Security is a Kind of Death
Published: Sunday, January 31, 2021
By: Bob Bitchin
Have you ever noticed that the first thing a non-sailor will ask an experienced sailor is "Have you ever been in a bad storm?" I would have to guess that it is probably the most-asked question I get when I meet people who don't sail, and it comes right after they find out I've sailed across a few oceans.
What this points out to me is that there is an intrinsic fear that people have about going to sea. Thinking back, I can remember thinking I was about to die the first time I ever sat in the cockpit of a small boat when a gust hit the sails, and we heeled over to where the water came up over the deck. I think most people feel something similar.
That may actually have led me to the sea as a way of life though. It's probably just something inside me, but I have always felt that a life lived in fear is just half a life. You know those silly bumper stickers that say "No Fear"? Well, I actually put faith in that saying. Why? Simple. When I was a teenager, my father told me that the only things he regretted in his lifetime were the things he didn't do. Things that, for one reason or another, he had a fear of doing.
He never sailed.
I think that a person experiences life through what he carries in his heart. Actually, I had an experience many years ago that proved just this.
It was on our 1993 South Pacific voyage. Jody and I had been in French Polynesia for about two months. We'd worked our way through the Marquesas and were anchored in a beautiful lagoon in Rangiroa, in the Tuamotus.
One night we decided to go ashore to the hotel on the beach to have a "native experience" and attend the luau. It was Jody and me, along with our friends who'd sailed across the equator with us, Andy and John.
We had a good time munching a lot of local foods, and after the luau, we mixed with some of the hotel guests and a couple of other cruisers. It was a quiet evening and we enjoyed ourselves.
Six months later, a friend of ours back home sent us an article that appeared in a Conde Nast-owned magazine. It was about this scary crew of tattooed, itinerant sailors who worked their way around the oceans of the world aboard a run-down derelict called the Lost Soul.
It seems that the author, who was at the luau the same night we were, was scared to death by the "tattooed vagabond sailors and their sleazy (?) girlfriend, who sat nearly topless at the bar." In retrospect, it seems this poor woman had to have been scared to death because, I can recall as if it were yesterday, of how quiet a night that was. And Jody being "nearly topless" was almost comical. She is one of the most modest people I know. Sure, I have some tattoos, but Andy and John didn't. It was like this author came from another world. And... she did. She came from a world of fear, and that fear surrounded her and kept her from enjoying her life.
Years later, I was thinking about how it must have seemed to her, being thousands of miles from home, alone on an island, with that fear. I thought about the first time I really learned about how silly fear can make people. That was the first time I sailed into Cabo San Lucas almost 30 years ago.
Then, I was crewing on the tall ship Stone Witch. We'd sailed non-stop from Redondo Beach, and the captain rowed the dinghy ashore to clear in. The rest of the crew anxiously waited on the boat for our first shore leave in two weeks to be approved.
As I stood at the rail, I saw three young boys start to pull the dinghy into the water. All of a sudden, I feared the worst. They were stealing our dinghy! I ran below deck and grabbed the first mate.
"Hey, they’re stealing our dinghy. Grab the gun!" I shouted. The first mate looked at me like I was crazy. Then he walked calmly up on deck; once there, he started laughing.
"Dude," he said (well, it was the seventies!), "they aren't stealing the dinghy. They're playing with it. When they are through, they'll put it back."
After he walked back down the stairs, I watched them. Sure enough, after a couple of minutes, they drug it back to where it had been, washed the sand out of it, and walked on down the beach.
When we venture out into the unknown, it is natural to have curiosity about what you will find, and for some, there is fear. For many, they trade the security of staying at home for the adventure of venturing out and finding new worlds.
I think Tennessee Williams said it best in an interview in 1971: "Security is a kind of death.”
A version of this article appeared in the Winter Issue (Jan/Feb) 2021 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.
