3.1  SAILING THE ATLANTIC TO MOREHEAD CITY

          Shelter Island to Atlantic City

Janus is the God of Gateways where you can stand and look back at the past and forward to the indefinable future, so that is what we named our boat.

What were the silent thoughts of Sherab I cannot really say when we began this project. She showed no qualms whatsoever. You must remember this is a very small boat and the Atlantic is a very difficult host. Neither of us had ever sailed before and our only tool was navigation, which I understood in my two-year stint as a navigator with the RAF. But it is one thing to be in the air and quite another to be in a wave- and wind-moved sailing vessel.

It required a great act of trust on Ninette's part that only comes from a close and deep union and Ninette showed not the slightest concern. In truth as I now look back it was a dangerous and perhaps foolhardy thing to have done and I don't believe that I have the courage now to repeat it, which is a great tribute to an exceptional woman who had more courage then than I have now.

The Janus was ready, as we were. We had changed her from a sloop to a cutter for more sail, had a full set of sails, the best winches, a first rate compass, a self-steering device and an excellent life raft. In contrast we had no radar or radio and only a plastic but fully useable sextant.

We left the harbor with little fanfare with the Janus flying the red ensign of my father with Enzo, Trudy, Germano, Susan, our landlords (now our friends) and a few onlookers. 

There was not much space aboard, for there was just four feet headroom. The overall living space was nine feet by seven feet, and the bulwarks were curved, so sleeping was not going to be like the Ritz. We planned to learn to sail as we progressed on this first leg.

We had no idea how many knots she would make with full sail, but knew it would be painfully slow. We set off in the even¡ng with a favorable wind and the first part of the trip was thrilling but uneventful. Aboard we had two guests, Ninette's cousin who wanted to enjoy the experience and a young man who we met in Shelter Island who was Captain of a Tourist Pirate Ship and wanted to come along to Atlantic City.

Day sailing was smooth, then night came, too fast for our liking, but the stars were out and all seemed to be fine. I navigated satisfactorily, with some inner nervousness. Close to Atlantic City, we passed a comforting marker buoy and we could see the lights of the boardwalk in the distance. Then the moon and stars became obscured and we had no idea where we actually were.  We sailed up and down the coast for most of the night in a hope of capturing some landmark, but shore lights were extinguished.

No one was worried, least of all Ninette, who took her turn at the tiller. She seemed serene and comfortable with a responsibility she could never have dreamed of. Finally we decided to anchor and Ninette and I, like young children, slept like innocent babes.

We awoke to the sound of voices and going on deck found ourselves anchored not fifty yards from the beach filled with curious tourists watching us. To our stern was a poorly lit structure that seemed like a pier. We had been sailing previously most of the night up and down the shore with the unknown threat just a stone's throw away. The fates had smiled.

Our guests had breakfast and left using our raft, which we hauled in after they got ashore. We were alone with the sea, the wind and the tides.

How did we feel? Confident and happy, perhaps our strengths feeding off one another. We saw no danger, perhaps fortunate that we were too inexperienced to know what could lie ahead.

The wind, it seemed, was always with us and since this is not a travelogue I will mention just a few highlights of the hundreds of natural experiences that shaped Ninette and firmly set her apart from Samsara.

Atlantic City to Annapolis

We sailed without haste and without problems down the coast out of sight of land and encountered the open space of nature where the sky and sea meet in harmony. As the sky of the father changes, so the mother earth and the sea accompany him. You feel this deeply when you are alone out there without a sound except for the movement of the hull parting water and the noise made by the swinging boom when you tack to keep course.

On that leg a small bird came aboard. It stopped for a moment on the hatch and then fell to the floor flapping its wings and then died.

How could such a small bird be hundreds of miles from land?

We both thought about Hamlet's lines:

"Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special providence in

the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, 'tis not to come; if it be not to

come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come—the

readiness is all. Since no man, of aught he leaves, knows what is't

to leave betimes, let be."

Death is unpredictable. It comes when least suspected and here despite the energy of flight, the force for survival, that beautiful and fragile creature (I think of it always as a sparrow) would have been safe with us. Yet it had extended all its force for life and died.

It was Ninette's first lesson on Death, showing its beauty as a part of life. We could not be sad, only awareness of nature and its ways was present.  If it had fallen in the streets of New York, perhaps she would have passed it by with a sigh, but here amidst the calmness yet latent great power for destruction it was an imposing lesson.

