Catalina To Port :: A PSSA Race

Catalina to Port: From the starting line located near Palos Verdes buoy "10PV", leave the West End of Catalina to port, finish when Catalina East End light (Fl w 6s) position 33 18.1162N 118 19.0570W is within 0.5 NM and bears 350°M from the helmsman's position. Handicap distance 41 NM.

My crew (and dear friend), Scott and I departed the dock at 8am on a beautiful warm Southern California morning. We had a lovely cruise to PV 10 and arrived just before check in. I felt very excited as we headed towards the start, because more and more boats were appearing around us which brought with them the promise of a well-attended race! I believe we had 13 boats entered, and by 10:30am we were all tacking around waiting for our 11am start. I have to admit that I will never tire of the pre-start ritual of cruising the starting area with everyone, waving hello to each other and checking out each other’s boats!

I had my usual nervousness about the start, but was coached well by Scott (and even though did not quite do what he said, I was a little aggressive…. at least for me) and we had a solid start right behind Jerome on Biohazard. As we made our way across the channel, we were holding our own among the fleet, and that felt really good (I am still pleasantly surprised by Cassiopeia’s litheness compared to Haunani’s). Due to the wind angle we had a couple of indecisive moments about which tack was best to make the west end, but once we settled on a direction, we got into a groove and were in a really good place. Cassiopeia was moving well in the semi light wind, and we made good way across the channel. We came around the West end and the wind got really light. As we got closer and closer to Eagle rock, I decided we should tack and head away from the island. As we did that, we caught a little breeze and started to move a little better until we were away from the island a bit and clear of the wind hole that seemed to be plaguing everyone else. From there we headed down the back side moving slowly but well. At one point we tried to deploy my spinnaker (asymmetrical), but the wind was too light for it to be effective, and we decided to douse it and pole out the genoa instead. I have to admit that the mixture of getting to know my new boat (I have only flown the spinnaker one other time, and have never used my whisker pole with her), and the flukey conditions had me pretty flustered. I know that I will get there, but it is anything but a seamless operation at this point!

A lot of people retired from the race early on, and we got close too at one point, but I am glad we stuck it out, because we got into a nice little groove out there, and about 2/3 of the way down the island, the wind came up into the 20’s and provided for a very fun ride to the east end. One of the most fun things for me was converging with Rod on Rubicon III and then having him hot on our tail as we flew towards the finish wing and wing, riding some pretty big rollers. We stayed in front of him until the wind died just shy of the east end light and true to form, he scooted right past us in the light air.

It was a spectacular sunset and a beautiful day on the water. I am so grateful to Scott for being such a great teammate out there. As always we had a blast together! We tucked into Avalon around 9pm and were both exhausted and ready for a hot meal and sleep. We were lucky to get to spend the entire next day and night relaxing in Avalon, and had a fun sail home on Monday afternoon!

Vulnerability

As I prepare for my next big adventure, I have been thinking a lot about bravery, and what that means to me in my life. It’s easy to conceptualize bravery when admiring another from afar, but a little more complicated when applying it to my own life’s journey. And within that journey, it’s simpler to apply it to a tangible feat, like sailing alone across the Pacific, but what I am actually being reminded of right now is that real bravery starts with something much deeper. I think if I had to come up with one word that equals bravery for me, it would be vulnerability. Brene’ Brown, one of my heroes and favorite teachers in life studies vulnerability, and through her research, sheds light on its significance to our emotional well-being. If you are not familiar with her work, her TED talk on vulnerability is a great place to start. She says that “vulnerability is our most accurate measurement of courage.” I would have to agree.

The reason I am thinking so much about bravery lately is not so much because I am preparing to head out alone across the Pacific again, but more so because in conjunction with (and really, as a result of) that decision, I am putting myself out into the world in new ways. As with each time I have ventured to do this in my life, I am feeling extremely exposed and nervous. Not only am I being asked to speak at various events about my experience in the 2016 SHTP, but I am in the beginning phases of creating a documentary film about the history of the women skippers of the same race (to ask the question: “why aren’t there more women participating in solo offshore sailing in general?’). My documentary project is gaining so much momentum already that there is no way except forward. It is truly taking on a life of its own, and I am called to be all in. Between heeding this call and agreeing to speak in public, I am being challenged to embody my own experiences and put myself in the public eye in new ways. In short, I am being asked to be brave. I will be honest and say that this feat feels harder to me than when I shoved off the dock into the greatest unknown of my life nine months ago.

The act of writing honestly about my personal experiences, public speaking or interviewing my heroes itself isn’t scary. What feels intimidating is that to do so, I am stepping out of the relative safety of my circle of friends and private life into a much more exposed arena. Through blogging and speaking, I am inviting people that I don’t know into my personal successes and failures. I am also reaching out across oceans and airwaves to my sailing heroines and declaring my intentions, sharing my humble (compared to theirs) experience and asking to interview them about theirs. I am presenting my talk and SHTP video to groups of accomplished sailors who have many thousands more ocean miles under their belts than I do. In doing all of this, I am opening my experiences up to judgement and criticism as well as celebration and support.

