The Meditation in a Sailing Lesson
written by: H.E. Ross
It was a beautiful San Francisco day. Created for boat, sail, and sea. The breeze was starting to show potential for anything. I smiled at pulling the main and mizzen sail covers back and folding them. Three seagulls were cawing in disagreement about something while circling the marina.
The cumulous moved slowly above the distant hills across the Bay, making an undulating shadow play over brown and green mounds. The Bay was crisp with wavelets and green with invitation to a good sailing party for three: the Bay, Lizard King, and me.
I looked back up at the two gulls circling and cawing. So beautiful they were with their snow breasts and light grey wings etched into the thick cloud puffs and deep-blue sky patches. Perfectly made. Fitting in. I smiled broader at this late night’s late morning poetic vent.
I went forward, slid the focs’le hatch back and dumped the folded covers inside onto the port bunk. I hanked the jib onto the forestay, keeping the sail in its bag.
I let loose the dock lines and pulled the boat stern first out the berth, I pushed her away and went forward and quickly raised the mainsail.
A siren wailed somewhere in the City.
I steered with a half raised mainsail on out of the marina and turned her into the breeze that was moving in from the ocean and through the Golden Gate. Ignoring the rattling and banging of the sail and gaff, I cadenced my steps forward. I pulled the bag off the jib and threw it down the forward hatch, closing the hatch lid with a bang. Back at the mast, I pulled the jib halyard off its cleat and hauled it up, belayed the line, and ran back to pull in the jib sheet, backing the sail and stopping Lizard with a slant to leeward.
Back to the mast, I raised the gaff all the way up. I ran back to the cockpit and put the wheel over, then sheeted the mainsail in to set a course for Sausalito. I pulled over the jib sheet and adjusted it. Once heading in the right direction, I refined my course and let her sail herself a little off a beat. I could then walk her deck with a slight angle of heel and a hand on the cabin top toe-rail.
There was a low, soft line of cloud just a little above a greying bay. The breeze was steady, a little stiff, a little chilled. Sitting on the cabin top, feet forward, looking over the bow I was both serious and happy. I had with me the leaning of heel, urgency of falling away spray, and the soaring of four seagulls. I felt new. Lizard strayed off course with a slight wind change, and I wandered back to finger the wheel over a bit and stared aft at the thick bay green and small bubbles of my disappearing trail.
The jib started fluttering for more adjustments to the helm. I pulled the sail in a bit. I looked at the lines, braided and soft. I looked at the backs of my hands, wet and weathered and veined. I belayed the line, and looked inside those tools I used for skill and pleasure. I should have taken better care of them, they were all hardened-over ancient blisters, chaffed and wet, and cold when I began to think about it.
But the curve of the sails brought me away from remorse. I understood and appreciated this wonder, I was lucky enough to be living through. The sails are what I see most aboard Lizard and they were full and, close reaching, they were forcefully moving us toward the lavender sky of Sausalito. I touched a wheel spoke, nudging it to windward a bit and ran below to retrieve my bottle of wine with the wino on the label. I unscrewed the cap and shook a bit out onto the bay and to Agwe, the West African Spirit of the Sea, and gulped down a bit so he would not be drinking alone.
I heard the traffic noises on the Golden Gate Bridge and let out a bit more jib and main bearing away to counter the ebb tide on this side of the Bay. The temperature was getting milder and the seas were softer and shorter. I took off my jacket.
I let out more sail than needed as we approached the flickering waters of ‘Hurricane Gulch.’ We caught that permanent wind enough to push Lizard on her settled and even keel. Then the air became a calm, soft, warm breeze, and we began to ghost into Richardson Bay. The sails were softly pulling up and forward. The small swell behind us gave us surf time. Our bow wave announced our coming, and our wake said we were gone. Back across the Bay, an invisible fog enveloped San Francisco, and ahead lie the warm and moist air of Sausalito on one side, Tiburon and Belvedere on the other.