Such lessons cannot be learned by a cognitive mind alone. It requires the drama and natural theater of great moments to pierce the shallow mask of the mind.

The gods must have been intent on pressing home the lesson, for on the following day we felt a sudden unexpected wave hit us broadside. We scrambled fearing the worst, for it appeared that we had struck an uncharted rock and or that I had made some dreadful error, for a great mass covered with barnacles was right against the hull and we were scraping dangerously along it.

Then the rock moved away and returned. What a a natural miracle. It was a small whale scraping itself along the side of the boat. It stayed with us for minutes and then just slipped away.

How small and frail Janus seemed. Ninette's reaction and mine was of immediate joy. I as psychologist and biologist was with an affective link with animals, but Ninette ¡n her life at home, as far as animal affinity was concerned, was filled just with a caged canary and its singing.

The next day the gods must have decided to bring their lesson closer, for smoothly gliding along in the swelling wave a sudden wave seemed to hit us broadside. In alarm we rose and saw that we were scarping along a huge black barnacle covered rock. I started to turn rapidly away, but the rock turned away from us.

It was a whale. It approached again and again and scraped itself against the side of the Janus. We just continued. It was his home.

It was incredible to see that mass of barnacles attached to it. We were with wonder and joy and for Ninette it was an experience that flooded over her, for her closeness to animals was only that of a pet canary of her father David.

This was real and that whale belonged there and she and I, on reflection, belonged there within nature, far far away from a world of little boxes filled with box-like temples of avarice, filled with people with little box-like minds.

Degrees and titles meant nothing. Oneness was everything and if mankind chose to exclude itself, so be it.

We sailed on taking it in turns day and night to sleep, steer, tend the sails and be together. Degrees and titles meant nothing. Oneness was everything and if mankind chose to exclude itself, so be it.

We decided one morning to leave our route South, for there was no haste, and sail up into Delaware bay and take the canal across to Chesapeake City and then following Chesapeake Bay, sail down to Annapolis for supplies and perhaps a little very temporary work for no more than a day or two.

We were on our way down the Chesapeake when we saw coming out from the shore a huge powerful launch. It was the U.S. Coastguard. They were drawn no doubt by the PH 57 I had painted symbolically on the side and that Red Ensign.

They hailed us and a couple of coastguards came aboard as we sailed on. We chatted and we enjoyed their company. Then they wished us luck and returned with perhaps a tale or two to tell.

There is something that unites true sea lovers and we felt touched by their interest and friendliness.

Annapolis and Misty

We anchored offshore and spent two days working, Ninette as a bar maid. She, as usual, adapted and learned the cocktail mixes. They naturally didn't want her to leave. I painted a few watercolors close to the bar and within the port and sold them.

She was piqued that I earned more than she had so easily and it was a tough lesson to learn that in the working world, away from universities and culture, there is a rule of supply and demand. Samsara has no justice.

We bought supplies and walked our last walk through the town and came across a stray dog. It was lost with no collar. It was an attractive and beautiful animal, a Siberian Husky. It followed us as we returned through the town. For more than half an hour it trotted behind us as at a distance. I shooed it away, wishing that it would stay.

We reached the dingy and it still had followed. We pushed it away, there was some magnetism pulling us together. When we entered the dingy without encouragement it jumped aboard.

What could we do? We decided that it was a gift.  We let it stay and rowed out to Janus. It came aboard Janus and was at home. We called it Misty and it adapted immediately to the small boat and used the bow as its toilet without training.

It was a precious gift and the first domestic animal that Ninette had really ever come into close contact with. For the first time an animal was not a mascot or a pet to fondle.

It was so beautiful and certainly, still with roots in in stained Samsara she felt a great attraction for it. I too loved its striking form but though my affect was deep, it was Ninette's dog, the first and perhaps the most important in her life.

It is an important lesson when one has affect for any animal without owning it. She didn't stay up there in the air, nor did I. Perhaps it was the boat itself, so small and so intimate, that brought us both up to Misty's level.

Down the Chesapeake it occasionally jumped in the water and sometimes we harnessed it without sail and it pulled the boat along, slowly but surely along with a small jib's help. Misty added something that only an animal can bring. Man can be an animal's faithful friend and save his own foolish mind from selfishness.

Forgive me now if I present a reflection of my own

If we examine Misty coming aboard and the changes coming about within Ninette we can begin to see a few important elements at work.

First there are the circumstances that bring about change.

Second there is the readiness, the open and flexible mind that is prepared to change without even considering change itself as being cognitively expedient.

