Swell

by Liz Clark

  As we stay on in the bay, algae grows thick on the anchor lines, and soon Swell has developed a little ocean ecosystem under her hull. Shrimp, crab, algae, tiny young fish, a seahorse, turning bait balls, passing tuna schools, and a roaming manta ray family make us feel part of the underwater party. We often wake to the sound of thrashing near the hull as tuna or other apex predators chase the baitfish into such a frenzy that some of them launch from the sea onto Swell’s deck. I run up and chase after their wiggling bodies, thanking each one for its life with a kiss of gratitude, then tossing them into the pan for a low-on-the-food-chain breakfast delicacy.

  Jesus as a Black Boar

  One day we head off to forage in a new area around the point to the east. I relish the clean, rich air and thank the trees as we walk into the open shade of the forest. I’m daydreaming of guavas and starfruits when something off the side of the trail grabs my eye. It’s a battered old enclosure made of wood and rusty tin roofing. I wander over, curious, and peer inside to see a skinny, wiry-haired adolescent black boar.

  He leaps fearfully to his feet. I jump too, and we both squeal a little. I move closer and so does he, sticking his nose out of the cage and grunting madly. He’s hungry. I look around for a nearby home but see no signs of habitation or his owner. He stares out at me, hoping for something to eat. I apologetically explain that we are just getting started, but I will have something for him on our way back. His grunting quiets. We lock eyes for a long moment.

  I see his suffering—his hunger for food, love, and freedom. Suddenly my emotions blindside me. He is so desperate and voiceless, begging me with his eyes to do something for him. I feel so helpless. I call to Rainui from the side of the cage.

  “Can’t we free him? Don’t we have anything to give him?”

  “He’s not ours. We could have trouble if we let him out,” he calls back. “Someone could be watching us right now. It’s okay, we’ll bring him some fruit on our way back.”

  No, it’s really not okay. The boar continues staring at me with his deep, powerful gaze. I don’t know why, but the image of Jesus comes into my mind. It was the same look that I saw on those crosses in my junior high years at Catholic school. Have mercy. How can we as humans not sympathize with the suffering of animals? How is it fair to treat them like property? It’s obvious that they feel emotions and pain just like we do. I’m dizzy at the plight of the boar and all the animals around the world enduring enslavement for our food—especially in isolation or cramped enclosures, or even in a pasture where they have no real chance to feel freedom.

  I walk away feeling like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Like all those years eating meat and drinking milk I had been tricked, not realizing what torture and suffering I was supporting. I’ve seen caged animals hundreds of times and felt sad for them, but never like this. I must have been too busy thinking about myself to pay attention—but this time the message is loud and clear. I just met Jesus as a black boar.

  The Shadow Side

  Rainui’s darkness continues to resurface periodically, his jealousy provoked when I don’t comply with the norms here—like not looking down when shaking hands with a man, or being too friendly. Each time, it’s more extreme. In one dreadful incident, an older local man cops a feel of my backside, and Rainui blames me, belligerent and furious. “I love you too much!” he screams, and punches the walls while I huddle in fear.

  I know it’s time to break it off with him, but the problem is getting him off the boat here, where I don’t have the support network I need. He is so charming with our local friends; I’m afraid they won’t understand if I ask for help. To further complicate things, Swell’s autopilot and wind vane are broken. The autopilot is going to be a complicated fix and Monita needs a spring that we haven’t been able to find. Without these two units functioning, the 1,000-some miles of passage-making to get back toward Tahiti will be nearly impossible on my own, so I have to be patient, try to keep him feeling secure, and stick it out until then.

  My stress and anxiety start to surface in the form of injuries, illness, and bad luck. The bottoms of my feet have developed a painful condition; it now hurts to walk barefoot. My right knee is still weak from previous injury, my surfboard smashes me in the face, my big toe blows up with an infection from a small splinter, and then I strain the ligaments on the top of my left foot from, ironically, sitting too long in lotus pose to meditate. One night I awaken to the stings of a six-inch centipede on my bare belly; it must have come aboard in a bag or bushel of bananas. The ominous creature escapes behind the diesel tank before I can catch it.

