We
were paralleling history, slicing through placid ebony waters under a
moonless sky at seven knots just off the coast of Santa Barbara
County. But, not near the City of Santa Barbara, or its pier, or the
gaudy tee shirt tourist traps or bars, nor the University or the
offshore scourge, the brightly lit oil platforms, but miles away in
pitch darkness. We are on the very western edge of the county. It is
so remote here there are no inhabitants and no lights, albeit a
rotating beam every 30 seconds of Point Conception Light.
Our
course of 095 degrees is one hundred yards windward of the kelp
forest, a navigation aid that follows the shoreline down the Pacific
Coast 7200 miles to Tierra del Fuego. Archaeologist call it the kelp
highway, used by the ancestors of the first people after crossing
over Beringia, the Siberian land bridge about 20,000 years ago. Even
the Spanish used it for 240 years for their galleons returning from
Manila. They’d sail across the Pacific at higher latitudes, 38
to 40 looking for kelp as one factor that they were nearing shore.
Then, by keeping the kelp to port, they worked their way to Acapulco.
The
sloops library had several books on mythology. Each outlined common
quests among all cultures. Beginning with the stories of creation,
good versus evil, life, death, and the afterlife. They are embedded
within the timeless fables of the Greeks, Egyptians, Japanese and
Norse, the land of my ancestors. But there were others, lesser known,
like the Chumash in California whose territory waters we are sailing.
And all these mythologies have one thing in common; Dolphins.
My
first encounter with a dolphin came soon after my grandfather took a
pen out of a plastic pocket protector in his shirt pocket and wrote
“left” on my four top knuckles and “port”
just below. I was three years old. Then he lowered me into a sabot, a
bathtub size sailboat, with a forward mounted mast, easy to sail,
hard to capsize. He taught me to sail in the back bay of Newport.
There I was, master of the vessel, traversing the seven seas,
scanning the shimmering waters looking for pirates. I was so
supremely confident in my skill, but it startled me to see a silver
blue body raise its head level with mine. A dolphin!
That
experience piqued a lifelong fascination. And like many of the close
encounters with dolphins over the following half century, regardless
of where I was sailing in the world, or the type of boat I was on,
they all occurred in the same place, at the bow of the boat.
Sometimes within reach while always bringing a smile. And after each
encounter, once back on terria firma, it was another trip to the
library or bookstore to read more about them, including their place
in mythology.
Fifteen
hours earlier, on the mid-morning watch, I sighted what I was looking
for. A sailor’s sign of good luck. A pod of dolphins were
loitering off the coast of San Simeon, due west of Hearst Castle.
Soon the water was bubbling with other pods, gathering into a super
pod, at least 500 or more. They initially started swimming together,
then broke off in all directions as a group of 20 swam near and
surfed in our wake.
Common
dolphins travel in groups of 20 to 200 in these waters. And if there
is enough food in the area, they will form a super pod, taking
advantage of the strength in numbers in pursuing their prey, mainly
anchovies.
There
are countless stories of dolphins saving sailors from drowning while
also helping them into the afterlife. In roman literature, there is a
story about dolphins carrying souls to the “Island of the
Blest’ for safe passage into the afterlife. The Greek gods
named them hieron
ichthys, sacred fish. And Plutarch, a Greek writer,
described them the best when he wrote. “Though the dolphin has
no need at all of any man, yet it is a genial friend to all and has
helped many.”
*****
Forty-eight
hours earlier, my old friend Mark Baker, like myself a retired fire
chief, met Nickoay Alexandrov, a Bulgarian transplant and boat
delivery skipper, at the San Diego airport. I had not actually met
him; I hired him through the internet. They both flew out of
Lindbergh Field to San Francisco. Our goal was to sail to the extreme
southwest border of California, leaving the bay area’s three
seasons, winter, spring and fall, no summer, for San Diego’s
year-round Mediterranean climate, with its endless summer.
