We sailed most of the day--42 miles as the seagull flies from the Long Beach light--to reach Santa Barbara Island, which is only a twin-peaked dot about a mile square far out in the ocean all by itself. There's no cove, just an open roadstead down from Arch Point on the east side of the island, which provides shelter from the prevailing westerlies.
We landed our Zodiac on some flat rocks and hiked the island. No one else was there. There's supposed to be a park ranger, but I guess he had gone off somewhere. We visited the sea lion rookeries around Shag Rock, snorkeled in the kelp beds, watched the sea birds enjoying perfect freedom.
The next morning we set sail for San Nicholas Island, another solitary, 24 miles to the southwest. We seemed to fly there, running on a reach before 25-knot winds. We were so far away from any sign of land or civilization that we could have been on another planet.
We anchored at Pyramid Cove off
the southeast end of the island and snorkeled among the kelp beds there, too, dodging curious sea lions. I
remember it was very windy, and sand blew down on us from the heights of
the island, which is a long way from the mainland. I think the closest
point is Port Hueneme, well over 50 miles of open ocean away.
At
night I slept on deck as I had at Santa Barbara Island and watched the stars. They seemed so close and so
bright, with no lights dimming the darkness. It was like being inside
an upside-down bowl of stars, because they arched from horizon to
horizon with nothing to block them. They rose from the sea and sank into
the sea. The Milky Way was a river of stars bisecting the universe and I
had a clear sense of spinning at the rim of the galaxy on the edge of
infinity. The meteors that streaked across the sky, some leaving persistent smoke trails, only enhanced the intense understanding of just how vast the universe was. Without being aware of it, I grasped a deck cleat and clung to it, afraid of falling upward into eternity.
After raising anchor the next morning, we sailed before the prevailing
northwesterlies to Santa Catalina Island, rushing through the seas in a
perfect glory of sun, foaming waves and sea spray. We moored in Catalina
Harbor at the isthmus, on the southwest side of the island. This is a
very dramatic, narrow inlet, calm and perfectly protected--such a
contrast with the breezy open anchorages of the other islands, with
their endless ocean swells and hazardous holding grounds, requiring you
to set two anchors for safety. We walked over to Doug's on the other side of the isthmus at Two Harbors and had cheeseburgers, fries and draft Miller's while listening to day sailors and hikers chat, watched the ferry from San Pedro arrive and depart. I was back. From wherever I had been.
I had a sudden recollection of that
trip the other day and fell into a vivid reverie. The trip was
one of the high points of my life, not only for the physical sensations but because of the people I was with and the thoughts in my head. I didn't know it at the time. I
guess we never know that when we are living the experience. We only
realize it later, when it's gone forever.
These days, I try to make
myself aware of the passing of time, of what my life is like at the
moment. I remind myself that all this
so-very-real present will soon be vanished irrecoverably, lost in an
ever-receding past. At some point, we will only remember a few distorted highlights...if we haven't completely forgotten it.
The story of our past life is like an absorbing novel that we once read. We recall reading it, the title is familiar, maybe we vaguely recall what it was about, but the details that kept us turning the pages, that made us regret turning the last page knowing we could never again read it for the first time...well, that's all gone.
And so it is with our own lives. All those first times.... I've sailed the Seven Seas many times since my sail to Santa Barbara Island but that was the first time I'd ever sailed out of sight of land, saw the night sky unimpeded by lights and land, heard no human sound. I swore I would never forget it. But it is only a washed-out memory now no matter how hard I try to recall every detail, every image, every thought, every emotion. I can't. It's gone.
"Oh! Then was the sea like a living creature
-- cold, but with a mighty, throbbing heart. I was walking on the heart
of the sea; I was sleeping on it; and I could always, night and day,
feel it beating beneath my feet, or beneath my back. Or perhaps it was
the life, the heart, of the ship that I felt. For now I knew that our
schooner was superbly alive. She carried, amid the snow of her sails, a
living heart and soul."
--Barbara Newhall Follet, Voyage of the Norman D
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;