Third there is the willingness to accept a change without resistance. We call that Natural Courage and Sacrifice of the Self.

Fourth, one has to listen to the voice of the natural filter that resists what is not correct for all living creatures.

Finally there is the impulse that is within every human creature to be "as one" with the dusty world. You can call it what you want; Gladness, Natural Compassion (not social compassion) and Benevolent Affect.

Look at yourself, considering these things.

Have you allowed yourself to grow and accept the folly of a closed system where circumstances for natural change do not present themselves? That is due to Desire or Craving.

Have you closed your mind, losing its flexibility by Clinging for fear of loosing what you have?

Do you every day experience the Becoming of Identity, which separates you from all living things and therefore life itself?

Do you listen to the inner voice of Shén (Spirit)?

Do you recognize the true self, the non-self, the human creature that is not living for itself alone and is as one with all human things?

Yet the question is, why did Ninette find herself upon that path to become a human creature not a robot enslaved by Caesar?

The answer I believe is the presence of compelling circumstances, the opening to the presence of the natural awe of all that is natural  beyond one's self, such that the mind cannot control human perception of it.

But somewhere, somehow each human creature must make that first tentative step forward to liberation and in so doing aid in the liberation of all sentient human creatures. Where did Ninette make that first step? It is an interesting question.

Buddha, legend tells us, made that first step in favorable circumstances when he realized that his life was an abomination, not partially, but fully. There is no sudden flash of Truth, just the realization that there is something more noble and precious that is out there somewhere to be grasped.

Ninette, I believe, did not know what it was, but she stepped forward and stretched out her hand. Others remain and live all their lives strangled by the dust of the world. Ninette took one giant step forward towards a feeble and distant light, and with unfaltering steps moved forward.

How did that light appear to her? I have no idea. Perhaps the light appears different to each person, but it is there if you look diligently for it.

The Intracoastal Waterway

At Norfolk we decided to explore the Intracoastal Waterway. It was a time of new quiet experiences, calmness without much sail and the enjoyment of slow cruising through canals with our first real look at the amazing idea of waterway locks. There were thousands of details. Small intimate moments many even forgotten, but we went on perhaps with a foolish innocence.

To avoid any weather problems at Cape Hatteras we sailed down to Pamaco Sound and then, to avoid any shoal problems went out once more to the Atlantic at Ocracoke Inlet. The idea was to sail down directly to Florida.

Robbie Burns declared, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

                                             So it was to be.

Well south of Cape Lookout the swell began to rise and the wind came up.

We felt safe knowing that a cork floats so we headed for deeper water. Then it got worse and without a radio we began to wonder. It was midday and we noticed large fishing boats and other vessels heading for land.

We decided where they were going we should go. We just changed course without any idea really where we should be going. Morehead City looked like a good idea.

The swell rose more and more and we had a strong stern wind. It became difficult to sail, but with Ninette taking the tiller when I navigated our way in, all seemed in order. As we drew closer a dozen or more large fishing boats and lauunches, all without sail passed us cutting the waves without problems. We were cutting the waves at an angle quite certain it was alright. But it was painfully slow and sometimes I didn't get the angle quite right.

We had heard of sailing "wing to wing", so we put the Genoa on one side and the mainsail fully extended on the other. It was good theory and we had to try it.  It almost worked and there were a few tough moments but we added the power of our little outboard and surfed along on each huge wave and fell into the trough and came out again on another wave.

For half an hour that was the pattern and we felt that we had it all solved as land came into sight and then slowly Beaufort Inlet appeared. It is so different on a two dimensional chart.

BEAUFORT INLET

We began with great luck with the wind almost astern to enter the channel with the rocks seeming larger than life to starboard (right). The waves were crashing along them sending up almost masthead spray. On the Port side we had no idea what lay there and there was no time to really think. Then we saw the shark fins all around. Probably they had not noticed us at all, but they were there. But for some reason it struck us both as being funny. Ninette began to laugh and we began to sing as we rode for long stretches on the waves just like a surfer might do.

We entered Cutoff Channel and passed to Port an anchored large craft. We were still surfing, still singing, unafraid, the red ensign on the masthead.

We had no idea what it was, but to the passengers who filled the rails cheering, we must have been a sight to see.  Dangerous, foolish perhaps, but it was a glorious memory.

Flying colors of course to Ninette. How many would have passed that test?

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with triumph and disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it.

~Kipling

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