Tranquility Shattered

The Pamlico River
N 35 22.804 W 076 36.155

This morning we left early at 0700. We had anchored last night just outside the entrance to the Alligator River - Pungo River Canal, so as soon as we were under way we were in the canal. I let Libby sleep in and did it myself. I also rigged up my lines for steering from the foredeck again.

The scene was both beautiful and tranquil. I sat on a cushion on the cabin top while steering. It was chilly but I had a sweater on. Nevertheless, the sweater allowed cold breezes in so I was a bit chilly. Mists were rising out of the still water. When the sun came up, it began to warm me and it also cut off the rising mists. I began to feel like a cold blooded turtle warming himself in the sun while sitting on a log. There was no wind and the water in the canal made a perfect mirror surface.
I could see fish swimming from a long distance away because they made ripples on the surface. Since I was forward and away from the engine, I had quiet and I could hear the birds in the swamps that border the canal. I was reminded of the song, "Wouldn't It Be Finer Just To Be In Carolina In the Morning."

Just as I was setting up my camera to take some shots of the reflections of the forests in the water, a big power boat came roaring by. He caught me by surprise because when I steer from the foredeck I have no visibility behind me. This guy, with a home port of Ponce Inlet Florida was a big Chlorox bottle. That's what we call big power boats with acres of white gleaming fiberglass -- they resemble white Chlorox bottles. Sailors also call them stink pots for obvious reasons.

Anyhow, that boat shattered my tranquility. For the rest of the morning, the canal's surface never returned to the mirror surface I wanted. Why can't power boaters like that one just learn to relax and enjoy the journey.

That thought reminded me of a book I'm reading called The Happiness Hypothesis. It is mostly a book about psychology written by (surprise) a psychologist named Jonathan Haidt. It struck me how two things that this book says seem so directly applicable to our lives as sailing cruisers.

First, the book says that Buddha was right. Wealth and external things do not bring happiness. It is progress toward goals, that make us happy, not the attainment of the goal. The analogy of that is that it is not the destination but rather the journey that brings happiness. That's what sailors have always said about (some) power boaters.

Secondly, the book lists those external factors that seem to universally affect happiness positively or negatively. Among them is something the author calls flow. He said, "Csikszentmihalyi's big discovery is that there is a state many people value even more than chocolate after sex [hmmmm, never tried that] It is the state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to one's abilities." Wow! That sounds like what I enjoyed for so many years in my career. It sounds even
more like sailing. He goes on to say, "You get flash after flash of positive feeling with each turn negotiated, each high note correctly sung, or each brush stroke that falls in the right place. -- Pleasures must be both savored and varied." Yes, that's not only sailing, it is coastal or inland sailing, or the cruising life with epsisodes of sailing, and motoring, and anchoring, and going ashore.

In short, the book makes our cruising life sound like the best mental therapy imaginable. I won't dispute it.