Me and the Sea

The following is a piece I started writing in 2002.  I've posted it now as a (very long) prologue to my next post:

From as early as I can remember, the sea has played a huge part in my life.  As soon as we were able to hold up our heads, my younger brother and I spent every spring, summer and autumn on our parents 36’ Colonial - "Valhalla", a beautiful wooden 1960’s cabin cruiser.  In the late winter and spring we “helped” our parents’ as it took many full, tiring weekends for them to prepare Valhalla for launching.  My father would replace rotted planks and caulk, repair the diesel engine and an endless list of other tasks.  My mother scraped, sanded and painted the hull and interior from stem to stern, she sewed curtains, cushions & sheets for the bunks.  My brother and I made friends with the other children in the boatyard and we all ran among the dirt piles and chased after hermit crabs in the mud. 

When Valhalla was finally afloat, we spent summers and autumns in various anchorages in New Jersey's Raritan Bay or cruising up the Hudson River, Long Island Sound, Fire Island, Block Island, Cape May and so many other places.  We were all in love with the sea and my father who is of Norwegian descent, claimed it was in our blood.  Sometimes during storms, my brother and I would crouch snuggled together in a corner of the salon, scared and begging our father to turn the boat around.  But he and my mother would reassure us that we were safe, and we knew deep down that we were.  Some of my fondest memories are of sitting on Valhalla's fly bridge, my father standing at the helm, gripping the classic wooden spoked wheel with a grin ear to ear, his dark brown hair blowing in the wind and his eyes tightly squinted in the sun.  As we climbed up waves and surfed down them my father would yell "WOOO HOOO" as though he were a child on an amusement park ride.  I took for granted his ability to fix anything that went wrong or broke down and to steer Valhalla through storms and fog without a hitch.  As a child, he seemed part magician part Superman.  I would lean my head against the rail with such contentment and become hypnotized by the brown foamy water gurgling by the hull (this was during the 1970's before they realized that dumping raw sewage from NY City into the harbor and bay was not such a great idea). 

The smells and sounds of Valhalla gave me such comfort.  During winter, while snuggled in my bed unable to sleep, I'd try my hardest to recreate the sounds of the water swishing past the hull as my brother and I heard it from our bunks in the bow of Valhalla.

In 1984 my father was forced to sell Valhalla due to engine problems that were too expensive to fix.  My brother and I had gotten to the age where we were getting involved with school activities and sports and had begun to take Valhalla for granted.  We didn’t really understand what we were losing until she was gone.  Valhalla had always been there.  She had been a part of our lives, almost a family member.  I remember crying alone after my father told us she had been sold.  He sold her for $500 because her engines didn’t work, and with the advent of fiberglass, no one wanted to do the work involved with owning a wooden boat. She was probably bought for scrap but my father never told me and I'm glad he didn't.   Losing her was a very sad day for our family.  We had made so many memories within her bulkheads.

For 5 years our family was boatless.  We tried going to the beach in the summer to be near the ocean we missed, but somehow it wasn’t the same.  Looking out at the sea from the shore was entirely different from floating atop it.  In 1989 my father was able to purchase an older, used 27’ Bayliner express cruiser.  The joy was back!  It was as though we were picking up from where we left off.  My parents planned trips and again, my brother and I cruised the places of our childhood, now as young teenagers.  As time went on, my parents sold the Bayliner and bought a 36’ Regal express cruiser.  By this time, my brother and I were in college.  Our lives were beginning to take their own paths, but we never passed up the opportunity for a family cruise or just a weekend in Horseshoe Cove.  My family was so happy together on the sea.

I adored my parents’ boat and being out on the sea, but from a young age, I remember staring longingly at the boats in the bay heeled over on their sides with white sails billowing in the wind.  When my brother and I were very young, an older, single man lived on a beautiful wooden sailboat in the dock next to ours.  We became friends and when he invited us aboard, the oil lamps, round brass port holes, gimbaled stove and shiny varnished teak struck me as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.  I knew nothing of sailing at the time, but hoped  I would learn one day.  I was fascinated by how fast the wind-driven hulls glided through the water without an engine and as I got older and more concerned with the environment, I loved the idea that they were utilizing a natural resource rather than polluting the air and water.  I had never even been on a sailboat while under sail but their pure elegance drew me in.  I imagined being out in the open ocean, no land in site, sails flying and salt spray on my face.  I began to feel a deep urge to travel the world's oceans on a sailboat.

