Inspiration

The rigging sang on a broad reach. The sea and sky on a misty
morning were without edges as the rising sun sprinkled diamonds on the
dew swept bright work and gold on the white caps. Salty rivulets raced
across the teak decks. Speed was an illusion. The wind whistled
through the rigging and the canvas, the rolling white caps left a wake
that unraveled and recreated itself. Seven knots was the top speed; it
felt like the Indie 500 as the sea raced away. I often slipped away
below deck as my shift ended, the salt spray washing the ports as the
sun penetrated the bowels of the ship. Curled up on the captain's bunk
with my funky portable computer, I was lost to all but the wake's
rumbling against the gunnels and the occasional "thump" as a higher than
expected wave disrupted the smooth sail. I was the real disruptor.

With agony, I was forced to turn on the noisy, diesel generator to make
drinking water, charge the batteries, and charge the two-hour battery on
my computer. With relief, I returned to paradise when I returned the
ship to its wind and water and stopped the noisy intruder.

Inspiration was all around me, from the memories that haunted me
to the foreign sights and sounds of every new day of blue water sailing
that was never the same as the day before and gave no promise about the
tomorrows. My senses were at constant attention, even in my womblike
cabin. It felt like that, the bowels of that 70' sailboat, tucked in
the aft cabin with only the lazarette between me and an unforgiving
sea.

The teak shelves, with their books locked in place, shouted the
names of great books and revered authors from every nook and cranny of
the cabin, even though they were exchanged in total at the next foreign
ports of call with other ships at sea. I read books and I wrote on my
computer for three grand years of blue water sailing from Fort
Lauderdale to Venezuela to St. Thomas, stopping at every island along
the way in gratitude in comparison to up to 36 hours with no land
sighted, days and nights the same, on open passage crossings.

No other writing environment has ever compared, not the writers'
retreats or the camps or the beach or the swamp or the mountains or any
other wonderful and special place where I expected the creative juice
to flow. I've never captured that agony and ecstasy that only danger
and delight brings at any other location.

When all the senses are in play just to stay alive, the need to create, innovate and think takes
this human, organic covering to the soul to new depths of
introspection. From those depths, comes an author. From terror and
joy, ecstasy and pain, thrills and days of calm, ostentatious plenty and
near-starvation, come the words of an author, the creation of
characters, the heart and soul of a story.

The imagination plays tricks on a sailing vessel. The night sky is black as pitch and ghosts dance
across the deck on a night watch. Phosphorescence dances on the waves
with diamonds jumping from the wake like fish. Ghost ships cross the
bow, close enough to crash and sink us all. Lights flash in the
distance where maps indicate no shipping lanes or markers.

A beacon of light from a mountain shining the way to a lost
harbor that ends a frightening night in a sea of squalls, sheet
lightning and booming thunder so loud it seems to split the hull in half
is the most beautiful light in the world. Fresh water from a rain
storm is the sweetest taste on earth after sludgy water, treated with
bleach and boiled, the last few cupfuls until the sky opened and water
poured sweet into the dodger.

All of these experiences were captured in
my thoughts as I sent my fingers racing across the keyboard, pulling
the floppy disks in and out of a computer without a memory. Sometimes
the stories were about the characters met along the way; others about
something as simple as reading a book in the full light of the moon on
deck or scribbling a thought in the margin.