learn my sailing and boson skills and the basics of navigation, as well as cooking and how to help organize and instruct people on the art of sailing. It was like being in one of Southern California’s greatest colleges: Sofia—U.S. “Sea.”
Once in New Zealand we headed for a little town called Nelson, located on the northern tip of the South Island in Cook Strait.
While our Sofia was set to stay in Nelson for more than a year for repair work, I was offered a fishing job on a boat named Pandora. She was owned and operated by a former Sofia crewmember who stopped by the ship looking for crew. I signed on for an albacore season and ended up fishing two albacore seasons and a grouper season. The money was good, and I loved the challenging life of fishing—the sea popping like popcorn, with fish on every line.
While I was fishing, Sofia received a movie offer and the producer wanted the ship in Auckland for the filming. I had left most of my things—photos, letters, and clothes—on board, as I planned to reunite with Sofia in Auckland when the albacore season was over.
Sofia never made it. She sank in a bad storm off the northernmost tip of the North Island of New Zealand—Cape Reinga. One woman drowned when the ship went down. The sixteen survivors were at sea in two life rafts for five days. They were finally rescued by a passing Russian freighter, which located them thanks to their last flare.
I was at sea fishing when notified of the sinking. The boat I was on took me back to shore, and I flew to meet the Sofia crew in Wellington. All my plans had just sunk, along with an innocent young woman and a beautiful ship, with the snap of a finger. I wasn’t sure what to do next. My visa, along with other Sofia crewmembers’, had expired. I had nothing left but the clothes I had taken fishing and a few odds and ends. Even then my roots reached back to San Diego—only way back then, I had been out of the country for three years, not a mere six months, like now.
Richard poked his head out from below and said, “ETA thirty days, love.”
I smiled broadly, for after having looked back on my inauspicious beginnings as a professional sailor, I was comforted by the faith I felt in Richard. Richard made it worthwhile being anywhere, even in the midst of this churning sea.
On the fifth day out of Tahiti, Hazana plowed the seas under genny and mizzen, making six knots. A deck fitting came loose and saltwater leaked onto the single-side band radio, shorting it out. The constant rolling from the northeast winds robbed us of our sleep. Our bodies were tense from deck gear clattering, the sails snapping and the rough ride.
The next day brought a reprieve. The wind came around to our beam and pushed us easterly, which is exactly what we needed. Richard wrote “Bliss” in the logbook. We decided to ease the sails and run off a little.
Basking in the sun, I twirled the lover’s knot ring Richard had made me. Looking across the cockpit, I let my eyes wander over his muscular body. I admired his topaz-colored hair, wavy like the sea, and his short-cropped, full beard, bleached gold from the sun.
Richard wrote in Hazana’s logbook the next day: “I have now given up any illusions that the SE trades will ever do better than E! Now under 2nd reefed main, staysail, rolled up genny (½) & mizzen—flying 6 kts.”
The Brooks & Gatehouse wind indicator gave out on Day Eight.
“I hope no more of this bloody equipment breaks down,” Richard exclaimed to me.
“Could it be corrosion, or . . . ?”
“Sod corrosion. It’s bloody high-tech electronics. The sun may not shine every day, but when it does, at least it will tell you exactly where you are.”
“Then sod bloody high-tech electronics!” I teased, slapping my palm on the seat locker.
For the next three days Hazana flew. The full sails reflected the salmon-colored sun, and we enjoyed reading and relaxing, and getting some much-needed sleep.
* * *
Sunday, October 2, Day Eleven on Hazana, was special for Richard and me. At dusk, phosphorescence sparkled in the turquoise sea. We opened a bottle of wine and toasted our crossing the equator that day and entering the northern hemisphere.
Ahead of us shot a geyser of silver and translucent green spray: A large pod of pilot whales was coming to play with Hazana. We connected the self-steering vane and went to the bow to watch them leap and sing their high-pitched greeting. Grasping the stainless steel pulpit, Richard leaned against my back, his bearded cheek next to mine as the whales created beautiful crisscrossing streamers of chartreuse in front of us.
“Aren’t the whales magical, love?” he asked, fascinated.
“Look how they surface and dive,” he said as he slowly started undulating against my backside. As Hazana rose over the next swell, he whispered in my ear, “Surface . . .” And as the bow plunged into the trough, he said, “Dive.”
“You could be a whale, Richard,” I teased.
“I am a whale, love. See, I’m surfacing”—he nudged me forward, the rhythm of the whales sparking something amorous in him—“and now I’m going to dive.”
As Hazana glided down into the trough, Richard reached around and untied my pareu as he clung onto me with his knees. He knotted the material onto the pulpit with a ring knot and cupped my breasts with his warm hands. I let go of the bow pulpit and stretched my arms out wide, Hazana’s fair figurehead.
“Ummm,” I hummed.
“I want to dive with you, Tami,” Richard murmured in my ear. “I want to surface and dive as these wild mammals do.” I reached back and undid his shorts. They fell onto the teak deck.
With growing momentum we surfaced and dived, surfaced and dived, wild and free like the whales, before God, and heaven, and sky. Hazana, the queen whale, set the rolling rhythm we matched.
I later wrote in the logbook: “Bliss!”
* * *
Day Twelve: We hoisted the multipurpose sail, the MPS, which is very lightweight, and made four knots with the southeast trades finally catching us. The trades stayed with us for a number of days, pushing us to the east. We often saw whales, and now dolphins were showing their cheerful faces.
* * *
Dawn of October 8 broke gray, rainy, and miserable. The winds were unpredictable. They gusted from southeast to southwest and back around from the north. We were up near the bow checking the rig when a small land bird crashed onto the foredeck. The poor thing panted, unsteady on its short toothpick legs. Richard got a towel and dropped it over the bird. Scooping it up, he brought the bird to the cockpit, out of the rain and wind. Behind the windscreen, on top of the roof of the cabin, it squatted low, ruffling its wet feathers to warm its tired body. I crumbled a piece of bread, but the bird appeared too afraid to eat. The absurd winds must have blown the tiny bird far offshore. Richard later scribbled, “Cyclonic?” in the logbook.
As I read the word “Cyclonic?” in his log entry, I wondered what that meant to him. Could it be that we were sailing through some rogue whirlwinds? Is that possible? Had the little bird gotten trapped in the clocking wind without the strength or wherewithal to break free? Did Richard fear our getting trapped too? I’d been in plenty of clocking winds in the past few years and never considered them cyclonic. Richard didn’t appear overly concerned, so I took it in stride too.
The next day the weather channel WWV informed us the storm they had been tracking off the coast of Central America was now being classified as Tropical Depression Sonia. They said it was centered at 13° N by 136° W and traveling west at seven knots. That put her over a hundred miles west of us.
WWV also warned of a different tropical storm brewing off the coast of Central America. They were referring to it as Raymond. In comparing our course, 11° N and 129° W heading north-northeast, to the course Raymond was traveling, 12° N and 107° W and heading west at twelve knots, Richard wrote, “Watch