Control Rods

Jennifer and I stepped on board ile de Grace in late December, 2009, and, apart from Jennifer's brief trip home in March 2010 (from the Galapagos), we've been shipmates, bunkmates, and lifemates ever since, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, through storm and calm, tied at the figurative hip if not tied to a literal lifeline during heavy seas. For the past week, Jennifer has been in the States, attending to family business, and it's timely to reflect a bit on the impact living in such close quarters has on a relationship and a voyage.

There's a quiet intensity that characterizes most close relationships between two strong, independent people, and I'd certainly count Jen and me in that category. One of the unexpected -- and often uncomfortable -- learnings of the last few months for me, as our boat cruising dwindled to nothing (as we sat out cyclone season), has been the impact of our adventure on our relationship, my role in that impact, and how difficult it is to maintain one and only one interpersonal relationship on a cruising boat, no matter how trusting, well-established, intimate, or caring the partners might be. Even in the best of relationships, with only each other to turn to, there's no one to turn to for outside perspective, a sense of balance, or just a second opinion. It just gets tougher if one or the other (i.e., me), tends to the more introspective, less charitable sides of the see-saws from time to time.

In this, the analogy of control rods in the now-fated Japanese nuclear reactors comes to mind. In reactors, silver-cadmium rods are used to "soak up" excess neutrons, preventing the nuclear reaction from spiraling out of control. Engineers raise and drop these rods into the core of the reactor and thus calibrate the resulting temperature of the reaction. No rods -- or no electricity to adjust the rods -- and you have a meltdown. While we were sailing between and among island archipelagos, we'd meet many cruisers and locals, each of whom represented, in effect, a control rod for each of us and our increasingly tight relationship. We'd laugh with some, commiserate with others, share stories with yet others, and learn new words and concepts from yet others. Unknowingly on their part, and unconsciously on our part, we learned to calibrate the highs and lows of our relationship -- many of which are accentuated in the close quarters of a sailboat on an extended voyage -- by relying on our friendships and interactions with others.

I say unconsciously, because for me at least, until we arrived in Australia, and until we'd spent a few months land cruising with far fewer interactions with other cruisers or like-minded travelers (we mostly stayed in hostels, with a 20-something clientele), I remained unaware of the value and need for control rods in our relationship. Worse, the isolation accentuated my natural tendency to introversion and lack of patience. To make matters more challenging, and again, these are learnings after-the-fact, here recorded to maintain a sense of honest reflection on the nature of a circumnavigation, the environmental challenges of a boat at sea are markedly different than those of a land-based life that balances office work, home life, and community involvement.

At sea, one's comfort zone is stretched considerably, and for me, it's now clear that I can revert to some less-than-caring, less-than-attentive, less-than-kind, and less-than respectful behaviors when I'm on the edge of that zone, in tense situations, when the margin of error is reduced. In spacious quarters, on land, with a variety of outlets, these annoying idiosyncrasies can be dissipated in the "normal" course of a day or a week, as friends and colleagues absorb the frustrations and feelings. In tight quarters, with no outside outlets, they can accumulate, like neutrons in a runaway reactor.

So we are learning and planning in the next legs of our life and voyage together to anticipate the need for control rods, just as I intend to try and bring more self-awareness to the need to remain caring, attentive, kind and respectful even if the immediate situation finds me on the edge of a comfort zone. Through this all, I continue to marvel at Jennifer's innate perceptiveness and ability to see clearly what's happening, and I'm deeply grateful that I've got a partner with her patience and courage to put up with (briefly) and challenge (nicely) unhealthy behaviors. It's not without pain or cost to be sure, especially for the one on the receiving end, and it pains me to see clearly -- albeit in retrospect -- how I've mismanaged myself from time to time, and the heartache I've caused. It's clear that sailing around the world involves tending to one's boat -- and one's mind -- simultaneously.

So it's not easy, all this sailing around -- the last few months have really been a period of deep introspection for both of us as we tackle the less-tangible weather conditions of an extended voyage. Today, Jennifer is in the States, and I can't help but recall the wonderful Tom Waits song, Emotional Weather Forecast, that concludes with the lines "well, the extended outlook for an indefinite period of time until you come back to me, baby, is high tonight, low tomorrow and precipitation is expected."

We are blessed with a large family and many friends ... control rods if you will. For me, here in Australia, I've picked up the guitar again, training my shortened left ring finger to hit the right strings again, after my accident in the Tuomotus, and have reached out to some of the cruisers anchored around us.  I miss Jennifer, but just as I need my time, she needs her time and her trip to the States is overdue.Unlike the Tom Waits character, no undue highs or lows for me, no precipitation, just nightly thanks that I'm lucky enough that we've realized the need for control rods, and, more importantly, to have Jennifer as my partner on this always-surprising adventure of two sails and two souls.