HOW CAN YOU NOT WANT TO JUMP IN?

Restraining myself was no easy lesson.

I just barely captured this image of a 2-foot juvenile Green. Mother Nature rocks.

Today, the rivulets were running into places that, prior to this, only the waters I’ve swam in have traveled. It’s not just the temperature, it’s the intensity of humid, sunny-with-showers August in Maryland, USA. I’m not one of those girls that glistens. I drip. My hair under the paint-stained hat was simply sweat-soaked, as was the rest of my attire. In turn, that perspiration brought stinging tears with no dry sleeve to wipe them away. Both were salty, both were uncomfortable. And worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that we are still deconstructing our home on a startling scale in order to assess what reconstruction needs to be done. It’s not happy work, it’s a drudge, a drudge that leads to smashed knuckles and endless days.

A sad process. I get to learn how to rebuild a wooden boat. But I wish it was someone else’s wooden boat…

I sought the shade STEADFAST provides in her current state ‘on the hard’ and slowly cooled down, added some hydration, and flipped mindlessly through a social media feed. AI knows I like creatures of the sea, and feeds them to me endlessly. Fishermen, whale watchers, oddities and entanglements, META serves them up on our Facebook page YACHTING STEADFAST. That afternoon I was presented with a Leatherback Turtle and immediately took the bait. Her determined and ungainly progress through the sand made me want to cheer out loud. A rare, beautiful, inspirational, worthwhile share.

The largest, Leatherbacks have distinctive shape and color. Photo ETSY.

That gentle giant had been SPARRING WITH MOTHER NATURE for six decades or more (we’re not certain how long they live). Leatherbacks can grow to six feet and six hundred pounds. She had done her duty, created another generation and was returning to her natural habitat. Every 2-4 years, mature females lay several clutches of 70-100 eggs just days apart, each the size of a billiard ball. The video ended with her engulfed in gentle surf, re-entering the realm where she is weightless and graceful. Those images transported me four years back in time, from the dusty gravel boatyard to the Bahamas. Ah, the limitless power of the mind.

I was bouncing, and I do not say that lightly, on the helm seat, holding on to the aft deck rail with both hands. “How can you NOT want to jump in after her?” I asked the Sailor. I had every intention of joining the tremendous Leatherback that had surfaced just yards away. Clothes on, no plan. Every intention. My heart raced, my mind was a blur. For forty years, maybe forty-five, I had studied the stories in National Geographic, watched and learned, dove and dreamed of Sea Turtles. They are endearing in their peacefulness, their vulnerability, their ancient appearance and their ageless expressions. We had two sails up and were going past her at a faster clip than I could bear. Practicality was lost. I live in the moment and generally enjoy it tremendously.

“Don’t you f*#@ing dare!” he told me in the most serious voice I had yet heard. I was going, I was climbing over. “Oh my GOD,” I clarified, “I HAVE to swim with that turtle.” The water was choppy but crystal clear and relatively shallow. I looked at the Leatherback longingly and got redundant. “How can you NOT want to jump in after her? Just come get me! I can swim!” “NO!” He was adamant, amazed that I would even consider such a trick. I was stunned, too, at his strong reaction and hesitated, relenting to his demand. I glanced back at him then and saw it, saw something I had rarely experienced with the ocean. Fear. Fear for me and himself, fear that he wouldn’t be able to retrieve me. His expression told me, very clearly, that I hadn’t learned enough respect, yet.

I understood all of those things with a distinctive sense of something forever altered, and gazed disappointedly after the dark, descending shape. Was it caution that I had gained in addition to understanding? I’m not absolutely certain.

What I do know, is that it was a dream come true. Seriously. There it was. My most impactful proof of how amazing those creatures really are. And THAT they are. They’re still out there! Critically endangered, yes, but this one was alive and oblivious to the challenges, living a peaceful existence within a mile of the largest settlement in the Northern Bahamas. Now, every time we pass that way we seek another glimpse of ‘my Leatherback.’ She has been subsequently spotted! What joy.

My first sailboat, a 1980 Tartan 37, was much smaller than STEADFAST and more of a traditional cruising vessel.

This particular lesson was learned in January of 2020, during my first months living aboard. We had meandered easily down the Intracoastal Waterway from the Chesapeake Bay to Florida and I witnessed my first-ever sunset in the Bahamas. Fortunately, very fortunately, after a remarkably rough Gulf Stream crossing, it looked like this: (it really did, this picture hangs in my galley)

If it hadn’t looked like that, the rest of my story could have evolved quite differently, let me assure you. The night before said sunset Mother Nature was showing me how uncomfortable sailing can be for a human being. The water was warmer than the air; I knew that by the waves crashing over the bow. I was rolling side to side violently in the cockpit, eyes closed, each stomach-wrenching change of direction teaching me more and more about the powers of the oceans. The sea does toss. That night, encumbered by foul weather gear and safety harness clipping me to the boat should we lose that precarious sparring match, the phrase that pounded around in my brain was “What have I done with my life?” I was almost convinced that I did not belong on a sailboat in Blue Water.

Nothing worth doing is ever easy, though, is it? The seas calmed, and three days later I saw my first-ever Leatherback Sea Turtle; her image is permanently imprinted on that same brain. I get it now, promise, and, like most people don’t jump out of a perfectly good airplane (although I’ve done that, too), it’s good advice to not jump off of a perfectly good boat.

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This 5-foot Loggerhead shared our anchorage in the Jumentos Cays in 2022.