
This week’s Friendly Friday challenge theme is ‘Nostalgia.’ See more responses here.
I wasn’t sure I’d have anything for this theme, but this photo does make me somewhat nostalgic for my sailing days. I liked making passages and being out of sight of land, as opposed to sailing in a bay. I enjoyed watchkeeping, navigation, and my world being simplified to boat, water and sky. I saw more in that reduced world than in my usual busy life. Standing night watches, I didn’t just register the dawn. I noticed a glimmer in the east slowly transition to pre-dawn, and then an almost blinding sunrise. The sight of a bird was an event. There were days of no wind when the ocean was glass and it was hard to believe that the nearest solid surface was thousands of feet below.
Now, had I found a photo with a small boat being lashed by waves on a whitecap-riven ocean, my nostalgia would be less pronounced. One trip, I took a photo of the couple I was sailing with. They were on deck, hunched in foul-weather gear, as water sprayed across the deck, looking exactly as that sounds. These moments are inescapable when sailing longer distances. When I was younger, the discomfort was worth the rewards. Now, I don’t look at it the same way. But looking at this photo, it’s easy to imagine how it could be on that perfect trip no one ever experiences.
Also posted in response to Becky’s July Squares challenge theme of ‘Perspective.’ See more responses here.