On the ocean, you can hear Creation


“After 47 years of living aboard- 37 of them with my wife, Carolyn- I’m still enthralled by Mother Ocean. I see God’s face in every wave, every cloud, every sunset. My boat is my church: Deep ocean is the only place I’ve learned to pray. At sea, I’m always in the moment. I taste the tangy salt air. I hear the dove-wing flutter of my jib leech. I feel the life pulse of the waves, chuckle at my wake, watch Wild Card’s bow throw diamonds at the sky. It’s so lovely.

Sometimes I believe I can hear the Earth spinning on its axis, and it’s difficult not to cry out with the perfection of it all”…..Captain Fatty Goodlander, “Lovely, Lonely Atolls”, Cruising World June 2008

The written word can be such a powerful thing. It has the ability to pluck on your heart strings and send your soul flying above the din and chaos.

Good writing must stir your soul: it can make you laugh out loud, cry with joy or sorrow or make your heart swell with complete and total rapture.

If you want to know what sailing feels like to me, subscribe to Cruising World and read Captain Fatty’s articles….particularly the one I referenced above. You can also hear him on NPR.

He writes poetry of the sea.