Arriving
at the dock in Sausalito and a quick handshake later, Alexandrov, who
was helping us reposition my 42-foot sloop, Windswept, had me tearing
apart the boat. The one I had neatly packed and organized days
before. He examined the engine, transmission, shaft packing, fuel
tank, water tanks, bilge, steering chain and cables, batteries and
wiring. Every panel and floorboard, including beds, bunks and
couches, were dislodged, along with cushions scattered everywhere. He
told me of passages that were the most memorable for him were the
ones that had the most maintenance issues. His goal was to make this
a non-eventful, unmemorable voyage. We were at a cross-purpose on
this very significant point. Mark and I wanted to make it memorable
for other reasons, for both of us thrived in leading firefighters
into harm’s way, operating in the maelstrom of chaos. We
excelled at it. Thinning hair, wrinkles and our age was a façade
to the fact that we were still adrenaline junkies and loved to sail
in heavy weather.
Captain
Alexandrov proved to be worth his four-day bill in his first hour
dockside. I learned more about preparation from him in an hour than I
did in 50 years of offshore sailing.
When
he finished, I proudly showed him the waterproof paper coastal charts
for our passage, which I had laid out on the nav-station desk for his
use. His comment was succinct. “Nice.” Then he placed his
iPad with an integrated chart plotter, GPS, and AIS (automatic
identification system) right on top of my charts. Then said casually,
“I have not seen paper charts in a long time.” Suddenly,
I felt old and obsolete, like my charts.
Mark,
never missing a chance to get a jab in, said, “did you bring a
sexton too?” And so it starts!
“Good
enough for the U.S. Navy, good enough for me,” I fired back,
nodding with my head toward the cabinet under the nav-station. Mark
looked at me in disbelief and I just smiled. He had fired the first
salvo, which I couldn’t let pass. However, he should have
called my bluff. In that cabinet, I had a handful of Cuban contraband
in a humidor. Truth be known, I wouldn’t know which end of the
sexton to use.
*****
In
silent darkness, thirty-six hours later, south of Point San Luis
Light, we past the entrance of Avila Bay, San Luis Obispo County. We
were sailing south to the northern waters of Point Conception,
planning to round that landmass and the mystical body of water that
most Californians have never seen.
The
words ‘Point Conception’ are often heard only by
California sailors listening to NOAA weather reports. This is where a
computer-generated voice will state, “the waters from Point
Conception south to the Mexican border. Expect an extended period of
moderate to strong Northwest winds with gales and large seas focused
across the outer waters and adjacent to the Central Coast. Northwest
winds 10 to 15 knots, becoming 20 to 30 knots with gusts to 35 knots.
Combined seas 12 to 15 feet dominant period 12 seconds.”
This
is where the cold turbulent waters of the Pacific current moderating
the coastal temperatures from Canada to San Luis Obispo County work
their way south down the coast. However, there is an imaginary line
somewhere around latitude 34 (Point Conception) where these cold
currents and prevailing winds are disrupted. This is exactly where
the coastal mountain range disappears, thus allowing cool ocean air
to be drawn into the interior, sucking in like a vacuum. And nature
abhors a vacuum, and she’ll do anything to fill it. Thus, the
winds here can often exceed 40 to 50 knots, making a normally
turbulent ocean into a tempest with 20-foot greybeards, Point
Conception rollers, rogue waves and jumbled swells. And it’s
where Mother Nature tests the prepared and will crush the confidence
of the foolish, who aren’t.
Rounding
Point Conception can be a brutal experience. The weather can go from
near flat seas and calm winds to 30 plus knots in a timeframe not
calculated by intervals measured in minutes or seconds, but by two
basic psychological emotions, calm and panic. A sailor’s normal
cautious foreboding anticipation sailing around the Point can reach
the emotional equivalent of witnessing a priest give the last rites
to the living. Or watching Poseidon, Lord of the Sky and Winds, and
Zeus, King of the Gods, get into a cosmic argument. Zeus wins.
Always! He forces Poseidon to disrupt favorable seas for sailors,
causing them to sail 40 miles out of their way around the tempest or
turn back and find a safe harbor. It can be that dramatic. It’s
for those reasons we sailed through at night, when the gods slept.
