Windhorse Sailing

Dear Celene,

I recall so often the talks we shared in New York. I would visit your hospital room every evening for our routine of chocolate milk, pizza and prime time reruns. We reminisced about Skytop, school and growing up. We joked about mindless TV, but I remember most vividly how you talked about the future. You mentioned freely how you thought things would be, as we all grew older together. You talked about your art, and you talked about things you would do with your nieces, all with such a smile that no one could have ever suspected the challenges you were facing. Everything you talked about was ambitious and confident. You were then the epitome of hope. You are now the epitome of courage.

When we talked about my future I was eager to put you right in the middle of it, and in many ways there you remain. I never think ‘what would Celene do?’ However, my experience of you shapes the decisions I make. What are the things I want to do with my life? Who will I share my life with? What tempering experiences will prepare me for this future? These are all questions we ask ourselves consciously or subconsciously everyday. Because of you, I decided not to wait for the answers anymore. I decided on a grand experience that would set me apart from the life and the comfort zone I had created. In so doing I would broaden my horizons in every sense of the phrase, opening myself to great love and great ideas. I decided to round Cape Horn under sail. I think you would have recognized the bravery to make such a decision. I hoped our family would appreciate my purpose. And I knew my friends would enjoy the adventure. With that understanding I will do my best to describe to you the day of August 5, 2005 when I left Cape Horn to Port and headed for home.

It’s been almost two months since that day, and while I find it easy to put myself in the memory of that day, I have trouble putting the memory into words. As with most intense feelings, putting it into words makes it something else. Besides, that day was characterized by its silence. A stunned silence we all shared for a large part of the trip. A bit of it was gratitude for shared understanding with Gavin and
Dirk. Most of it was awe for what we had each accomplished to deserve this – Dirk built the boat and Gavin and I sailed it to the Cape.

Outside of that silence we were all focused on the task. I held the tiller for most of the trip ignoring the tension in my shoulders. Dirk and Gavin moved about carefully on the pitching deck manning the radio and the tiny bit of headsail that kept us moving beyond Shangri-La’s theoretical top speed of 9.2 knots. All the while everyone kept an eye on the snow squalls that hit with 60-knot gusts and the waves that I estimated at over 35 feet. Whatever stress or nerves we felt were drowned in the flow of adrenaline that drove us around the Horn and north through a developing low-pressure system to safe anchorage well after dark.

I know that whatever account I ever read of Cape Horn doesn’t do justice to my experience. The skies, the mountains, and the oceans, their descriptions all together are never dramatic enough no matter how poetic their rendering. The skies allow great vistas that are in constant danger of being lost in the violence of squalls that developed so unpredictably in the compression of atmospheric pressure at these latitudes. When the sky clears the Cordillera Darwin, the ice packed southern Patagonian Andes stand above you holding glaciers poised to pour down into the seas. The seas are the mighty Pacific and Atlantic oceans that meet here on the continental shelf. All the accounts that exist can’t help but fail to describe the feeling created by the beauty of this place. It is a beauty intimidated by fear and chased by instincts for survival. In a one day sail from anchorage to anchorage around this 1200-foot pyramid of black rock I received so much more than I came for.

Thank you Celene, for being the example of courage that you are. It is your inspiration that has encouraged me to follow a dream. Now, as I turn for home, I set my thoughts on finally growing up. Inevitably I will take on the responsibilities of a home and God willing a wife and children. But like your spirit I will never grow old. I will never give up my imagination for what lies beyond the horizon. It is my hope to add the color and light to the lives around me that you have added to mine.

Four miles off Cape Horn.

Strong westerlies.

Snow in Ushuaia.

Gavin eyes the next wave.