Gilboy’s Quest

by Sam Ivey

Chapter II : In Poseidon’s Crucible
part 3 of 3

But today he ran easily before the wind, and since his speed across the water was virtually the same as that of the wind itself, there was little sensation of movement. In the quiet of the afternoon, therefore, he lay back and closed his eyes, allowing the sun to bathe his naked frame. He noticed as he did so, that he had lost some weight. Not surprising since the sweets and desserts that seemed to have always been the conclusion of many of the meals back home, were no longer part of his decidedly spartan diet.

As he lay there, nibbling on a piece of roast salmon and occasionally watching the brilliant whiteness of the clouds as they drifted lazily across the sky’s crystal clean blueness, the boat suddenly struck something that almost brought it to a standstill. The stern heaved up and slewed to port as he was almost thrown overboard. The sails slatted rebelliously, and the rigging groaned in complaint. And then she recovered.

Nevertheless, he scrambled to his feet in seconds, controlled panic being the presiding emotion. Again, for the second time this day, concern for the hull’s integrity was uppermost in his mind. The violence of the impact seemed most certainly to have had the capacity to cause a rupture.

Permitting the jib to fly free, and quickly dropping the main and foresail, he went forward with his heart in his throat, dreading what he imagined he would find. There he lay on his belly, hanging far over the side as his hands felt below the waterline for any sign of a fracture. There was nothing; he could feel nothing. Then he opened the forward hatch, moved the cartons and water kegs until he could see the bottom of the boat clearly, and again he found nothing. There was no water in the boat; the hull was undamaged.

But what was it? What had he hit? Standing now, his eyes scanned the ocean’s surface, looking back along his path for whatever it may have been. Shading his eyes against the sun’s glare, he finally saw it. Lying there unobtrusively, submerged in the water, was a piece of 2 x 6 timber, about 24 feet in length. He had struck it and had then sailed over it. Reflectively he felt himself fortunate that it had not been something larger, something that could well have caused the fracture he had feared.

He breathed a great sigh of relief, and the panic began to ebb away until he thought of the rudder. After quickly making his way back to the stern, he was again relieved to find that it too was undamaged. His anxieties now at rest, he considered the whole incident to have been a near miracle. Then for a while he sat in thankful prayer. He was still afloat, no thanks to himself.

On course again, he put fresh coffee in the pot, lit the stove and boiled a cup to settle his nerves. It was a thing of this sort that all solo mariners feared. Next to the threat of fire, the loss of hull integrity was the prime concern. He was well aware that with the exception of a single watertight partition, about 12 feet back from the bow and just aft of the mainmast, there were no integral provisions for buoyancy in his little vessel. But should that fore part of the boat become flooded, it would be only a matter of time before Pacific went to the bottom.

Wednesday, September 13th, passed, with the wind and weather unchanged. He had been almost a month at sea now, and what most persons would decry as loneliness had become to him simply another way of life. He was an extremely well balanced man in that respect: as gregarious as the next person, yet capable of not only accepting extended periods of isolation, but of genuinely finding excellent pleasure in such quietude. It was a quality that accommodated him well to the sea, with its inconceivably vast emptiness.

How unlike Boston, he reflected, with its teeming populace enduring the demandingly close proximity of one another; where all were required to conform to societal standards, be they reasonable or otherwise. But here on the ocean, one could do as one pleased and be accountable to no one, save to God.

Here, where the sea itself could misbehave as it chose, where it could exhibit its wild and unseemly antisocial tantrums; here, where it could give vent to its insentient emotions, and where it could exhale its demonic wrath in wordless expressions to the unhearing void; here was raw, naked solitude. To many, such would be unendurable.

A light! Early on Thursday morning and amid intermittent squalls, he saw a light. Here was another human; here was a fellow voyager, a welcome compatriot who made for a difference rather than sameness. He looked at his watch; it was 3:00 a.m. on the 14th, and the tiny glow was astern of him, perhaps some seven or so miles distant. This was the second sighting since his departure, and despite his self-sufficiency, he felt an eagerness that he should be seen. There was no conscious thought of it, but subliminally it was important — almost critical — that he be acknowledged as existing.

As quickly as he could he lighted one of his two lanterns and then fastened it in the rigging of the mainmast. Then he waited for recognition. He felt certain that he was seen. But surprisingly the vessel appeared to alter course and to bear away to the west. Curious, he thought. So very unusual it was that a vessel at sea would deliberately avoid contact. For that is what appeared to be the case.

But then even at sea there are personalities, and perhaps among a thousand, a single agoraphobic sailor who feels unfettered from the ancient, universal maritime code of fraternity. When daylight came, he entered the occasion in the log.