  Of the Stars

  We begin to work our way south in the lush island chain as the five months of cyclone season come to an end. On our last stop, we harvest fruit to take to a tiny atoll where Rainui’s father grew up, 250 miles south and not far out of our way. Rainui meets aunts and uncles and cousins for the first time, and they are delighted with our 200-pound delivery of bananas, limes, mangos, papayas, starfruit, and taro. We can’t stay long due to the unsafe anchorage, and sail on.

  With the wind behind us, it’s smooth sailing. We could wait somewhere and order the parts to fix the wind vane or autopilot, but I prefer to carry on steering by hand so as not to slow my path toward freedom. We move quite quickly—covering over a thousand miles in two months with only four stops.

  The obligation to steer has multiple rewards. Hands on the wheel, I’m engaged in every gust, every passing cloud, every lifting wave, as Swell and I surf down the following seas. I find the sweet spots in her old sails and learn more about her every day. Plus, maneuvering her through mile after mile of dynamic ocean, I become an active participant in the scene. As the waves pass beneath us, they pull the rudder right or left, and my arms strengthen in the long hours at the wheel. I gaze out at the ocean panorama: ever-changing, ever-wondrous. I follow wavelets on the sea surface, the teeny ones stacking upon the next, always in hot pursuit of their mates up ahead—until suddenly they are both overtaken by a much larger wave, and swallowed in a gurgle of white foam.

  Subtleties surface each hour as the day progresses. At every angle of the sun, the rays play on the water and clouds in their own exceptional way. Sunrise and sunset steal the show, but midmorning’s fresh rays uplift, high noon’s brilliance astounds, and mid-afternoon’s bending yellows soothe and foretell day’s end. When the last remnant of the sun’s glow disappears, we are suddenly sailing through the unbridled heavens— perpetual, sublime, infinite, mysterious—always reminding me that no matter how much I think I understand, I know so very little.

  I cover the GPS and practice steering by the stars, aligning them with the masthead or halyards—Taurus, Hercules, the Pleiades, Corona Borealis, or the Great Hook (as the Tahitians call Scorpio)—whichever star cluster lines up at that moment. Cloudy evenings hide my magnificent celestial guides, but I steer by maintaining our angle to the wind waves—checking the compass only now and then when I feel lost. When the winds are light, I lie back and steer with my feet to watch for shooting stars. When fatigue overcomes me, Rainui and I switch.

  Applying my mind to sailing twelve hours a day, I develop an ever-deeper respect for the ancient Polynesian navigators and their intimate knowledge of the oceans, heavens, and universal forces. These masters steered all over the Pacific in seagoing double canoes with the sky as their only chart.

  What a sad irony that the descendants of the Earth’s greatest water travelers are now almost completely disconnected from their traditional form of voyaging. While sailing canoes are experiencing a small revival in the region, most people today can’t even leave their home island unless they can afford a plane ticket or are able to secure a rare place on a cargo ship, making it difficult to gain perspective and feel pride in their great ocean heritage. I hope the revival continues. To test one’s strengths on an autonomous sea voyage provides a chance to gain the self-knowledge, wisdom, and reverence for life that come from navigating the unfamiliar.

  I imagine t
he ancestral navigators were intimately in touch with their intuition. Raw vulnerability makes one listen with every cell. The times when I have no guidebook, or Google, or any clue what to do—on or off the sea—I try to let my emotional guidance system lead. If I can quiet my mind and let go of my desired results, something deeper kicks in. That inner voice speaks up—the voice that is connected to the all-knowing, the omniscient—and damn, it’s smart!

  But even when I don’t act upon the advice, the voice also assures me there are really no mistakes in eternity, that we are all of the stars, and that we all eventually find our way home.

  18,685

  Nautical Miles Traveled

  Darkness

  and

  Light

  T-Bone and a She-Hero

  At 2 pm on a clear, breezy afternoon, Swell sits at anchor one short hop from Rainui’s home island. I’m seated at my little desk in the cabin talking to my dad on the phone.

