This Free

The last day or two have been fantastic. Not that we have done any sailing, we have motored from Almerimar to Gibraltar arriving at three o’clock this afternoon. These days have been so good because I have been thinking so much, and so creatively. My mind has been flying around philosophy and purpose and the sea and people and anything else I can get into my head. It all began yesterday morning…

I woke early, really early five o’clock maybe. Lying watching the sky lighten through the small hatches in my cabin I was kind of thought free. Unable to sleep I found music and listened to a current favourite – The Postal Service. We had another lazy morning, walking up to the chandlery and doing a bit of shopping. As we motored out into the bay, sails were set for the gentle breeze, I stood on the foredeck staring out across the bright water and started talking.

For a few years I have found great pleasure in making up lyrics of poetry on the fly. Speaking or singing and seeing what pops into my head. I am sure the product is never great art, but it is fun and a nice way to play with words. Trying to create sensible, meaningful sentences that fit with the tune or meter and rhyme from time to time can be quite tricky. More than this however it is an interesting way of loosing your subconscious. In speaking this quickly I often find that I have said something I didn’t realise I thought before I could stop my self saying it.

So, I was standing there and started talking like a madman to the waves. As I talked I kept coming back to this one line:
“They don’t know what it feels like to be this free”
I think something in me snapped. The tie that had been holding me to home, to family, to friends just went. I no longer wished to be there, to be back with them telling them about my doings, I wanted to be here and free. I didn’t understand what I meant to be free, I didn’t realise just how strong a feeling it can be. I have no ties, I have an infinite amount of possibilities and I have a whole world to enjoy them in.

This sensation has lent a sort reckless happiness to everything since. I played guitar with such new passion, my calloused fingers moving with a precision that pleased me so much I laughed loudly. I cackled at a new combination of notes, I sang words from my head, forgetting them as soon as they were sung. I danced on the foredeck to music in my head, I read Graham Greene and shook with mirth as Our Man In Havana’s situation worsened. It was really quite superb.

Later as the sun was setting I sat up at the Michael’s shout of dolphins. Off the port bow we could see ten maybe twenty black fins in the water, bursting to the surface in search of air. They got closer and closer, soon all around the boat we could see some kind of small whale. They were in front of us and behind us and under us. I could see their black heads glistening in the falling light as they broke the surface. A minute after they had passed dolphins joined us, four of them joined the bow wave, playing in it. Sat on the bow seat I could see every detail of them, their long slender bodies, their sharp powerful tails, the gleam of their pale underside and the sparkle in their eyes. For ten or fifteen minutes they played in the sunset, and I jubilantly happy, clapped and laughed and poured superlatives down at them from the bows.

My watch that night was fantastic too, the big fat moon, one day off full lit up the world. It was so bright it sparkled on the sea and I wondered about the lack of a good moon-tan lotion on board. I listened to the Cinematic Orchestra and ate a mars bar; I watched a ship pass and thought. Every hour or so the dolphins returned, splashing along side they cheered me still further. After a cup a soup I got lost in my philosophical bug bear that is Free Will, Determinism and Fate. As always finding no answers but thinking better, more clearly than I had in ages. Tolstoy made an appearance, as did Asimov bizarrely.

I thought of the sea and how alien it is, how scary. I compared my panic stricken fear at a jelly fish sting to the more controlled reaction to the similarly painful hornet that stung me last summer. I had shouted in shock and pain at the time of the hornet, and shaken uncontrollably for an hour but I was never scared only sore. The jellyfish grabbed at something much more primal, with no recourse to fight I had to choose flight. Being out of my element I couldn’t flee, I just splashed and got scared. I wondered about how happy the dolphins made me, not just because they are beautiful, but because they are safe seeming. They breath air, they look after their young, they play with each other, they join yachts and are sociable. They seem like a safe presence in a scary alien world.

This is all getting a bit long but just time to mention that as I came on watch again at nine this morning I climbed into the cockpit clutching at my oh-so-essential coffee they came back. So once again I stood at the bows, this time as the sun rose, and watched the dolphins play. Morning coffee, cool clear air and dolphins to watch; I wish you all knew what it felt like to be this free.