Sloop John B

Near where I grew up is an old fort built upon a hill called Phantom.  The only recognizable structures remaining are a munitions dump, a guardhouse, and several chimneys jutting out of crumbling foundations.  Largely because of the name, this place held a fascination for me in my youth, and I would always be excited when opportunity came to visit it or even drive past it on the highway.  Even today, the highway passing by winds through vast open spaces populated only by the occasional ranch house and small clumps of mesquite trees.  It is lonely, windy and dry.  There is today a lake, of sorts, nearby, but water was disturbingly scarce when this fort was occupied in the late 1850s.  One soldier stationed at the fort wrote in a journal about the long periods of hot days and no water.  Indeed, the outpost was ultimately abandoned in part because water was such an infrequent resource.

 

And when I arrived 130 years later, there was little different about the climate.  I have an indescribable affinity for water.  Perhaps I was awkwardly born away from the sea, and there is something eternal within my soul that yearns to be near it again.  Perhaps absence doth make the heart grow fonder, and I owe this affection of combined hydrogen and oxygen to the human desire to define the mysterious or unknown.  I like anything to do with the water: swimming, diving, boating, tubing.  During college, I was introduced to another activity completely outside the scope of my experience.

 

On a crisp, clear and breezy spring Saturday, we went to the lake.  I remember almost everything about this day, the day I was introduced to sailing.  There is fun, history, survival, culture, expertise and hierarchy all wrapped up in this one thing.  Three of us prepared to take out a 25 foot keelboat, a relatively simple sailing system.  I am accustomed to watching the pilot of the boat seated at the helm, where in front he has ignition switches and a wheel and behind there is a powerful engine for propulsion.  All the controls for the boat are concentrated in one location.  The operation of a sailboat is much more complicated by several orders of magnitude, and one of sufficient size is almost impossible for one person to pilot.  To see one on the open water under full sail, however, is an illustration of grace and teamwork and tranquility.  It is beautiful, a fact supported by the quantity of sailboat photographs and paintings adorning walls around the world.

 

Under sail, you've given up control.  You court the wind in order to spurn the water.  There are many elements you may influence, but if the wind does not cooperate, you gain nothing toward your destination.

 

I barely know my port from my starboard, but I want to learn.  If you've ever watched a sailboat race, you've seen crews working hard and synchronized.  I've seen that and it looks like fun; it looks like something I would want to do.  It's not too late to move to the coast.