Marblehead Meditations

Crew: Andrew, Lena, Sergey

Prologue

I call this blog entry a Meditation inspired by the book by Robert Pirsig “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” (recommended by Sergey on a gorgeous morning during our sailing adventure to Salem last year). The book describes the author’s motorcycle trip across the US. The narrative description is interspersed with what the author calls Chautauquas—for him, philosophical deliberations about the nature of “quality”. Which made me wonder—what would my Chautauquas be about? What do I focus on while sailing for hours uninterrupted except for a chart check or a sail trim here and there? And one word kept coming back: Communication. I realized a while back that of the many things that interest me in this world - underwater marine life, the immune system, writing, programming - communication is the common thread across all of them that interests me the most. So this time I decided, during the quiet time, to redirect my attention toward the true nature of Communication.

Five to ten knots with showers

The first overnight sail of the season was scheduled for the 16 and 17 of May: Sunday and Monday. That meant that I had all Saturday to prepare for the trip, which in turn meant that I was not going to have to prepare for it during the week. The result was that the weekend sprung up on me - it was not until Thursday the 14th that I realized that our overnight trip was coming up. I started getting excited - the sort of excitement that I had not felt since my previous overnight sail with this crew in September 2020.

Andrew had reserved the Eliza, one of the newest and nicest boats in the BSC’s “Cruising 35” fleet. The forecast was for 5-10 knot southwest winds with showers. The crew anticipated a slow day and prepared to make good use of the pre-packed rain gear.

The Eliza was waiting for us on her slip. Arriving at the BSC that Sunday morning and boarding our boat felt as natural as if our sailing streak had not been rudely interrupted by the Boston Winter for the previous 6 months.

Andrew undocked the Eliza smoothly, and pretty soon we were on our way to adventure. True to the forecast, the wind was no more than a breeze. It was actually blowing partially from behind us and partially from the Boston side of the inner harbor, which meant steady progress to the outer harbor with no heeling.

North or South

After passing Castle Island the wind decreased even more and with it, our speed. It also got warmer, which filled me with the desire to jump in the water. At the speed at which we were going, I could have easily jumped into the water, swam for a bit and gotten back on board. I didn’t though. The lull lasted only a few minutes but enough to have the crew earning for a lunch stop, possibly accompanied by some swimming. We first aimed for the public mooring balls next to Gallops Island, but they were missing their lines, which meant that we would have to anchor. The west side of Lovells Island had a good anchorage and the wind had slowed down again, which meant slow motion toward the island. I went down below to change into my swimsuit and told Andrew that I would swim to the island and meet him there. He agreed, but I chickened out. We were only a few meters away and yet with zero speed, not much was happening. In the distance, we could see what appeared to be rain falling at various locations across the harbor. After an uneventful anchoring, Sergey and I did swim for a bit. The water was very cold so for me it was less about swimming and more about jumping into the water and immediately getting out!


A small motor boat saw us and decided to follow our lead and anchor at the beach. Normally that would not bother us but instead of quietly enjoying their time on the island, the occupants decided to blast loud music from speakers on their boat and head over to the beach. Not very nice of them. Not very nice at all. As we enjoyed our lunch, the weather started changing around us. The sun disappeared behind the rain clouds. Waves rocked our boat and nearly spilled our drinks. And it started getting cold - cold enough, in fact, that it made Andrew and Sergey want to change into their foul weather gear. As we were putting the food away, it started to rain. The shower didn’t last long but it did make us want to go sail since the wind had definitely improved significantly!


We had planned to travel north for this overnight as the forecast had predicted SW winds for Sunday and NW winds for Monday, which meant that going north would not have us beating into the wind on either the trip north or the return. The reality that we observed, however, was a strong wind on Sunday blowing from the north. And if we couldn’t trust the forecast for Sunday, how much confidence should we have that the people at the National Weather Service had correctly forecasted the weather for the following Monday? None at all... We ended up travelling on a northeast heading to take advantage of the northerly winds and continued on to Nahant. The boat was heeling, we even had to shorten the jib to avoid heeling too much. In spite of the clear 10-15 knot wind which helped us make progress toward Nahant, the forecast continued to indicate southwest winds. We were of course loving the fact that we had good wind, but it was disturbing, to say the least, how wrong the forecast had been. Nahant came and went and it was still early so we kept going. After some deliberation, Sergey decided that Marblehead Harbor would likely be a much better / quieter anchorage for the night than Nahant given the northerly winds. We continued heading northeast, looking for our good old friend “red number four”. As for me, I kept looking out into the ocean hoping to spot a whale or two but it didn’t happen.

Marblehead Mooring

Arriving in Marblehead Harbor was uneventful. The wind continued to stubbornly blow from the north while the forecast stubbornly predicted southwest winds. I was puzzled by the lack of change in the forecast - isn’t that what weather stations are good for? Even windy.com, which is supposed to provide live weather station readings, was indicating SW winds. I stopped stressing about it and just enjoyed being on a sailboat with enough wind to get us to Marblehead Harbor. The inner harbor in Marblehead was somewhat protected from the north wind but not entirely, making the boat difficult to steer. There were also no anchorage spots, which meant that we would need to find ourselves a free mooring ball. The cruising guide suggested 3 yacht clubs renting mooring balls for transients. Two out of three didn’t answer the phone and the third told us that they were not taking transients due to COVID. Finally, we reached out to the Marblehead harbormaster, who told us to use our smartphones to pay for a mooring ball via dockwa.com and gave us a mooring ball number after that. As soon as we were moored, the rain caught up to us again. Perfect timing, it seemed.


