Fear of Sailing?
written by: H.E. Ross
Every time I cast off the last line and make my move toward the water, I have a lot of those little fears that something is going to be wrong. It is a natural thing to fear, not as a reason to run, but a flag that says think about and feel what you are doing. It is not a call to worry either, but to look around and pull your senses out and meld them with your brains to make sure things are the way they should be.
I remember just finishing hoisting my sails and setting course from Puerto Vallarta for the southernmost point of the Bahia de Banderas, called Cabo Corrientes. I noticed a dolphin aside my cockpit keeping pace with my forward motion. I know I was smiling because dolphins always make me smile with their smiles. So, I was just sailing alone with flat water and a nice light steady breeze with jib, main, and mizzen out the way I like it on a broad reach with a dolphin at my side. I was just glorying in that reality and the fact that I only wore shorts with no need for a t-shirt nor shoes.
The dolphin started circling the boat, and I was in heaven. It, and I was thinking it was a she, had a lot of scars, was big for a dolphin, and looked kind of older. I saw that she would circle and circle and lead off to my port side. Then she would return and swim alongside my cockpit and sort of tilt to look at me. Then she would circle the boat and lead off to port again. She kept doing this, and I started to worry about my course. I stood up and saw the island in the middle of the bay where it was supposed to be, and could see no wreckage nor anything floating that I might hit. Then, I started thinking, ‘Why am I paying any attention to what the dolphin was doing?’ and settled back down to basking in the perfect sailing day I was experiencing.
She did it again. Then she did it again. I stood up again but saw nothing ahead, and started thinking she was warning me about something. I got up, leaned down, retrieved my binoculars, and went forward to the bow and scanned the whole horizon to see nothing not known already. She was right there beside me and kept veering off to port and returning and veering off again and again. I looked over with the binoculars to see Ixtapa Cove coming up about a half mile to port and wondered if there was a fire or something she was pointing out, but saw nothing but the cove entrance, a few scattered houses, and the beach sand at the end of the cove. I liked Ixtapa, it was a laid back, laid back sort of place, and people were a good mixture of expats and Mexicanos. And they had a few good bars to hang out at.
I contemplated turning, anchoring, and having a few beers, maybe spending the night, and leaving again in the morning. There was nothing and nobody telling me what to do. I didn’t have to be anywhere at any particular time. So, I decided to follow the dolphin’s advice and relax my sailing and stop where I wanted.
I went back to the cockpit, changed course, gybed my sails over, and broad reached over to Ixtapa, and the dolphin started turning flips and shooting off toward the Cove. I wondered if that was her job, and she got a big fish for bringing customers in. Anyway, she sped up and made small circles and jumped out of the water like she was happy to finally get her message across to someone who was apparently a very dumb sailor.
That night, a storm with close to hurricane winds blew straight into the Bahia de Banderas from the South. It blew right by Ixtapa Cove with only slight runs of mixed swells.
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