All of these things make me quake in my boots, but as I said in my last post, I am heeding a call and trusting that I am at the right track. As scared and vulnerable as I feel every day, I continue to show up in front of my fears, and I continue to put one foot in front of the other. Brene’ Brown reminds me that “courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen” and “the willingness to show up changes us….and makes us a little braver each time.” And so this cycle of bravery lifts me up and reminds me that as uncomfortable as it can feel, there is also freedom in being seen. There is power in sharing myself wholly with people. There is power in sharing all of the parts, not just the shiny ones. Lately it has been hard, but the more I stick to it, the more I am reminded of the nugget of truth found in Brene’ Brown’s research, that “vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity and change.”  In my life, when I have had the courage to show up and be vulnerable, transformation and expansion always occurs.  So, trusting that fact, I am stepping into the arena and showing up. I am not sure exactly for what yet, but the quaking in my boots tells me it’s going to be well worth it!

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
 

Following The Thread Into Exciting Waters!

  “Such is the passage of time
    Too fast to fold
    And suddenly swallowed by signs
    Low and behold
   Gonna rise up
   Find my direction magnetically
   Gonna rise up
   Throw down my ace in the hole”

  -Eddie Vedder

The familiar itch and call of the horizon is pulling at me fiercely right now. As I try to navigate the waters of my daily life, the sea is calling to me loudly and reminding me of the answers that lie in her vastness. When things become at all jumbled or overloaded in my mind and heart as they are now, that pull feels stronger than ever.

As I wrote that, the image of a huge sieve popped into my mind….so much pouring through, and then the relief of finding the nuggets of truth safely guarded in its web as all that is extraneous falls away. This is exactly why I love to sail alone….being out in the sacred cathedral of the ocean is like an energetic sieve that hands me my truth if I just allow everything to flow through. For me it’s allowing the flow that is challenging sometimes though. The grandest illusion of my life has been thinking that I can control what is channeled through my “sieve”. All I can do is be vigilant in mining the nuggets and tend to the sieve itself, which of course consists of my mind, soul and heart.

Right now the greatest morsel of truth I am finding over and over again is that I need be true to my own compass and follow the call that is bringing forth a whole new direction in my life. The direction feels foreign, but familiar as well because it is woven together with all of the lessons and experiences on my path so far. Every skill and every bit of knowledge of my life has prepared me for this new journey, no matter how unrelated they may seem. It’s the thread again. If I trust and flow with that thread, I am reminded that all is revealed as it is meant to be and when it is meant to be. Sometimes this flow is a gentle brook but lately it has felt like a rushing river that is taking on a life of its own. It is a wild ride but no matter how intense the river, there is a vein of truth in it that shines through and keeps me hanging on. So I am not fighting it and am paying attention at every turn, even to things that might seem innocuous and meaningless. They are all clues and each one is urging me to ask some questions.

For example, I was sailing out of Marina Del Rey the other day aboard my lovely Cassiopeia. I was alone. I was just off the Venice pier, and I was furling out my genoa, and setting my course for a practice sail on the bay. I was doing what I, and many other people do all the time. Out of the corner of my eye I could see a zodiac flanking me. They were obviously following me, and eventually it became clear that they were trying to tell me something. My immediate thought was that they were coming to tell me I was getting too close to a race course that was nearby. When they got close enough for me to hear them however, the man driving the rib was yelling to me that he thought it was “amazing” that I was single handing my boat. My first reaction was one of gratitude and appreciation for someone reaching out to me like that, but when he sped away, I felt awkward. I was left once again with the burning question: WHY? Why is it considered so “amazing” that I am single handing my boat, when no one would probably single out a man out there doing the same? I ask this question not out of defensiveness, but out of genuine curiosity. Getting this kind of reaction most of my life, and especially now, has spurred me to dig deeper into the questions, and to create a project that will hopefully give us some answers. I don’t think it is amazing that a woman can single hand her vessel across bays and oceans because she is a woman, I think it is amazing because she is a brave human being following her call and doing what brings her joy. What is curious to me is that there are not more women who want to push themselves in this way (in comparison to men in the same arena). The questions keep flooding my mind, and my response is to follow the thread and create a documentary that will hopefully scratch the surface of answers.

I will start in the place where I am familiar: sailing. I will start with a documentary on the history of women in the Singlehanded Transpac, jumping off with the real time experience of all of us who race in 2018, and dive back into history from there. I have already contacted numerous past racers as well as some of my solo offshore sailing heroines (Isabelle Autissier, Donna Lange, Kass Schmitt, Susie Goodall and Lisa Blair to name a few) to be a part of this project. I have been met with nothing but excitement and cooperation, which to me is the greatest confirmation that I am on the right track. I hope to meet many of these accomplished women in the next couple of years to shed light on my questions. I am asking these questions from a place of deep curiosity, but also out of a desire to inspire balance in these arenas and hopefully to inspire more women to get out on the water and seek adventure.

I feel my initial questions are just the tip of a very deep iceberg, and I am so excited for what will revealed as my documentary project takes on a life of its own. I am grateful to be a channel for this project, and grateful to all of the women who have already agreed to be a part of it all!