Crossing the Pacific is nothing like I imagined. It is not the vision-- after so many months aboard Gypsy, honing solo endurance skills and learning to sleep in 20-minute snatches. Having read the accounts of celebrated single-handers-- Slocum, Knox-Johnson, MacAurthur-- and heard from cruisers of their exploits in Fiji and Vanuatu, the transit doesn’t match expectation. Crossing the world’s largest body of water I’m six miles overhead, watching the steel reflection of open water from the confining seat of a commercial jet.
For all practical purposes, my adventure with Gypsy ends in San Diego. Sure, we spend several more weeks bucking up the California coast, but the thrill is gone. I patch up Gypsy after the punishing Baja Bash, then run to Los Angeles by way of Catalina Island. After fielding a distraught phone call from Mexico, Aubrey has graciously offered to join me for the final leg of our trip.
We rendez vous at Marina del Rey, a Southern California boating megalopolis, and continue quickly up the coast, stopping occasionally for the unfamiliar respite of American life. There are highlights along the way: the scrubbed perfection of Santa Barbara, the lighthouse at Point Conception, punctuated by a blinding dose of sunlight, and the Monterey Aquarium, a fish lover’s theme park. I revel in Aubrey’s company, but our journey is dominated by damp chill-- there is no wind for sailing, and the renowned beauty of California’s coast is obscured by perpetual fog.
We sail under the Golden Gate Bridge on the 4th of July-- a rare, picture perfect summer morning where fog is nowhere to be found. There is a hint of wind, so we hoist every sail and slip along at a slow walk, determined to glide silently through the Gate. Aubrey and I take turns mugging for pictures with the bridge as backdrop, but our favorable tide turns, and we fire up the diesel for the final push into San Francisco Bay.
We motor to our marina in Marin and tie Gypsy to her first designated slip since the Virgin Islands. There is no welcoming committee when we arrive, no banners, just an empty dock and the lingering silence when we finally shut down the motor. My journey has ended, or, to look at it another way, our journey has begun.
The day we left Los Angeles, Aubrey received an unexpected email from Save the Children, a relief organization, offering a position in Vietnam. We’ve had ample time to consider the pros and cons of a life abroad on the trip north. Aubrey will start her job and find a home in Hanoi in a matter of weeks. I will scour and polish Gypsy, put her on the market, and join Aubrey as soon as possible. I haven’t a clue what Southeast Asia has to offer, but my boat is the only thing binding me to California. Ultimately, it is a surprisingly easy decision to make. Not letting go of Gypsy-- that will take time to come to terms with-- but making a fresh start with Aubrey. When I consider my priorities, it’s the only one that matters.
Looking back, there were many lessons learned aboard Gypsy. For one, I managed to slow down-- to approach life more deliberately and find comfort in no agenda. I also found a new appreciation for my own abilities-- laid bare by extended isolation and regular crisis. I defied the midnight storm, and then watched the sun rise over a boundless sea. And this confidence is what allowed me to come full circle. Because the ultimate, ironic lesson is this: after months at sea and over 7,000 hard-earned miles ‘discovering’ myself, I discovered that I can’t live without the woman I left behind.
So I’ve landed on a distant shore, just not in the company of my first and favorite vessel. I’ve crossed the Pacific in a matter of hours, not months, and found happiness and challenge creating a new, shared life. Some day, Aubrey and I might transit together at the helm of a sailboat, but for now I don’t regret leaving Gypsy to the whim of her next owner. I’m bound on my next adventure, and some day soon, she will be too.
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January 1, 2003 - Postscript