In
1834, after a harrowing passage in gale force winds, Richard Henry
Dana, Jr. called Point Conception “the Cape Horn of California
where it begins to blow the first of January and blows until the last
of December.” He, of all people, should know. He sailed through
both.
Earlier
this evening, I purposely took both the 11 to 2 watch and the 2 to 5
for our nocturnal passage around Point Conception. And though that
sounds magnanimous, it wasn’t. It was selfish on my part. I
figured everyone would be up anyways as we rounded the Point, clipped
in, reefing, trimming sails, heaving over the side, praying and
shouting obscenities in force 8 winds. I would not miss this and
you’d have to pry my fingers off the wheel to take my spot at
the helm!
*****
On
my second watch, we entered the tranquil waters of the Santa Barbara
channel. Two thousand years ago, while Christ walked and fished on
the other side of the world, Chumash fishermen paddled wooden planked
boats up and down these waters. In “Two Years Before the Mast,”
Richard Henry Dana recounted his passage here, “fires could be
seen from large prominent villages”. However, tonight east of
Point Conception and south of Hollister Ranch, the shoreline is dark
and there are no canoes, no fires, and no villages, just an enormous
expanse of darkness.
As
my fatigue set in the impenetrable black night unhurriedly
transformed into murky lifeless clouds outlining a dull brownish gray
shoreline below, both without definition. There were deep shadows
inside the sloop as well, with only the reddish glow of the
navigation instruments visible. But soon, in contrast to their steady
illumination, flashes of crimson darted across the eastern sky,
revealing a merlot-currant gloom. The sun was exerting its authority.
Watching
the morning unfold, I recall Humqaq “The Raven Comes” a
part of Chumash mythology. The Chumash traditionally regard this area
as the Western Gate, a place that the souls of the dead could pass
between the mortal world and journey across the sea to the heavenly
paradise of Similaqsa, the mythical Land of the Dead. I often
wondered what the Chumash must have thought when they saw Juan
Cabrillo, who unwittingly reversed this order in 1542, sailing in
from the sea, from the very place where they sent their dead.
Quietly
motoring east, with the main up to sustain Windswepts' balance, and
the jib furled, we are eerily alone. As the bow effortlessly knifes
through the stygian waters, there is a phosphorescence blue-green
glow in our wake , thanks to unseen, but slightly agitated algae by
our hull.
I
occasionally look, but I know there will be no dolphins out and about
in the diminishing darkness. They are still asleep, called logging
because they resemble a floating log at night. Sleeping or when
catching catnaps during the day, they do so with one or the other eye
open. Thus, resting half their brain and body approximately 20
minutes at a time.
*****
We
are south of California’s most sparsely developed coastline,
paralleling a deserted Hollister Ranch Road and the vacant shoreline
below along the edge of the kelp highway. In the Golden State, there
is a law that allows for coastal access for anyone anywhere along the
states 840 miles of coastline except here. So, to get ‘exclusive’
access like the landowners to the 8.5 miles of pristine beaches,
which surfers mostly use, is done by boat.
In
the darkness, I can see the glow of a cigarette above the shoreline.
Scanning with my binoculars, it’s a security guard sitting on a
four-wheeler above Arroyo San Agustin. Probably a wannabe cop or
former one or a fired disgruntled one, glassing me at the same time.
I shake my head in disbelief. There is a man a mile away who probably
has a Remington Bushmaster AR-15 slung over his shoulder, protecting
14,400 empty acres of fallow and fertile fields, not to mention 136
hundred-acre parcels, mostly vacant lots.
Going
below to get a cup of day-old firehouse coffee, my watch alarm goes
off. It’s programmed to do so every 10 minutes during night
watches, just in case I nod off. It signals for the ritual to begin
again, the checking of cockpit gauges, displaying their data in a
ghoulish green glow. Followed by glancing below through a cockpit
interior porthole to the high-definition color screen of the chart
plotter displaying the ocean floor, its depth, the compass heading,
projected course, and latitude and longitude. Then, after completing
a 360, and satisfied that some rogue freighter won’t run us
down from behind, I take a sip of coffee, then quickly spit it out.
