Sea of Dreams

I’ve always known it was a little odd. The girl raised in West Texas in the dry, harsh wind whose only sea was endless prairie grass and amber waves of grain falling in love with the ocean before she had even really seen it. But I can’t deny it – I am in a life-long love affair with the sea.It isn’t about the destinations – the postcard perfect sandy beaches, the sunlit cities around calm, blue harbors. It isn’t about the lifestyle, the surfing, or even the weather. It’s always been about the ocean – her majesty, her beauty, her sounds, her strength. Ask me what my favorite color is – it’s the blue of the deserted beaches of Abel Tasman National Park. My favorite sound – the waves at sunset in Maui. My favorite smell – well, here I have to say that the salty sea breezes come in second to rain on a fresh plowed field. But it’s a close second. For as long as I can remember I’ve been in awe of the ocean and what lies beneath her waves. It’s a love affair that renews itself each time I see her from a new shoreline or in a new light, aboard a different vessel, or from a different depth.It should come as no surprise then that my idea of a perfect day has always involved sand and sea.
For those of you who know me you know I’ve been writing about “perfect days” for a long time – my own and others. But even in my most imaginative and carefree writings I never dreamt of a day like this.My perfect day actually lasted longer than 24 hours. Two days and two nights on a sailing cruise to be exact. A sail boat larger than any I had previously been on carried me through my 48 hours of bliss. Her name was Freight Train but unlike her moniker suggests, she was a smooth and graceful vessel 18 meters in length with a deep blue hull and pure white sails. She carried eighteen varied and interesting individuals and three crew members. She was my home for 2 days. I slept on her deck for two nights and hung my feet from her bow for most of the 25 nautical miles between Airlie Beach and the strand of 74 islands known as the Whitsundays. Her main sail was the first sail I ever hoisted (though it will certainly not be my last).
We left Airlie Beach at 1:30 pm on Wednesday. The sky was a clear, stainless blue. It was the best day they had had in months, or so we were told. The wind was just strong enough to fill the sails and keep us moving at a steady clip. Yellow butterflies drifted lazily above the azure waves in a graceful, dreamlike dance. It was startling to see so many of those delicate insects fluttering about so far from shore.
At the helm of our boat was a salty sailor named Johnny. Johnny looked as if he had stepped out of a Jimmy Buffet song – his hair was bleached a sandy blond, his skin a dark and leathery tan, his tattoos and roll-your-own cigarettes only adding to his genuine appeal. His mannerisms were befitting of his post as a captain of a hand-me-down sailing yacht full of backpackers – a grudgingly pleasant captain short on patience and long on tall tales and sea stories. I felt a certain appreciation for this man, the son of an outback doctor who in his youth had fallen in love with an ocean he had rarely seen in his rugged childhood. It is a love he could never shake – even if he had wanted to. And I believe he had an appreciation for the two Texan girls on his boat who helped with the sailing and lent a hand without his request. He seemed to enjoy our tales of home and Hawaii as much as we enjoyed his tales of diving and sailing abroad. It never fails that good characters make a mediocre story great. Without Johnny and my fellow travelers this would just be another story of sand and waves.
Our first night on the boat was spent moored in Tongue Bay. We had dinner on deck and got to know Antoine, Xavier and Gregory – fellow passengers from Switzerland that would keep us in stitches for most of the cruise. If there was a costume to be made of random items, they wore it. Dances to be done, they did it. They weren’t out to entertain anyone but themselves but the rest of us profited from their antics. Johnny busted out his guitar and serenaded us with local favorites, Jimmy Buffett tunes and contemporary hits while we enjoyed the high class goon our Swiss friends were eager to share. (For those of you re-reading the above sentence for a clue as to what “goon” is, please let me clarify. Goon is a nickname for super cheap boxed wine whose most obvious feature is the inclusion of “fish products, eggs and milk” found in the ingredients. It’s about as appetizing as it sounds.)
That night I slept on the very front of the boat with the crumpled jib as a bed. It was damp and chilly but the stars were so numerous and the moon so brilliant that I couldn’t help but fall asleep with a smile on my face. It was a smile that would last the rest of the trip.
I awoke early the next morning (5:30 am – you would be proud Grandad!) and joined Johnny on deck for coffee. The cove we were anchored in was just beginning to glow with pre-dawn light. Just over the tree-covered hills directly in front of us lay Whitehaven Beach, the object of a million postcard pictures and rumored to be one of the (if not the) best beaches in the world. A last minute decision on Johnny’s part led to 6 of us early rising passengers to jump into the dingy and make a mad dash to for the lookout that faced due east – directly towards the approaching sunrise.We half walked, half jogged the short trail up the hill and arrived just in time to watch God splash a new day’s canvas with radiance and beauty. Several failed attempts to watch the sunrise on this trip had left me drab but this morning all hope was restored. The sunrise is truly the suns best moment of the day. These were no dying rays of light. These were vibrant living beams caressing a sleepy sea and calling forth light to meet the new day. The water was lit as if from within with a fiery cascade of oranges and reds.
