Bon voyage to my big brother!

Today my oldest brother, Michael, is setting sail across the Atlantic Ocean in a 47-foot sailboat with a crew of 4, including himself, and his son. Wow. I'm excited and a bit scared for him, and also immensely proud of him. While I generally agree with the old adage that one should never say never, I'm fairly certain this is something I myself would never, ever undertake!

This is the last big ocean crossing on Michael's trip around the world onboard his yacht Traveler. He left home in Southern California in the summer of 2007. The trip was supposed to have taken 2 years, but for a variety of reasons they got off schedule at a few crucial points and then had to wait out hurricane seasons and such, and ended up a full year behind. His girlfriend Barbara, a very experienced sailor, was supposed to have been with him for the whole trip, but she was only able to get a 2-year leave from her teaching job, so she had to leave the boat and go back to California at the end of this past summer. (She'll be joining up with him whenever she can, during her breaks.)

I have met up with him twice on the trip: the first time was in Hawaii, back in July of '07. That was at the end of the first leg of his journey, from LA to Honolulu, which he sailed as part of the Transpacific Yacht Race. My then-boyfriend (now-husband) and George and I were supposed to have stayed on his boat with him while we were there, but ended up overlapping with him for only one night, because that crossing took a full week longer than expected! There was no wind--all of the boats were late. He actually won second place in his class, and it was a huge thrill to be able to meet him at the finish line. My other brother, Drew, and his family were also there, but their trip was shorter than ours and so they were (alas) long gone by the time Michael and crew arrived.

On our last morning there (and our only morning there with Michael), we went out in the boat off the shore of the stretch of beach where my grandparents spent the better part of about 20 of their golden years. My grandmother had died four and a half years before, and my grandfather had died several months before. We anchored the boat and held a really sweet memorial service for them. This probably isn't legal, but we then dropped their (tightly sealed) urns overboard--Michael had brought them with him from California--so that their ashes could be together, out from their favorite beach, forever... or until some scuba diver mistakes them for a lost treasure and takes them back to shore!

(Here is an article about the 2007 Transpac Race; the second half of it is all about Michael and gives an account of many of the troubles and mishaps he faced on the race. Also, if you look at the pictures to the right, he's the guy in the yellow hat who is kissing the ground.)

The next time I met up with Traveler was in January of '08, in Tahiti, this time with my sister, Melissa. What a blast that was! (And not just because I was so glad to get away from the upstate New York winter;-) However, it was on that trip that both Melissa and I realized that we would definitely not be accompanying Michael on any of his major crossings. Now, keep in mind that both Melissa and I do have some experience sailing, though it was admittedly (for the most part) many years ago. But we were both quite confident in our seaworthiness. In fact, we were kind of looking forward to the 14-hour, overnight crossing--from Moorea to Huahine--that Michael had planned for us. After all, the shorter 2- or 3-hour crossings up to that point had been a piece of cake.

Michael had a schedule set up for the night crossing whereby we would all help in overlapping shifts. Either he or Barbara would always be on deck, and for most of the time either Melissa or I would be there to help. He would take the first shift by himself, so the rest of us could get a few hours of sleep right off the bat. Sleep indeed! Ha. We ran into very rough seas soon after leaving port, and you really would have had to be in a coma to get any sleep.

At first, I was ok. I came up on deck to take my shift with Michael. But I wasn't able to be as much help as I would have liked, given that I was hanging on for dear life. Michael actually strapped me in so I wouldn't fall overboard, and at a certain point he really wanted me to try steering. I wedged myself in as best I could, bracing myself with my feet, and tried to steady myself enough to hold the helm more or less in place. Not only did it not go very well, but I started to feel quite seasick. It was bad. I had to jettison my pride and ask Michael for a Dramamine! I knew this would make me very sleepy and would render me even more useless, but I was sure by then that I wasn't going to be any help at all anyway. I took the little pill, and went back down below deck, making my way (which took great determination) all the way to the front of the boat, into the v-berth, which was about the size of a queen-or a king-sized bed at the widest point. I wedged myself in so that I would be thrown around as little as possible and set about trying to will myself to sleep, which I knew wouldn't really work, but I had to try.

Throughout the night, as I desperately tried to keep control of my nausea and to keep from being slammed against the walls of the v-berth, I was vaguely aware that my sister had gone up on deck. I was almost too miserable to feel ashamed that she was up there helping while I was down below not contributing a damn thing.

I should add that every time the waves crashed against the boat--which was with unrelenting frequency--the sides of the boat would creak loudly, and I became convinced that the boat was going to split apart and we were all going to be swallowed up by the ocean. My main thought was actually for my mom--I felt so bad that she was going to lose 3 of her 4 children in one shot! But believe it or not I actually took a bit of comfort in finding some humor in the situation, thinking about my brother Drew (he always seemed to have suffered a bit from "middle-child syndrome" when we were younger)--at long last he would get to be Mom's undisputed favorite!

After many hours of this, which included a couple of very challenging trips to the head, I ventured back up on deck--I decided it was time to try again. As I staggered/climbed up, and poked my head out, the first person I saw was Melissa, who greeted me by pointing her finger at me in what seemed to me a rather accusatory way and saying "YOU!" I was starting to mutter something like, Yeah, I know, I really wimped out, I let you all down, I'm sorrrrry! But she cut me off and said "I can't BELIEVE you pulled that off, lasting all night without throwing up!" Turns out she had been up there all night not helping with the sailing, but--strapped in, of course--tossing her cookies over the side of the boat!!!

I was actually feeling a little better by this point, and also probably buoyed a bit by the pride in having at least fared better than my big sis. So when Michael insisted that I try taking the helm again, I was ready. I managed slightly better this time--though not because the sea was any calmer. At this point, Michael was dead tired, and Barbara, amazingly, wanted to go back down below deck to MAKE BREAKFAST. Seriously, I could not even stand in one place (let alone walk even a few steps) without engaging all 4 of my limbs. I couldn't imagine how she could possibly think about preparing food--or eating it, for that matter. But prepare she did. In fact, she made an omelet, and hash browns, and BACON, and COFFEE!! Which she and Michael ate and drank without spilling any of it. Wow. I'll never understand how they did it.

Soon thereafter we made it to Huahine, our destination, and once we were in the harbor it was calm enough for us all to catch up on sleep, and for Melissa and me to recover from our nausea... though I'm not sure that even now we're quite over the humiliation we both felt at having fallen apart the way we did! In any case, it was enough to cure us each of any daydreams (delusions) we might have had about joining him for the Atlantic crossing!

So now here he is, almost two years later, setting out on that crossing. If you're curious, you can read about his thoughts in the hours before his departure on his blog. He's leaving from the Canary Islands (where he actually stopped by the chapel where Christopher Columbus attended mass before setting out on the same crossing) and will be heading for Barbados. From there they'll head to St. Lucia and then island-hop around the Caribbean for awhile before taking the Panama Canal over to the other side of the continent, arriving back in Southern California sometime next summer.

Michael, you are crazy, and wonderful, and brave, and I love you. Safe travels, big bro.