I put the bottle in the cockpit on the windward side and turned the wheel to leeward. I pulled in the mainsail to the middle as we gybed around. Lizard was set wing on wing with the jib wanting more sheet. After about ten minutes I pulled the jib to lee and sailed a wonderful broad reach toward Racoon Straits and Angel Island. The current was ebbing still, so I approached the Straights on its northern shoreline with Tiburon and dipped into Hospital Cove on a beam reach. It was empty of vessels, so I rounded up and ran forward to drop my anchor, drifting sideways with the strong current. Down came the mainsail and jib and I sat on the foredeck watching my anchor holding and looked around at the pine and eucalyptus smelling earth.
I brought the bottle up forward with a little cheese, some sour dough and two apples. I carved, drank, ate, drank, carved, ate and ate. I was serenaded, then lulled by the songs of the sirens. The buoy bells and their French horns undulating through the crackling whispered chorus of eucalyptus hillsides. A soft-soft patter of zephyrs touching still waters all around me. We faintly bobbed and settled for no apparent reason, maybe Lizard’s gentle dream made restless. I laid there in the warmth music can only bring and fell asleep happy. When I awoke I saw that the day had passed me by and the sun was hidden by the island. Outside the cove I could see the seas were gaining momentum with an increasing wind. This was going to be a San Francisco sailing day, I could tell.
Deciding upon caution I furled and tied off the mainsail and raised the mizzen and jib. I pulled up the anchor and rode the soft breeze out of my resting place and back into the deep water. Out the cove of peace and into a stiff wind. I had a flooding current with the Westerly wind from the same direction. Bouncing off the narrow Racoon Straits the current swirled, countering itself and countering the countering. I crashed through the island side of the Straits on a beat. Swells grew and it felt almost like ocean heavings. We rode down mountings of water shooting toward the town of Richmond, just lumps on the Eastern horizon.
I decided to get the forestaysail up so I rounded up, ran forward to unlash the sail laying on the deck and pulled it out on the bowsprit with the traveller ring. Hauling it up and sheeting it in I could see that Lizard liked this, and we gained a lot more control and speed for the effort. She gave me a steady motion with little touches to the wheel. As we turned to round the Island to windward the seas were ragged and slop came over her windward side and slipped off the lee. When I began passing Angel Island everything calmed with just enough wind to make me smile.
I aimed for Alcatraz’s Eastern side to tidy up the boat in its lee calm. What a horrible place with its drab tower for water and blocks for a forced meditation. To me Alcatraz was and always will be a monastery dedicated to something evil sitting in the middle of my beautiful bay. I coiled the halyards and pulled the leeward sheets back into the cockpit with neat coils also. That was all the time I had before getting into the blusters again.
The breeze was picking up and the sun was setting. I set a course for the marina with an allowance for the flood. A fog was starting in the middle of the Bay pushing the wind on its sides to more velocity. Lights were starting to go on. I turned my navigation lights on. The grey quickly turned to dark and the waters subsided a bit, as did the breeze. The air was chilly and crisp. I became conscious again of the buoy bells’ soft peals and the soothing notes of the fog horn buoys. Iodine was the bouquet of the evening. I know I was smiling.
The City lights told me where I was and the light fog kept the breeze easy. I went forward and pulled up the mainsail and Lizard accelerated without a leap. She moved forward in place of surging forward. Swells moved out of her way as she paralleled the City-front on our quest for our homeport. I was rubbing my hands together, rubbing my elbows against my sides, nodding my head to the cold air. I was so happy.
The night seas were reflected in flashes from the City’s neon and offices in red, blue, white, green phosphorescence. The fog began to lift but the breeze remained steady, maybe even lightened a little. Moonlight was laughing through clouds that were disappearing. Everything became so clear and everything was wonderful. I was aiming for a lighted Golden Gate Bridge while paralleling the soft radiance from the hills of the most beautiful city in the world on a black sea with a heaven of stars.
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