The only thing that could save it would be a healthy dose of Bailey’s
liqueur. The coffee had the same viscosity of 90 weight oil tasting
like burnt tar.
A
couple of hours later, after a leisurely crew breakfast, somewhere
in-between Refugio and El Captain State Beach, we motored into Santa
Barbara harbor to the fuel dock.
Later,
navigating out of the small harbor, under the warmth of the morning
sun, we set the main and unfurled the jib. It didn’t take long
before we were on a broad reach with a mild Santa Ana building, with
a dry offshore wind. The reflection on the clouds, kelps, browns and
greens with splashes of the entire spectrum of blues had a
kaleidoscope effect. Mark pointed out a couple of dolphins dancing
about to starboard. They raced through the boat’s wake and
darted straight ahead, clicking and squealing back to us as if they
were beckoning us to follow.
When
Mark ambled off below, I heard him and Captain Alexandrov discussing
Soviet, U.S. relations. I think Mark is going to lose on what will
become a disagreement on either fact or ideology. I have found that
Europeans know more about their history and ours than we do.
Looking
up at the telltales on the mainsail, I glance further beyond to a jet
overhead. I envision someone at a window seat traveling 500 knots,
glancing down at me and wondering where are we going. The person
probably wishes they were on board as well, with the wind in their
face and no hurry to get anywhere. As a million-mile flyer with
United Airlines, I have some empathy.
Enjoying
the moment alone on deck, as the debate go’s on downstairs, I
noticed a small pod of dolphins, a hundred yards out, between Port
Hueneme and us.
Suddenly,
something overhead eclipsed the sun and cast a shadow across the
boat, stretching all the way to Santa Cruz. I recall another
Chumash’s legend, the Earth Goddess Hutash. She created the
first people on Santa Cruz Island. According to legend, the island
became too crowded, so Hutash decided some Chumash would have to
travel to the mainland. They would use a rainbow as a bridge that
stretched from the tallest peak on Santa Cruz Island, all the way to
a mountain near Carpentaria. Unfortunately, some that walked across
got dizzy and fell. Hutash felt badly and not wanting them to drown,
she turned them into dolphins.
Shading
my eyes, I see the shadow is from the contrails, ice crystals from a
jet heading to LAX, probably from SFO or from the Orient. I have
sailed with skippers who often told me prior to GPS they’d use
the contrails as a navigational aid when ferrying boats across the
Pacific. Improbable? Not really. If you do the calculations using
United flight guide for all their flights, it’s easy. Simply
apply some basic math you learned in the fifth grade… a jet
traveling at 500 knots, leaving point A to point B…. I have
learned it is hard to get lost in a vast empty ocean if you’re
paying attention to floating kelp patties, birds, depths, swells, the
kelp highway and United Airlines.
Spying
a larger pod of dolphins a hundred yards off our bow, a glint of
light catches my eye further east. Both images triggered a faint
recollection I couldn’t put my finger on. Something occurred
here? Then, while trimming the jib, a bombardment of forgotten
memories suddenly paralyzed me. Contrails, dolphins, jets, flashes
from shore and I remembered two parallel events that happened here.
One mythical and one real.
After
another quick 360, I stepped downstairs, worked my way aft to where
the paper charts were stored. Captain Alexandrov was now giving Mark
a history lesson about Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Finding what
I was looking for, but not before learning that Bulgaria dated back
to 681 AD and as interesting as their conversation was, I had some
unfinished business on deck.
Unrolling
the chart out of the wind behind the dodger, I saw it! The X I’d
penciled in when planning the voyage months ago and we were fast
approaching it. A bolus of data washed over me like a wave breaking
over the stern. It was here; I said to myself. Latitude and
longitude: 34° 3′ 30″N, 119°20′48″W.
