Thread by @hughhowey

⛵️ A THREAD ABOUT SAILING ACROSS VAST DISTANCES ALONE ⛵️

I'm lying here on my sailboat in New Caledonia, having just sailed 800 miles across from Australia, and I figured I'd share some thoughts about going to sea alone.

As a science fiction author and a huge fan of the genre, nothing makes me feel more steeped in the genre than long solo passages at sea. The ocean and space have so much in common. Both are beautiful from a distance and deadly up-close. Both are killers that we take for granted.

This recent crossing is not the longest I've been on, but it is up there with the most harrowing. For five days straight, I barely slept a wink. Auditory hallucinations became so real that one night I went on deck with a flashlight in search of something that never happened.

On my last big solo passage from New Zealand to Fiji, a critical line snapped and I put myself in a pretty bad situation. For several days of pounding winds and seas, I braced for the next thing to break. Like being in space, you are utterly reliant on your gear. You are a child.

The problem with this passage was the wind angle. It was so marginal that there was a chance I'd miss New Caledonia and need to sail on to the Solomons or else turn back to Australia. Every degree of angle into the wind mattered, which meant constant adjustments and awareness.

Even doing my best, I missed my hoped-for port by 100 miles and had to pull into an unknown reef-lined cove at night to anchor and wait out the last of the heavy winds. At 5:30pm yesterday, I set off and overnighted to Noumea, where I now get my first real sleep.

Why do this? What's the point?

Part of the point is to be cut off and alone with my thoughts. Part of the point is just to visit another country and take my home with me. But those are more like secondary benefits. The real point is a bit darker.

There's something that happens after a long and difficult passage that we call the "dock high." It's the euphoria we feel as sailors when we set foot on dry land again. You feel taller. Smarter. Stronger. Happier. Healthier.

But the reason for this is sinister.

You feel this euphoria because you just lived deep in the heart of the other extreme. For several days you feel helpless. The wind will not do what you want. Neither will the seas. They just ARE, and you have to cope with that, work within their boundaries.

When you regain your freedom, your access to people, stability, warm meals, hot showers, all the things we take for granted but are really modern marvels, it's like emerging from a cocoon. It is the sloughing off of old skin. You are born anew.

One of my favorite people on this planet, Stewart Brand (@stewartbrand) had an idea once that if people saw a photograph of planet Earth hanging in the dark of space, they would appreciate it more and want to preserve it. He's onto something. But there's more.

Current work by @SpaceX and @blueorigin to put humans on the Moon and Mars undersell what I think will be the greatest benefit of these endeavors. The dock high will become the "Earth high." We will visit other planets briefly in order to appreciate our home when we return.

There have been passages that I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. But I wish I could bottle up the feeling of completing these passages and give them to my dearest friends. Even better would be if we could appreciate what we have without having to live on the edge of losing it.

It occurred to me on this passage the reason - the reason I prefer to sail long distances alone. My partner, you see, skipped this voyage and the next. (I leave in two days to go another 700 miles to Fiji. She'll fly and meet me there).

The reason I go alone is not to be brave.

I go alone so there's no one there to witness how terrified I am.

This has changed over the years. The more I know, and the more experienced I become, the more I see how much could go wrong. The irony here is that experience can make you safer and simultaneously more full of worry. Safety is derived from worry. It's the reason for worry.

Related to this is the various reactions I get about sailing off alone on a 50 foot catamaran. Those who know the most about sailing are the ones who think I'm an idiot. Those who know the least think I'm just eccentric.

I know that I'm an idiot.

The last six days felt like six months. The next week will feel like a similar stretch of time. Like climbing alpine peaks, people will question the sanity of this, none so readily as those who do it. The reason? Not to flirt with death. But to renew my vow to living.