As the day progressed the wind became baffling, shifting precipitously with atmospheric whimsy, and sail trim became a constant effort. The sea itself, however, was relatively calm and smooth, and even the cantankerous wind was at least warm, indeed very warm. It was, doubtlessly, a precursor of the tropics, as he was now almost dead southeast of Hawaii and about half way between San Francisco and the Marquesas Islands. So throughout the day he labored with the fickle elements, and the rain persisted with light little squalls that came and went.

By late afternoon — the rains notwithstanding, and in spite of his disappointment at not being countenanced by the passing vessel — he concluded that it had been a generally delightful day. So, after a dinner of bread and roast chicken, he chose some peaches in milk as a tasty dessert. Following that he made coffee, and then prepared a cup with sugar and milk as a change of pace. Usually he preferred it black.

And now it was evening. With the sun well below the horizon, and with Pacific ghosting along in a light northerly breeze, he decided to resume his reading of the Bible. As he did so, he recalled his remark to Howard Sutro: that he felt that this book would bring him a lot of comfort. And such had been the case thus far.

While Gilboy was not one that a person would consider to be a religious man, yet he was a man of morals. Although not overtly pious — indeed he took a dim view such displays — he appreciated the Bible. And while he understood it to be God’s Word, he nevertheless found it to quite earthy in some respects. And this evening, and in that context, he spent several minutes locating a seafaring narrative that he remembered and wanted to read again.

Daylight was fading and the moon had risen as the search finally terminated in the record in Acts, chapter twenty-seven. There he re-read of an ocean voyage by the apostle Paul, when he, as a prisoner of the Romans, had sailed from Crete, bound for Rome. Gilboy could easily relate to this maritime account, and in his mind’s eye he found himself in company with Paul, and suddenly being hammered by the Euroaquilo, that viciously savage wind; that destroying wind that periodically sweeps down across the Mediterranean from the northeast, wreaking havoc on those seamen unfortunate enough to be caught in its path.

As he read by lantern light of Paul’s eventual shipwreck, he became intensely absorbed in the record, sipping thoughtfully on his coffee as he did so, and experiencing vicariously the strain, the fear, and the intense anxiety of Paul’s circumstances.

It was then, in this state of aroused emotional tension, that he was startled by a sudden and unusual sound, as if of a great wheezing exhalation. He jumped, spilling some of the coffee as he did so; and as he looked about in the darkness, he discovered himself to be in the midst of a pod of whales. Either he had sailed into their midst, or perhaps they had overtaken him. And now, as their great, dark masses would come heaving up from the depths to lie burnished by the silvery moonlight, the sound of their spouting punctuated the air periodically. And the exhausted air from their massive lungs would gush powerfully from their blowholes amid a mist salty spray. Then, with a colossal intake of air, they would again submerge silently below the surface.

He watched with trepid fascination. What enormous beasts these were, these hundred-ton cetaceans. He was acutely aware that if one of them should happen to surface under his boat, that he could be capsized at the very least and possibly sunk. And this would be due to no malicious intent on the part of the creature. They bore him no ill will; there was no issue between them. But he was, after all, an alien in their world and subject, as it were, to their laws. So any such adversity, should it occur, would be nothing more than the outworking of circumstances. Consequently their very close proximity was highly unnerving, and he felt most uncomfortable. He was extremely grateful when, after too long a time, they moved on.

It was Friday, and clothing littered the deck and festooned various parts of the rigging. The sea lay almost mirror-like around him, while the air was calm and very warm. The young breeze that had arisen last evening had died away, leaving Pacific to sit above her reflected counterpart, virtually unmoving — rather like the Ancient Mariner’s “painted ship upon a painted ocean.” Since little else could be done, he felt it an ideal time to air out the forward part of the boat, as it had acquired a distinctively musty odor, and to do likewise with his wardrobe.

There were, of course, no facilities for laundering; so this exposure to fresh air, under a clear, sun bright sky, served to restore some measure of freshness to a decidedly meager collection of trousers, shirts and undergarments. To more thoroughly accomplish that task, some wind would have been helpful in these late morning hours. But old Aeolus, the Greeks’ god of wind, was not so disposed. Not, at least, until about 5:00 p.m. when a pleasant zephyr of a wind sprang from a little westward of north, and Pacific began to stir.

Thus it was that with all his laundry abroad, and whipping about from stays and shrouds like so many nautical pennants, and with all of her canvas spread, she presented quite a colorful spectacle as she went broad reaching in the welcome breeze. South-southwest and a quarter west she sailed, on a course of 205º, and the day passed, as did the evening.