I
quickly located the source of the flickering light on shore with the
binoculars. However, I knew it without seeing it. It was a giant
sundial at Port Hueneme. Santa Barbara artist James “Bud”
Bottoms designed it. But, not designed to keep time or set your watch
by, but designed to cast a shadow on a specific time and a specific
date. It is accurate only once a year on the date and time of the
passage of souls, 88 of them.
On
January 30, 2000, around 1600 hours, Captain Ted Thompson and First
Officer William “Bill” Tansky had just dropped out of the
sky. Literally. In an extreme “nose-down” position, a
nosedive, and plummeted from about 31,500 feet to 23,000 feet, in
what must have been a terrifying 80 seconds for the pilots, not to
mention the passengers. In a superhuman effort to regain control, the
pilots eventually stopped the 6,000-foot per minute descent.
This
event occurred just north of Catalina Island, when the pilots took
the plane off autopilot to prepare for their landing at San Francisco
International Airport. That’s when the jackscrew for the
stabilizer jammed. Then, as luck would have it, they were able to
unjam the stabilizer. But no good deed goes unpunished. Moments
later, the jackscrew failed completely. The aircraft rapidly pitched
over into a dive and, unable to raise the nose, the pilots attempted
to fly the aircraft upside-down. This was the genesis for the movie
‘Flight’ starring Denzel Washington.
Inverted
and nose-down, 81 seconds later, Flight 261 impacted the Pacific
Ocean, 14 miles off the coast between Port Hueneme near to Anacapa
Island, a few seconds before 16:22. There were no survivors. Today
Alaska Flight 261 no longer exists.
The
names of the passengers and crew are engraved on individual bronze
plates mounted on the perimeter of the sundial. Dolphins at the base
support the bronze arms of the sundial that cast a shadow darkening a
special plaque on the sundial’s face at 16:22 every year on
January 31. It is a memorial to honor the dead, while convening hope
and meaning for the living.
Once
again, there was a murky shadow on the water directly overhead,
perfectly in line with Santa Cruz Island and Carpentaria and,
whispering in disbelief, I asked. “The rainbow bridge?”
Then a gust precipitously snapped both the jib and main taut. Quickly
easing out the mainsail, I wondered if spirits were pushing us
through the shadows to that exact place? The place that began the
sacred narratives about origins of the first people? Could it be
distant ancestors of the Chumash that actually became dolphins?
Falling off the rainbow bridge? And was it the very spot where 88
more, separated by time, culture and reality, fell from the same sky
to join them?
I
recalled that on the first anniversary of the crash, family members
were ferried to the crash site and reported, “a pod of
approximately 1,000 dolphins surrounded them.”
In
utter amazement, I witnessed the shadows above dissipate, replaced by
scattered beams of light streaming down from the heavens to the
oceans surface. Could mythology and reality coexist? It was a
rhetorical question and didn’t require an answer. But I got one
anyway. A mega pod of dolphins appeared, their silver blue skin
simmering in the sunlight, fins high in the water, splashing and
jumping in and out of the swells, swimming straight for us. I set the
auto-pilot and worked my way up to the bow and yelled to the crew
below. Windswept was heeled over fifteen degrees. Mark popped his
head up over the dodger and yelled. “Need help?” After
yelling back no, he ducked below before I could point out the
dolphins.
Leaning
into the jib halyard, I watched yet another encounter with the
largest pod of dolphins I had ever seen. It was pure joy. I didn’t
want to pull my eyes away from the water, but I had to know. I
glanced at my handheld GPS hanging from my neck. Latitude:34° 3′
30″N,Longitude:119°20′48″W.
It
was here! I said to myself. The merging of reality and mythology and
the assimilation of souls. More wind filled our sails and Windswept
heeled over near 20 degrees. Looking back at the empty helm, she was
close to rounding up, but I couldn’t move. I knew the sails
would flog about, the autopilot would disengage, and the dolphins
would swim past. However, I was mesmerized by looking down through
the bow pulpit; the ocean rushing along both sides of the hull,
forming a wake as the dolphins raced through. Watching in awe, their
presence moved me. Then, remembering the words of the Earth Goddess,
“… and not wanting them to drown, she turned them into
dolphins”, I wondered who they were?