  Suddenly I hear yelling and look out the window as a large catamaran barrels straight at us! Smash! The fifty-foot charter yacht T-bones Swell, ramming its port hull into her starboard side, just above the waterline slightly aft of the rigging. I hang up quickly and race up on deck.

  The crash bends some stanchions, busts the lifelines, and kinks the forward lower cable of the rig. Rainui is yelling and cursing at a gray-haired American flailing his arms on the bow. The hull took the brunt of the hit. Its fiberglass wall gouged and flexed inward far enough to split and splinter the interior wooden siding, drawers, and bookshelf. I try to calm Rainui down while the captain, his wife, and a friend anchor behind us and then come over to assess the damage. They are less than apologetic, and even try to get me to sign a paper listing the evident damage.

  “You know,” he smirks, “just in case this turns into a pissing match.”

  My capacity for kindness hits the deck. He knows as well as I do that until the paint is stripped down, the rig is climbed, the closet emptied, and chainplates assessed, we can’t know the extent of the damage. He doesn’t care that he nearly just sank my home—he is only out to cover his own ass, knowing that his recklessness is going to cost him. The fact that the boat is rented further complicates the situation.

  Rainui and I are both upset over the crash, but when Kepi, my tube guru girlfriend, comes to visit the next day, we try not to think about it and just enjoy hanging out. She’s with some male friends on vacation from Hawai‘i. I’m excited to see her after a year, so we chat and tell stories in English, just relaxing.

  As soon as they leave, Rainui starts asking me what I said to them. I translate but he doesn’t believe me. Maybe this is karma for the men I lied to, for all the hearts I sailed away from. Or maybe he senses that I’m pulling away as our trip is coming to an end.

  He badgers me angrily that evening, but I have no more energy to give to his jealousy. I can’t even respond. I have offered him so much love and spiritual wisdom and so many opportunities to get his fear under control. He’s turned too many beautiful days gray. I have given him my heart, my soul, my body, and my possessions. I have pleaded with him and praised him, banged my head against the wall to get him to understand how much I love him. I am defeated. Nothing works.

  My failure to react frustrates him even more. He starts drinking all the alcohol he can find and lashes out—pushing me around, hitting walls, and threatening to break valuables. I fight back at first, even try to punch him, but soon realize it’s useless. He takes my phone away so that I can’t call for help, and when I cower in my bunk, he harasses me, threatening more violence for hours.

  When I open my eyes early the next morning, Rainui is sitting in the cockpit, still drinking, and having trouble holding himself upright. I can’t believe I’m in this nightmare. I have to get away, but I know he will stop me from taking the dinghy. I sneak out the forward hatch, planning to swim for shore to get help. At the bow, I hear the whiz of Kepi’s Jet Ski as she’s taking her friends out for a surf. I wave my arms wildly to hail her without making a sound. I’m relieved when she makes a sharp turn toward Swell. Grief is written across my face.

  “Are you okay? What happened?” she says. I can hardly speak. My words are stuck in the shock and sadness that clogs my throat.

  “Help me ...,” is all I can manage to choke out. “I wanted to call you but he took my phone.”

  Without hesitation, she whips the ski around toward the cockpit and calls to Rainui in French, “Hey! Yeah, you! You’re going to give back her phone right now. Then you either get on this ski and I’ll take you to shore, or I’m going to get my husband.”

  He turns to me to defend him and I look away. “Get your bag together,” she warns him. “You’re getting off this boat.”

  Shattered

  Alone among the reminders of the evening’s hideous events, I wonder how on earth love can express itself in such an awful way. Our romance is shattered into Plexiglass splinters on the cabin floor from the cupboard door he smashed.

  Kepi saved me that day, but also in the days to come—again and again— from sinking into a pit of painful memories, crippling emotions, regret, and self-pity. She picks me up to go surf early each morning, then brings her adorable kids over to swim and jump off of Swell in the afternoon. And each night, she invites me to join her family for dinner.

  Over the next three weeks, living on my poor damaged Swell, I show myself that I can still do everything on my own. My injuries still annoy me, but like I did before Rainui, I find a way to take care of every task. Some days I lift the water jugs with tears in my eyes; other days I lift them with a fierce love of feeling free again. Some days I see the machete he left behind and feel sad; other days it makes me look away.