My life continued to take it’s own course.  Immediately after college, I got married and my husband Rob and I moved to Highlands, NJ a small fishing town on the New Jersey Shore.  I loved living by the ocean, and took every opportunity to walk on the beach after work or on weekends.  My little dog Happy also loved romping in the waves and sand on a hot day and chasing the sea birds.  My husband knew of my dream and thought it might be a good idea, but maybe when we retired.  I was disappointed, but figured I would learn as much as I could about sailing in the meantime and maybe get the chance to crew on someone else’s sail boat.  After all, my older brother had just purchased a 37’ Endeavor sloop.  Rob and I went to Sail Expo in Atlantic City each January and drooled over the shiny new sailboats, but the dream of sailing into the sunset was a long long way down the road.  Rob was more focused on his career.  I continued to work at my crappy low  paying job, all the while wondering what I was really meant to do in life. 

My marriage, for many different reasons, didn’t work out.  Rob and I split up in August of 1999…our 3^rd anniversary.  It was the most painful thing I had ever endured.  I was plagued by extreme anxiety, depression and insomnia.  I lost weight and started wondering what about life made it worth living.  I moved back in with my parents and my dream all but disappeared beneath a shroud of apathy and darkness.  My only priority was making it through each day without drinking too much or eating too little.  The thought that I could even drive to work and back each day seemed an almost insurmountable task.

As time went on, my deep wounds began to heal and scar over.  With the help of medication, my anxiety attacks and depression lessened.  I began to look farther into the future than just that day.  Slowly as I felt my emotional state stabilizing, my sailing dream peaked its way from underneath the shroud and started to occupy more of my conscience again.  It was still a far off dream though.  I could never afford even an old beat up boat, and I didn’t want to do it alone anyway.  I told myself to be patient, that someday, my dream may manifest itself.

Then I met Mike.  On the first day we met, through a mutual friend, I mentioned something about wanting to sail around the world.  His eyes lit up and he yelled “ME TOO!”.  We started dating and as time went on, our plan began to take shape.  We would buy a boat, spend a year or so learning to sail it, then take off for Hawaii.  It was ambitious and a bit foolish in retrospect, but we were on a mission.  I had never felt such a purpose in life.  We took sailing lessons and read every book and magazine we could get our hands on.  We went to SailExpo and attended as many seminars as we could fit into our schedule.  My excitement was at a level I had never felt before.  It seemed as though every decision we made revolved around our plan.  It was all we ever talked about.  It was all I thought about.

We searched the boat classifieds and looked at a couple of “wrecks” when we finally saw Perdida, a 35’ 1972 Allied Seabreeze Yawl, for sale on the Internet.  She was absolutely beautiful.  Touted as a sturdy off-shore cruiser and a classic, we were anxious to see her.  When we finally traveled to Port Washington, NY on Long Island to see her, we fell in love at first site.  She was a bit over our price range, but she was structurally sound and had been kept in pretty good shape especially for her 30 years.  It was possible that she may have been one of the beautiful sailboats I had admired as a child in the 1970's.  She was one year older than I was.

It was January, and we put a deposit down on her.  I had never been so excited.  I couldn’t sleep at nigh,t barely able to believe that my dream, our dream, was actually happening.  Images of Mike and I anchored in tropical anchorage’s around the world flashed through my head like a slide show on high speed.   I continued to read all I could.  I wanted to be an expert on everything.  I made lists of repairs we would need to make and researched on the Internet how others had gone about doing them.  We joined the Allied Seabreeze Owners Association and took advantage of the organization's vast knowledge of Seabreezes.  I read many books about the cruising lifestyle and some of the stories intimidated and even scared me.  I knew that there would be some really bad and scary times, after all, I had experienced some pretty scary times out on the sea, and although they paled in comparison to some of the stories I read, I was confident that I had a solid basic understanding of the sea from which to build upon.  If I were going to be afraid of the ocean, I would certainly have known it by now.  We began buying some of the equipment we would need.  Especially charts of the Long Island Sound, NY for sailing Perdida down to her new home in Monmouth Beach, New Jersey.

I’m not sure when the transition actually took place.  I can’t remember it happening at a distinct time, all I know is that the reasons for my sleeplessness changed from excitement to overwhelming panic.  I started having vivid nightmares about violent storms at sea and survival situations.  I thought in my head “this must be what everyone goes through when they are faced with a change in lifestyle,  I’m just having normal anxiety.  It should go away in time.”  The nightmares got worse not better.  I would wake up sweating and shaking in fear.  I couldn’t go back to sleep.  As time went on, the anxiety level increased during my waking hours as well.  I found that I couldn’t think about anything else.  I imagined every catastrophe that could possibly happen on a sailboat.  The peaceful images of us anchored in a tropical lagoon were gone.  They were replaced with images of a sinking boat, 40 foot breaking waves, the mast snapping off and worse, Mike being knocked unconscious and falling overboard.  I began to question myself like I never had before. "Maybe I wasn’t cut out for this.  This was too intense.  I’m too much of a mental case, after all, I’ve suffered with Major Depression since childhood."  My excitement and faith in myself all but disappeared.