I was reluctant to leave behind this masterpiece but we returned to the boat for breakfast. On board we were informed about the beach we would shortly set foot on. Whitehaven is a large expanse of pure white sand that bubbles up from a crack in the earth’s crust. It is so pure (approximately 98% silicon) that they used this sand to make the Hubble Telescope lens. At high tide several of the ocean’s fabled creatures swim into the large, shallow pools to feast on soldier crabs. Low tide inevitably strands some of them in knee to thigh high water.
When we finally sank our feet in the sand, we did so breathlessly. This expanse of shallow turquoise and azure pools made you want to abandon all care and run crashing into their coolness – which is exactly what we did. The water was refreshing. After a bit, I wandered further into other pools of water where I found myself in the company of several stingrays that glided at a safe distance or darted out of sight. We even caught a glimpse of a baby shark, no longer than two feet, gliding through the shallows. I followed him for a while – my first ever ‘shark encounter’. I was grinning from ear to ear. I could have stayed there all day. Heck – I could have lived there if they would have let me. But my day had much more in store so we turned and walked slowly back to our rendezvous point.
The next couple of hours were spent on the open water. We cruised past more tree-covered hills and sandy beaches floating on endlessly blue seas. Our destination was Luncheon Bay on Hook Island where I would do something I had been dreaming of since I saw my first Shark Week on Discovery Channel – if not before. Today, not far from the famed Great Barrier Reef, I would finally Scuba Dive.
There were two groups doing the introductory dives – short 20 minute dives of only 8 or so meters in depth. Lisa and I were in the second group. We snorkeled while waiting. The water was covering a virtual wonderland of coral and fish.
Finally it was our turn. We strapped on all the necessary equipment which seemed very heavy out of the water, slapped on our fins and mask and took the basic lessons on how to clear your mask and breathing device, what hand signals to use, and how to equalize your ears and sinuses. Then down we went. It was amazingly easy. No butterflies or panic overtook me. Breathing was decidedly easier than snorkeling. And the views – oh the views!
No longer were you floating above the action, an observer to an underground kingdom. Now you were a participant, a unique and strange being drawing attention from the locals as you cruised through their neighborhoods and communities. Some swam right up to have a better look, some eased away but most of these finned citizens kept right on doing what they had been doing before your arrival – eating, sleeping and escaping other larger fish. Even in visibility that left much to be desired their colors were striking and clever. Black stripes cut across fields of brightest yellow, green spots glimmered on brown, blues of varying depths and brightness sparkled and shone. It was a moving, shifting rainbow. All around us the coral formed structures to rival the most beautiful buildings on land. They towered, they formed canyons and walls, they swayed and fanned out all the while showing colors to rival their tenants. The twenty minutes flew by. I wanted more. I want more. Another addiction – why must they all be so expensive?
We sailed on from there to Black Island were we did more snorkeling and wasted what was left of the sunny afternoon jumping off the boat into the calm, clear waters. That night we stayed up late. Several of us gathered at the stern to listen to more of Johnny’s tunes. During breaks he and I swapped tales and goon. I fell asleep to a strumming guitar watching plankton light up in a failed attempt compete with the brilliant stars above. The Southern Cross watched on accompanied by millions of his less luminescent cousins. The Earth and the Sea seemed to sigh in contentment. If anything, my smile had gotten bigger.
I know that this day will haunt my daydreams during the future. There was enough peace to settle my soul, enough adventure to spark my imagination, and enough memories to write a thousand stories. It was as perfect of a day as I ever hope to have.

Our time is winding down here in the great land of Oz. We have a little over a week. I'm pretty pumped about Indonesia - land of cheap food and cheap accomodation. We'll meet up with Desirae there and begin the leg of our trip guaranteed to expose us to more culture and less comforts than we've seen thus far. For the next week, though, we'll be enjoying the hospitality of our hosts here in Cairns - Steven and Kelly Real. You simply can't overestimate the value of friends from home living overseas.

Till we meet again, sweet dreams from the road...