The Art of Leaving

In college, we were required to take a number of courses in our freshman and sophomore years, including two courses each in calculus, physics, and chemistry, so I became acquainted with the many physical laws and properties that define our universe.  As we prepare to leave Cairns after an unexpectedly long hiatus in our circumnavigation, I found myself reflecting on several of these basic laws of the universe, notably Newton’s first law and the chemical property of ‘activation energy.’

We began our trip in December of 2009, leaving our home port of Annapolis for the port of Fort Lauderdale, where we would complete our preparations, and, in January, left US waters for Panama, the South Pacific, Australia, and points west.  We arrived in Australia on schedule, just as the southern hemisphere’s cyclone season was kicking off.  We expected to leave Australia on or about April 1 to make our way westward to the Mediterranean.   However, an unfortunate combination of international and domestic events caused us first, to re-consider our route, and second, to delay our departure.  The escalation of pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden – marked by the tragic death of fellow sailors on board the sailing vessel Quest – led us to the decision to re-route our voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and to postpone our long-dreamed Mediterranean and Red Sea sailing adventures to a later chapter in our lives.  Some family issues – none serious, all resolved – led us to delay our departure.

But there’s an underlying emotional reality to these delays:  it’s hard, once one gets into a comfort zone, to leave that comfort zone.  Here, in Cairns, we have enjoyed our time spent with my cousin, Danielle, and her family.  We have internet access from our boat.  We have shops and libraries, and for all our complaining about the prices here, it feels like home, unlike the exotic island cultures we became accustomed to as we sailed the South Pacific.  Back in 2009, prior to our trip, we were also in a comfort zone of family, work, friends, and community.  It took a real act of will to shut down our lives, leave our comfort zone, and embark on this journey, and the critical strategy we employed was to PICK A DATE. 

Every cruiser’s memoir we read emphasized the importance of PICKING A DATE.  Ours was January 1, 2010, and while we missed it by a few weeks, we needed that pressure to make the decision to leave.  As Newton put it many centuries ago, “Every body persists in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.”  For us, the force impressed was a combination of willpower, the resignation of a job, the renting out of a house, and the commitment to a date

It takes a lot of energy to move out of one’s comfort zone – emotional energy, physical energy, spiritual energy.  In the world of chemistry, most reactions require an external source of energy:  gasoline and air won’t combust without a spark.  This concept, identified by the scientist Arrhenius, is known as ‘activation energy.’  In our voyage, this activation energy takes various forms. Recently, we were motivated to action by a series of near-collisions as we lay at anchor.  First, our anchor came loose from the bottom, and we drifted down, narrowly avoiding a channel marker.  The next morning, another boat’s anchor came loose, and narrowly missed us.  Finally, when we lifted our anchor, we pulled up another, abandoned anchor, its chain, and some metal debris.  It took an hour or so of arduous untangling to free ourselves, but at the end, our inner energy spent, we had received a external jolt of ‘activation energy’ – fear -- to move us to the marina and make preparations for a departure to Indonesia.

Leaving a state of rest for a state of motion always requires energy; leaving the comfort and safety and community of a first-world port for the uncertainty of Indonesian customs officials, a shallow sea with strong currents, and, ultimately, the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean takes a substantial commitment of willpower, of energy.  I’m a bit out of practice in the art of leaving.  I find myself lying awake at night, going over the things that we might want to do before we leave … marginal improvements in safety, in comfort, in preparedness, in contingency plans … subliminally listing reasons to stay a few extra days.  This is what happened those last few days in Florida … the frantic shopping for this or that, the last-minute calls and emails … until, finally, the noise in my brain settles down … allowing the activation energy level to rise to a point where the body at rest can become a body in motion.

There’s always something in the rationalizing mind that justifies delay, postponement, the putting off of a decision or a job change or an overdue apology or, in our case, the decision to leave port.  We've fallen out of practice in the art of leaving after six months in one place, and it’s good to recognize and acknowledge this human – this universal -- tendency for a body at rest to remain at rest.  I've also found that the other half of Newton’s law also often applies – a body in motion will stay in motion.  But I'm finding out that what was easily accomplished in the many ports we entered and departed during our South Pacific crossing, where we were always in motion, is not so easy here, after six months at rest.  I'm out of practice.

 My daughter Kate once gave me a lovely picture of a boat, at anchor, lying astride an iceberg. Its caption?  “A boat is safe at harbor, but that’s not what boats are for.”  In a similar vein, one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets closes with the couplet:  “We all have reasons for moving; I move to keep things whole.”  In a final note, a perhaps apocryphal story from my college graduation: I recall the President of the school giving me a bit of "personal" advice as he handed me my diploma.   With students streaming up and off the tiny platform, pressed for time himself, he said to me -- and likely every other student, as he handed us our well-deserved diplomas:  "Keep moving."

It’s time to move on.  We leave Monday, ready or not, for the waters of Indonesia, the country of my father’s birth.  Once in motion, we stay in motion, God willing, for the next 14 months, as we make the southward turn at Bali for South Africa, and from there, in the new year, the northward turn to the Caribbean and then, to our home port of Bodkin Creek, just north of Annapolis.  God speed, ile de Grace.