Hipsters don’t actually sail, they just listen to the song and get anchor tattoos. However, when my friend rented a sailboat they crawled out of the woodwork of their 1950’s Huntington Beach pads and hopped aboard as if it were another day at The Lab. I don’t think a single item of clothing was shed the entire time…but that’s none of my business, right? What was my business, however, was figuring out who drank my Perrier. I had never had a Perrier in my life before this trip, and since someone stole my bottle I still have yet to taste the overpriced French mineral water. It’s on my bucket list.

This canned sailing trip along Newport Coast and Laguna didn’t disappoint, though. I first found out I enjoyed sailing in 2009 when I did a week-long voyage from Puntarenas, Costa Rica to Panama City during typical tropical weather (More on that below). And while this venture bore only a faint resemblance to that voyage it still cleared my mind from the routine of life on land. Once you get out on the open ocean everything becomes quiet. It’s one of the most surreal experiences you can have; you see the cars on Pacific Coast Highway stopping at traffic lights way off in the distance, but you can’t hear a sound. No motors, no shopping carts, no bustle, no music. They looked like the mini model cars of my Abuelo’s Matterhorn village replica. If you have ever had silent dreams then you have an idea of what it was like.

Can’t get away from that iPhone, though.

Our spirit animals.

Since I mentioned it, I figured I would go ahead and post some pics from my Costa Rica to Panama week-long passage. After going through a tough time in 2009 my boss offered me a job taking care of his sailboat for three months. I figured it would be a good way to clear my mind and experience life on the equator, so I jumped on it.

The boat I was staying on was a Hylas 49 named the “Nadagato;” known in the community as a top tier sailboat. Living by myself on that sailboat docked in Puntarenas was quite an experience. I got to hike the rainforests of Manuel Antonio, stay in hostels, watch locals run from saltwater crocodiles, and learned how to make friends with anyone by giving them a bottle of Imperial. After two months of being in Costa Rica my boss flew back down to relocate the boat to Panama City. And with that my first time sailing on the open sea began.

I learned quickly that sailing can be very sketchy. The Nadagato bounced around violently nearly the whole passage and waves sometimes splashed over the deck. At one point my boss told me to grab a hold of something because a whale was about to hit the boat. Luckily, the giant whale dipped right under the Nadagato and emerged on the other side, shooting water out of its blowhole. My boss and I took turns sleeping three hour shifts, and I remember one night during a storm feeling exactly like the Pirates of the Caribbean skeleton; my hands were on the wheel while my boss slept below, and I could only see when lightning flashed. At night, the darkness and silence were overwhelming. When I read Moby Dick three years later I understood the symbolism of the ocean as the womb, and the Pequod as the vessel through which Ishmael journeyed to his rebirth. The dark ocean is a womb through which we all can have a rebirth of sorts…maybe that is why so many become addicted to the sea.

“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.”  -Herman Melville