Sailing Across the Pacific Ocean

This is what the middle of the Pacific Ocean looks like.
On June 4, 2005 I left KoOlina for San Francisco on the 39 foot Itaska along with Mel (the owner) and his freind of a freind John. None of us knew each other very well.
I wanted to do a passage, I was new to sailing, and I had just turned 52 so I volunteered to help. Somehow that all made sense. It ended up being such a transformative experience I have not even been able to write about it. I will someday. The expanse of the ocean. The power of the waves. Alone on watch with just my thoughts to entertain me. Being washed down the companionway when a wave broke over the aft and drenched the cockpit. Pulling in a mahi mahi and eating it an hour later. Seeing discarded trash like floating islands and used as refuge for creatures in the middle of nowhere.




Each morning we tossed overboard stranded flying fish that flung themselves onto Itasksa.



We arrived in San Francisco 3weeks and two hours after we left. Not that I was counting.
I would do it all again in a heart beat.
I intend to.