  I don’t want to go anywhere near him ever again, but there’s one problem. The charter company that owns the offending catamaran is based near Rainui’s parents’ home. I have to go there for them to assess and repair the damage to Swell. I try to figure out an alternative, but there’s no way around this. So with a ticket to fly to California in five days, Swell limps back to the rental base with her cracked hull and damaged rig. I figure I have just enough time to get her hauled, get the repairs going, and get the hell out of there.

  A Pain in the Neck

  I see a parking spot on my right and pull in. I sit there for a moment, watching California’s morning sun glitter on the Pacific. Small waves trip on the shallows and spill upon the shore. I look out at the horizon and find comfort. This parking lot is closer to the ocean than any others I know in San Diego—if there is anywhere I can hobble to the water, it’s here. My mother doesn’t have to know.

  Thanks to the stretched ligaments on my left foot that seem to be getting worse instead of better, I have been cooped up in my parents’ condo for a month. I successfully completed a speaking tour through Patagonia’s west coast stores right after I arrived, but since then I’ve been stalling my departure. I’ve massaged my foot. Iced it. Stayed off it. Gone to acupuncture. And rubbed it with Chinese herbs. But it refuses to heal. I can’t surf, I can’t do yoga, and I certainly can’t go back to work on my wreck of a boat.

  In addition to the damage from the collision, Swell accumulated quite a list of things to be fixed after the year of heavy use. The biggest job will be dealing with the decks, which are cracking and splitting. They need to be stripped and refinished to keep water from leaking into the sandwiched wooden core. It’s a huge job and I’ll be stuck working on it for too long and too close to Rainui to feel safe. I haven’t shared the scary details of the ordeal with my family or friends, but maybe my subconscious—in the form of a sore foot—is keeping me from throwing myself to the lion.

  The tide is dropping, and one particular sandbar beckons as the second consecutive right peels and spits. With an hour to kill and a bladder full of tea, a swim is in order. My doctor’s appointment isn’t far. A family friend has agreed to look at my foot—I have a handful of black pearls for him since I have no US health insurance. I wriggle excitedly in
to a swimsuit in the driver’s seat; California has been the hottest I can remember this summer and fall.

  I open the door, hobble down the rocks, and limp toward the sea. In six inches of water I fall to my knees and submerge my head. The chilly ocean feels like ecstasy in my pores, stinging and tingling. I open my eyes underwater to feel the cold on my eyeballs and then stroke out into deeper water.

  I float inside the surfline for a bit, content to be lying in the sea’s embrace again until a small peak outside grabs my attention. I swim out and push off into a clean little line, bodysurfing toward the shore, euphoric to be gliding again. I can’t resist going back for one more.

  I head back out and wait until a line spikes up. I swim into position and slide down the face as it sucks up under me. And then an odd warble suddenly crops up, tossing me head over heels as the wave closes out. My head hits the sand while the wave pushes my body toward the beach. I hear and feel a loud crack at the back of my neck.

  “Okay. I’m conscious,” I think, floating to the surface. I wiggle my arms and toes. “I’m okay.” I let the water push me in to the shore, and I stand up. Pain grips my neck. I drive myself up the street to my sister’s house, and use her phone to call my emergency nurse girlfriend, Chrissy.

  An hour later, Chrissy pokes my left arm with an IV and checks to be sure my neck brace fits properly. “If it’s nothing, we’ll just go home, but it’s your neck, girl. I’m really glad you called me.” Luckily, she had answered and raced to pick me up.

  Dr. Healy soon appears and points to the CT scan results. “See right there? You have a fracture at C3.” Tears run down my face at the news. “You’ll be fine in a few months,” he says.

  The director of the ER is a fan of my blog, and stops in to say hello. “I’m so happy to meet you, but so sorry it’s here!” he says. He waives his personal hospital fee and explains how lucky I am. Had the bone cracked only a millimeter more, I would have likely drowned before someone found me.