After the rain softened, we decided to inflate the dinghy and row to shore. It was still raining slightly but the sun was making a re-appearance, which resulted in a stunning double rainbow over the harbor. The town of Marblehead was nice but it did not seem very large, with a park overlooking the harbor—an ideal place for panoramic pictures—and lots of cute, well taken care of stores that were still “closed for the winter”.


Dinner was served in the galley—Sergey’s specialty of spaghetti, tomato sauce and kosher sausages was delicious—accompanied by a bottle of the Pessimist wine that Andrew had brought. Even though it was cold, we did enjoy the night air for some time before tiredness took over, and we retreated to our sleeping bags.

Communication

I woke up at around 5.15. The sunrise was at 5.30. The sunrise is absolutely my favorite part of these overnights on the boat and I try very hard not to miss it! I pulled an arm out of the sleeping bag and damn, it was cold! I pulled myself out anyway, there was a sunrise to experience! With my shoes and jacket on, I opened the companionway and stepped onto the cockpit wrapped in my blue blanket, which I bring on board for these exact situations. The water was quiet. A few birds here and there. And a gorgeous orange-yellow-pink reflection on the water as the sun emerged above the horizon.

Meditation Interlude: The Sunday before had been too intense to think about communication so Monday was going to be the day. The first event that got me thinking about it was the distant sound of a bell coming from the town, which rang 6 times at 6AM. In this case, the communication was made up of a message—that at that moment it was 6AM—a communicator (not sure if a person or a computer nowadays) and an audience (i.e. the people who receive the communication). This was different from a 1:1 communication such as when I say “good morning” to Sergey because the bell’s audience is not specific: whereas I would probably not try to say “good morning” to Sergey if he was still asleep, the bell will (probably) still try to convey its message even if 100% of the people and animals within its hearing range were asleep. So that begs the question: if there’s no audience, is a message still a communication? I decided that no, if there’s no receiver of a message, communication does not happen.

The water was still too cold for swimming, so the crew prepared coffee/tea and oatmeal for breakfast, and just as we were getting ready for a second cup of coffee we ran out of propane. Our mooring neighbors had left and we needed to be on our way back to Boston as well since the wind forecast called for very weak 5 knot winds, which meant it would take us a while to get there. Nevertheless, we did have enough wind to cast off from the mooring ball at 7AM. We had failed to pump-out (again) much to Andrew’s dismay.

Leaving Marblehead Harbor

The Eliza made very good progress from Marblehead Harbor to Nahant - the wind was behind us, the sun was beaming and we were moving. And then, the wind died and our speed over ground was 0 knots. This was another excellent opportunity to think about communication.

Meditation Interlude: The topic this time was the communication of the marine animals swimming under our hull. What was on my mind was the question: when a whale sings, is it trying to communicate in the same way that I communicate “good morning” to Sergey and Andrew? Or is it communicating like the church bell? The whale’s language would be different and the message may be heard but not understood by us, which adds another element to the communication equation: language. If the message sender and receiver don’t use a language that is understood by both, the message is lost, so is it really a communication? Like us, whales don’t just use sound to communicate - body language is also key to the way they communicate. But of course, when they go about their business of fishing to feed themselves or to go to the surface to breathe, they need to move their body without any intent of communicating. So body motion may or may not constitute communication, which begs the question: does there have to be an intent to communicate in order for communication to occur? When a bigger fish is hunting a smaller fish, they try to be as still as they can until they can attack without being detected. When they approach their prey, they obviously don’t intend to communicate to the prey “I’m going to eat you”. And yet they do since the prey receives the message loud and clear and as a result will swim away. I decide that communication may or may not have an intent.

After a while the wind returned and we were moving again. It was quite early and we had made good progress toward Boston Harbor so we decided to stop for lunch somewhere. The wind had shifted and it was now blowing from the East - Great Brewster would protect us.

Swinging

Between the two Great Brewter’s drumlins we could see Boston Light. We dropped the mainsail and motored slowly toward the island. Every single time we do this, I always have the impression that we’re going to run aground because the island feels too close, but of course we never do. In these moments, whoever is steering the boat is paying close attention to the depth sounder to make sure that we’re not anchoring too far or too close.


We all went down to the galley to have our lunch, since the wind was making it very uncomfortable up in the cockpit. Normally, a good steady wind makes the boat point in the direction of the wind while anchored. But this time, an interesting phenomena was happening: we were swinging. Through the open companionway we could see our stern pointing in one direction for a while, then swinging and pointing in another direction for a while and then coming back to point at the original direction. It was making me a little seasick, to be honest.

Later, I understood why that was: to get to us, the wind had to go around the island’s northern drumlin - sometimes it was blowing stronger in between the two drumlins and our boat would point in that direction, other times it was stronger at the edge of the island, and so our boat would turn in that direction. We didn’t stay long in the swinging anchorage. Nobody swam this time, as far as I know (it was quite cold), but both Andrew and I did manage to take a short nap.

Soon enough we were on our way back to Boston. My last meditation was on the lighthouses and buoys in the harbor with which I had become very familiarized. Like the bell in Marblehead, they convey their message, whether or not someone is there to see and hear it. The first people who decided to mark certain locations such as “Sculpin Ledge” as dangerous—perhaps ancient mariners hoping they would return home safely—were communicating with other mariners with intent. Nowadays, the buoys that mark Sculpin Ledge are maintained by the coast guard, but the intent of the message they convey is the same even if the message sender changed. This begs the question—if the message stays the same but the sender and the receiver change, is it an instance of the same communication? I believe that it is. This belief helps me feel a special connection between us and all those other mariners who sailed these water, some of whom might have even lived hundreds of years ago.