Oceano - Log Day 10 - Boredom Bliss

We are in the second half of our journey to Saint Lucia. We’ve finally seen the dolphins (they were frolicking for a good couple of minutes next to the bow) and today few crane-looking white birds visited and rested on deck as sort of hitch-hikers before departing for the next leg of their journey somewhere. The crew went ballistic. Dolphins! Birds! Everyone was calling the animals with cutest of sounds and names while taking photos and staring with a joyful grin on their faces.

Every happening on the boat that is out of the routine sparkles inadequate amount of joy in us recently. We love it here, on the ocean, but a sense of boredom is kicking in. We got used to the beauty and the toil of it all. Now sailing is our daily grind. Get up, coffee, breakfast, watch, lunch, cleaning, watch, sleep etc. All is regulated, all flows. We even have all the meals planned as the food is slowly but surely getting more scarce. We’re almost out of beer and sodas. We had to throw some of the veggies away. We’ve got used to each other and we know our moves, likes and dislikes, like a real family. We play all kinds of games. We watch movies. We cook and eat. Last but not least - we read a lot.

I love reading on the boat. I am sentimentally unpractical, so I take printed books for sailing with me. Usually - the fattest ones, like The Infinite Jest or The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert. After I’m finished with all my stuff, I start reading other people’s books and they read mine. We form a kind of sea book club, with discussions, readings and even - performances.

Captain is reading the newest Houllebecq, the rest of the crew reads, among others, biographies, fantasy and horror novels, non-fiction about animal behavior, biographies of political leaders. All day long, only switching places. We’ve tried almost every possible location on the deck - sunlit or in the shadow, bow or back, inside at the table, on the couch. In the swimming suit, in merino wool long sleeve and even in the sailing jacket.

The sound of the ways, the steady motion of the boat makes reading even more pleasurable than on land and the imagination is more capable, stirred by the movement, emptied from unnecessary trash.

Music is also something we appreciate like a tastiest meal. If chosen right, it adds magic to the landscape, enchasing the feelings, bringing us together, making us less ashamed that we are happy to be here, to be alive. I can’t remember if ever, during my busy year, I’ve felt more deliciously, shamelessly happy than when I was singing „Can’t stop me now” by Queen at the top of my lungs while drinking wine and looking at golden waves.
Being at sea brings out the children in us - with the boredom that kids feel and the sudden burst of creativity and excitement that also only they can experience. Suddenly we’re being taken over by a sunset, a particularly thrilling session of „Dixit”, a gust of wind that makes us go around 15 knots, the falling star, bioluminescence, the way the moonlight hits the water, when we have this first taste of banana cake, when we manage to bake a perfect loaf of bread, when we move further in the ranks, when we make a joke stupid as the ones that made us laugh in primary school and we’re laughing our behinds of.

We’re relaxed, we’re free - for a few days that still remain the logic of our adult lives will be absent, replaced by the logic of crew life, togetherness in motion. We will be feeding our subconscious and inner children with a lot of daydreams, play, comfort, safety, wombish feelings of just being, not stained by any worry. It feels so natural to just be - here, on the ocean. And feel - oh god how we forbid ourselves that usually.

I welcome boredom to my mind as the most difficult and beautiful mindfulness exercise, like a sailor’s enlightenment. Her visit means that all that was stress, plans, guilt, all the usual has been replaced by what I want to feel, to create. She enables me to through away all that’s not mine to be, to sleep it out, to wash it away from my eyes and - I am not afraid to say it - from my soul. It is a bliss that was long time coming.

Karolina