day 6 was a quiet one for me, woke from our night watches feeling frazzled by bad dreams again -- I think ALL of us, at one time or another, had particularly vivid/weird/disturbing dreams while at sea, it seemed to amplify whatever might be on our minds...? so I started the day in a confused mood and generally feeling irritable -- but I also realized, I couldn't stay a sourpuss while living in such close quarters with people, it's just a drag -- so I asked David to let me steer all of our noon-3pm watch, just to give me some time & space to myself -- after all, I ordinarily live alone, and so solitude can be a necessary retreat soemtimes?
so I sat on the helm and stared at the horizon ahead and steered, and found myself focusing in an almost mantra-like way on the peace and quiet I unexpectedly found in Zurich last summer, during my visit with Connie and Kevin -- in particular the tiny hotel room I stayed in, which was up on the attic floor of the building, and was perfectly simple, spare, and calming -- plain solid beams in the ceiling, one window open to green leaves and chattering birds outside, the other looking down over the hotel's little outdoor patio, where people ate breakfast or sipped cocktails in the evening, so mostly-german conversations would drift up to me when I sat on the wide windowsill trying to catch a breeze... and the memory felt like a refuge, really helped me start to shift my mood and let the inner knotted-ness fall away...
noontime position for day 6 (june 12 tuesday) was 31° 04' 5" N, 147° 52' 5" W -- a 24-hour run of 173 nautical miles, and 1321 n.m. to go to SF...
David caught a third mahi in the afternoon (and nearly a fourth, a big one that was blue instead of green, hit one of the lines but then slipped away), and we had delicious mahi tacos for dinner -- the fish was rolled in cornmeal and fried lightly, and David made an amazing Kahuku corn & black bean salsa to go with it, as well as shredded cabbage and rice -- so gourmet!
and just before the end of our 6-9pm watch, while all the others were below cleaning up and/or getting ready for the night, a sooty-dark albatross cruised alongside the boat for a few minutes, long wings dipping and skimming the water's edge, perfectly silhouetted against the sun-backed clouds to the west -- I watched him (him?) for several moments, and then ducked below to get my camera, somehow *knowing* he wouldn't wait for me, but it was too much of a reflex to resist. Of course, he was gone when I came back upstairs -- but again, he added to that growing sense of peacefulness throughout this day -- I wrote in my journal, "I'm no longer asking myself, why did I come on this trip? it's becoming clearer to me, even if I can't articulate it..."
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