Soon my anxiety began to seep its way into other aspects of my life.  I was having a hard time at social gatherings.  I felt inadequate and never knew what to say to anyone.  Conversation was such a struggle that I began to fear holiday and family times.  I made excuses for missing dinners and gatherings and self-medicated with lots and lots of chardonay.

We sailed Perdida down from Port Washington in April of 2002.  My father and I took the train to NYC then the Long Island Rail Road to Port Washington where Perdida, our new boat, was docked.  I was definitely in a state of panic, but my father was there and that made me feel slightly more at ease.   The night before we set sail, I had a full blown panic attack on our newly purchased dream boat.  I shook and cried uncontrollably.  I felt like my life was completely out of my control. Why was this happening to me?   I couldn’t stop crying and shaking.  My heart felt as though it would pound out of my chest, and even the sight or mention of food made me nauseated.  Mike tried to comfort me, but he didn’t know what to do or how to help me.  I can’t remember ever feeling so terrified.  I didn't know at the time, but that horrible out of control feeling was about to become the thing that would rule my life for the next few years.

What was happening to me?  Why was my brain so out of control?  How could I go from being so excited and confident to shaking and terrified?  Even being on my parents' boat, something that had always been so comforting, was giving me anxiety.  I was becoming deathly afraid of the one thing I had always loved and taken comfort in - the sea.  How could this be happening? 

I began seeing my therapist again after not having gone for over a year.  I was put on a different type of anti-depressant, one that had shown positive results in those experiencing anxiety.  I was also given  Ativan, a sedative, for the severe attacks.  We explored my problems in therapy.  There were many times I just wanted to give up the dream…give up the boat.  It was just too painful, too torturous.  Somehow, weekend after weekend; I summoned the strength to go out on the boat even though it was like a horrible form of torture.  I took the tranquilizers and talked myself out of most of the bad attacks, but some took a hold of me and I just couldn’t shake them loose. 

One afternoon Mike and I were getting ready to back Perdida out of the slip to go out for a day of sailing.  He was at the helm and I was on the bow to throw off the dock lines.  Suddenly, I was hit with such a severe sense of panic that I became paralyzed.  My vision became so blurred, I could barely see.  I was so light headed, I thought I would pass out.  It’s hard to explain what was going through my mind.  The only words that come to mind are primal panic.  Panic so strong that I thought I was going to die any moment.  I have heard that when a person is in a life threatening situation, their "life flashes before their eyes", if you'll excuse the cliche.  Although I have never realistically been in a life threatening situation, I imagine what I felt was similar.  Images of death and catastrophe flashed through my mind and I could hardly breathe.  My heart was pounding and my hands were shaking violently.  Mike was yelling to me from the helm but I couldn’t move.  “What are you doing ?” he yelled repeatedly.  Finally he re-tied the stern lines, shut off the engine and walked up to the bow.  I was still clutching the bow line tightly in my hand.  He tried to take it out of my hand but I held it tighter.  I was scared to death to let it go.  Why?  Well…..that’s the question I have never been able to answer.  I spent the next few months trying to figure it out.  An explanation alluded me, and still does.  Obviously it had something to do with my fears about sailing or the ocean, but what exactly?  Why now?

I continued to force myself to go to the marina almost every weekend.  Every time we left the dock or even talked about leaving the dock, the anxiety kicked in.  I tried to make excuses for why we shouldn’t go out.  Mike was very supportive and tried gently to force me to confront my fears.  As the summer went on, my fears ebbed and flowed like the tide but were always there under the surface if not right out in front.  As we experienced more things, my fears became less irrational sometimes, but they were always there, holding me back as though I were lashed to a tree.

After having her transported by truck, Mike and I are now living and cruising on Perdida in Southern California and planning our Hawaii trip in April or May of this year.  I still haven’t given up the dream, although it has been the hardest thing I've ever lived through (yes, even harder than the divorce).  I am still dealing with the disappointment I feel towards myself and the feeling that I’ve let us both down.  I have been very humbled.  How could I have been so arrogant to think that all of my dreams would happen without hard work and even pain and suffering?  The real lesson here is that when something is really important maybe it shouldn’t come easily.  By working hard for something or someone, only then does it become a real part of who you are.  The suffering is the real gift if you can learn to accept it as such.  It is the everyday journey you take in life that defines you as a person, not your final destination.