sailing down-wind for days, the squares’ls perpetually set, and we were moving at about 5 knots. But you would never have known it. When you’re sailing down-wind, you are the wind. It’s so silent, so peaceful; all you hear is the water breaking against the bow, rushing by over the sides. We never heard nor felt the strong breeze that carried us along those days, and the heat was oppressive. When you are the wind, the air around you doesn’t seem to move; it moves with you. Below decks, the air is stale, there’s the distinct smell of sweat and dirt and everything else that comes along with thirty-five human beings sleeping in small spaces for a month and a half. And no breeze for three days.

I think back on my time at sea, and I try to remember what it was like. But these days, back in the city, I look up at the night sky and can’t even see the stars, never mind navigate by them. I can barely remember whether Procyon came before or after Sirius, or what it was like to see Canopis sparkling through binoculars like a disco ball, or what the Southern Cross looks like at all.

And I try to remember all those times I watched the sun rise - and I mean watched it truly rise completely. Not just as the fire peeked over the horizon, but from the moment that the eastern sky showed just a hint of light, very smoky, very grey, barely noticeable. And then eerily, the whole sky lit up, so slowly, with such strange colors - dark purples, navies, creams - foreboding and ominous shadows fell all over the boat. Yellows and reds infected the clouds that were now more visible. The stars faded away into the light. Then came that seemingly endless period of time between when the last star disappeared and the sun finally came to the horizon. Those minutes when there was nothing but clouds, and sometimes not even those. Eyes on the horizon, every second thinking "this is it, this is the second it’s gonna come up." But it doesn't. And you wait and you wait, and then at last, there it is. And here you are thinking the sky could possibly get any more beautiful.

I look back at this picture and notice the horizon is crooked. I try to edit it before posting here to straighten it out but then the mast is crooked. It reminds me of how little the world outside of our ship mattered; as long as things ran smoothly onboard, the rest of the world could be as crooked as it wanted to be. When we arrived back in the states last March we returned to a country at war. I remember wanting to get back on that boat and sail away again, back to my microcosm where my mast was straight and everything was okay.

I decide to leave the horizon as is.

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