Then on through the quiet hours of blackness and on into Saturday she sailed. Then this entry in the log: “September 16, 4:30 a.m. Calm and smooth sea; a school of porpoises coming toward the boat.”

Sitting at the helm, he watched them coming, their sleek bodies glistening in the pre-dawn moonlight as they leaped and gamboled across the intervening water. Appearing to be legion in number, hundreds at a time would hurl themselves into the air, creating a spectacular silver-on-black tapestry. They would arc through the pale luminescence of the morning, and then dive almost soundlessly back into the ebony water. They were like children of a kindergarten class, he thought, suddenly released on the last day of school and bursting from the schoolhouse doors in reckless, uncontrolled euphoria.

On they came, their course never altering, until he was surrounded; and then all around him the ocean shimmered like spangled, black satin. For an all-too-short time he watched them as they frolicked in their passing, diving under the boat to surface on the opposite side, moving with graceful, effortless ease; a symphony of motion, an entrancing aquatic choreography. And then they were gone, absorbed into the darkness out of which they had come.

It was then, in the ensuing silence, that he hove-to according to his pattern. He headed the vessel up into the wind, rigged the drogue and retired for the next few hours. In the log he entered the time as being 4:00 a.m.

His rest proved to be a short one, and after breakfasting on roast salmon, toast and tea, he made sail and was underway at 10:00 a.m. in a light breeze.

As he began the day’s entry in the log this morning, he noticed a chronological error. Somehow he had logged the encounter with the porpoises as having taken place at 4:30, yet the time of retiring had been recorded as being at 4:00. He had evidently misread his watch in the darkness, but he was uncertain as to which of the times was incorrect. That being the case — and thinking that in retrospect it made little difference — he left the record unchanged. The event, the action was there; that was the point. Or could it be that his mind was beginning to play games with him. This matter of keeping track of time, with no peripheral references, could easily become muddled. It was highly unlikely, he thought, but on some future day perhaps, someone would read his log, and they might wonder at the inconsistent record. That thought produced an inward smile.

Around noon some passing squalls returned, and he hurriedly gathered in the clothing, folded it after a fashion, and stored it back in the forward compartment. The sky had now become heavily overcast, reducing the sun to an obscured radiance and making a fix by sextant impossible. However, he marked a dead-reckoned position on the chart and entered it in the log as being 12º, 45’ north, 138º, 20’ west.

He was an excellent navigator, so this assumed position — though it exceeded the distance indicated by the taffrail log, which was 317 miles since last Saturday — was an intelligent approximation, it being based on past performance. This estimated position, if correct, would allow for him having covered some 390 miles in that time. Meanwhile the wind remained light, and the rain, which had now become steady, continued throughout the day.

It drizzled on through the night and on into Sunday morning, before starting to clear shortly after 10:00 a.m. Then, as Sunday gradually became yesterday — with his routine of eating, exercising and reading filling the passing hours — it was not until midnight that the light wind, which had prevailed since Friday afternoon, veered to the northward and held until he hove-to at 5:00 a.m. on Monday. Four and a half hours of sleep then followed, and after a breakfast of coffee, roast chicken and bread, he was underway again at 10:00 o’clock.

As he had eaten, he reflected on the fact that today he had opened the fourth can of bread; he had consumed one-fifth of his supply, and he had covered about a third of the length of his voyage. He felt good about his provisioning estimates, and if things could continue at this rate, nourishment would prove to be no problem. But immediately ahead lay the Doldrums, those notorious latitudes with their cranky, indecisive winds; indeed, with no winds at all at times. And not to be unexpected: the possibility of having to sail back over distances already covered. Not at all a pleasant aspect.

He chose, however, not to reflect on that at any length, because today was a day of some significance: today marked the beginning of his second month at sea. And while the thought of celebration had occurred to him — as it had on the occasion of his first week at sea — he dismissed it as frivolous, electing to not even mention it in the log. But the wind, perhaps as if in compensation for the absence of a celebration, continued favorable throughout the balance of Monday. It was a steady breeze that carried him on into Tuesday, while the squalls increased in number and the seas began to rise a bit higher.

Then on Wednesday, September 20th, his battle with the equatorial winds, with the Doldrums, was joined. Now he was headed, as the wind swung around, to the southwest; now the wind veered to the south, only to back into the west in a couple of hours; now he was becalmed, as the wind disappeared altogether. The crucible was heating up again; Old Poseidon was exercising his territorial sovereignty. There was little doubt: the days ahead would prove to be difficult ones.

To be continued...