T
he anchor rattles up.
Breakfast is served in the cockpit. Yogurt with fruit and freshly squeezed orange juice.
“Against scurvy!”
Janek raises his glass and toasts us.
“You surely have your vitamin C tablets with you, right?”
He drains his glass and wipes off the juice moustache with the back of his hand.
I don’t know if it is the words he says or the energy behind them, but something triggers my anxious thoughts again.
Why would we need vitamin C tablets? The fresh fruit we have will surely be gone within a few days, but we ought not to need any supplements for a bit more than a week… or is what the homeless man I met outside the hospital true? He had laughed when I told him my plans to leave the hospital and heal myself alone to then sail for a week across the Indian Ocean. He often laughed. Lots. A very joyful laugh. This time I wondered what he laughed at. He asked me to explain if I meant I would sail on the Indian Ocean for a week, or if I actually meant to cross the Indian Ocean. For if the latter, he said it was not possible in a week, even with God’s winds in our sails every day and night.
The last two days of my hospital stay I managed to get out of bed for short walks within the hospital area. I had bought food from the little food cart passing in the halls and taken it to him. The last evening, I sat with him on a bench outside the entrance. I remember I said something about how inspired I was by how happy he seemed, despite being homeless.
He laughed affectionately and answered we are all homeless before we find the way to our hearts.
I observe Janek with full attention when he talks, as though trying to find some clarity in who he is, what drives him, if it comes from a truthful and authentic place within and whether the image I have created of him from our meeting in Bali agrees with the man sitting opposite me now with black sunglasses and a red bandana tied round his head who so decisively tells us how the setup will be.
We are to be divided into teams of two to relieve one another’s shifts on the boat. The shifts will be five hours long, twenty-four hours a day.
During these shifts we will be responsible to keep track of the boats we meet or other things that can lie and drift in the ocean that might cause a collision, we are also to write the boat’s position in the log book, keep track of incoming weather and storms, weather changes on the radar and to make the meals, breakfast at 9 a.m., lunch at noon and supper at 4 p.m.
We are also needed to help catch fish and bake bread.
“Any questions?”
His eyebrows lift over his sunglasses.
“Which teams will we have?”
My question is asked after I’ve sent a silent prayer to be with Nora.
“You will team up with me, and Bo with Nora,” Janek answers.
He takes the last fruit from the dish and goes below deck.
Soon we hear pop music from crackling speakers.
The island can no longer be seen.
I see no land in any direction. Only blindly glaring, glittering sea.
I take the binoculars lying opposite me where Janek sat. I look through the lenses in an attempt to subdue the nagging feeling that it is now too late.
Too late to go ashore anywhere.
Too late to return to where it all began.
It began a long time ago, longer than my futile human mind can remember.
But that doesn’t matter any longer, doesn’t make any difference now. For where my humanity lets me down I find the courage to let go and allow life to take over.
I defy the pain, stretch my hunched spine and gaze out toward the sea in front of the bow of the boat.
The tidings from the fortune cookie at the restaurant in the harbour yesterday is repeated in my mind:
Have faith, you are not alone.