Being a volunteer is something that has been part of my life since I was a child. I’ve volunteered for many different types of non-profit organizations. One them, the Los Angeles Maritime Institute’s Topsail Youth Program, teaches at-risk youth how to sail tall ships, using hands-on sailing experiences to provide social education and leadership development opportunities. I have volunteered as a ship’s crew member for this organization on many day sails around the Port of Los Angeles and on multi-day sails to Catalina Island. These experiences have made an indelible mark on my soul that I will cherish forever.
So often, we humans feel separated from the natural world. Yet, when we come out of our shelters, when we venture outdoors and allow ourselves to connect with nature, we realize that we are not separate, that we are part of the community of creatures living on this planet. We then begin to recognize the deep connection that we all have to each other.
This connection came home to me on one of the most remarkable sailing voyages that I’ve experienced. As we motored off the dock in San Pedro in the Port of Los Angeles one Monday afternoon, we had a full crew of adult volunteers, a captain, a handful of professional crew, and about twenty excited middle school-aged kids. We were embarking on a five-day sail to Catalina Island on the Exy Johnson, a 110-foot wooden brigantine tall ship.
The cross to the island would take us approximately five hours under motor, with some limited sailing under wind power if the conditions were right and if we were on schedule. During this leg of the voyage, the crew would get to know the kids and teach them how to handle the sailing lines. There would also be time for them to climb aloft and to go out onto the bow sprit.
For the past couple of days there had been some exciting news around the port, sightings of a pod of blue whales feeding on krill in the Santa Monica Bay. Blue whales are the largest animals on earth, with some reaching almost 100 feet in length. By the late nineteenth-century, blue whales had nearly gone extinct due to hunting. Although the population has recovered, blue whales are still rarely seen in Southern California.
We motored into a low traffic area in the harbor near the gateway to the bay and turned into the wind, so we could set the mainsail. The first mate called us to our sailing stations. The kids readied the sail lines under our supervision, and the first mate yelled out, “Let go and haul!”
As the kids raised the sail, one of the crew yelled out, “Thar she blows!” and pointed at a pair of whales in the harbor feeding on krill. It’s unusual to spot any type of whale in the harbor. They mostly stay out in the deeper waters of the bay. But there they were, two whales a few hundred feet away from us. We could only see their backs on the surface, but we thought they were blue whales since there was lots of krill in the water, and krill is the only food that blue whales eat.
After the mainsail was set, we continued to motor toward the gateway and past the lighthouse jetty. As we moved out into the bay, we began to spot more blue whales, some feeding and some mating. One of them breached out of the water in the distance.
There was much excitement on deck. We quickly set the staysails, jibs, and the square sails. Once all the sails were set, the captain throttled down the engine, so we could spend some time observing the whales.
The creatures became aware of our presence and began to gather around us. Some of them were almost as long as our sailing vessel. One whale dove deep and swam under us from the starboard side. He surfaced a few yards away on our port side. He continued to play this game with us for a while, diving and swimming under us, then resurfacing, each time a little closer to the ship.
Then a pair of blue whales swam in tandem near our vessel. They dove under the water and surfaced together repeatedly in a graceful, synchronized dance. Were they putting on a show for us? The pair came closer and surfaced just a couple of feet off our port side. They were so close I could smell them – like rotten fish. If I had reached out, I could have touched them. They dove under again, side by side, and disappeared.
To get a better view of the whales, I brought a group of eight kids in safety harnesses out onto the bow sprit. The bow sprit is a spar (like a horizontal mast) that extends from the ship out over the water in the front. There are metal cables on the bow sprit to support the structure, rigging that the jib sails run along, and a web of netting that you can lie down in like a hammock. We clipped our safety harnesses onto the rigging and stepped along the support cable away from the ship with nothing but water underneath us. Then some of the kids and I crawled up onto the spar and the rest of the kids settled down in the netting.
The whales were all around us. These intelligent giants were as curious about us as we were about them. They wanted to connect. One of the whales swam right under us. We could see it just beneath the surface of the water. It lingered there for a while as though trying to figure us out. The kids squealed and laughed. They could feel the connection to this wild creature.
We had to stay on schedule to arrive at Catalina before dark, so the captain throttled up the engine, and we moved further out into the bay. As we left the whales behind, we had more visitors – a pod of dolphins. Several of them gathered around the bow of the ship and rode our bow wake, white water that the ship pushes up as it moves forward. These dolphins were our escorts to see us off on a safe journey across the bay.
One of the dolphins in the wake rolled and looked right up at us. He made eye contact and gazed into our souls with an intelligent knowing. The kids shrieked with joy.
One of the little girls turned to me with big saucer eyes and said, “I’m so glad I came. My friends tried to talk me into staying home, and I almost did.”
I was happy for her, but also stunned. What if she had stayed home? She would have missed out this life-changing experience.
What if I had stayed home? What if any of us had stayed home?
You never know what you’re going to miss if you don’t put your fear aside and just do it. Commit to life. Commit to being part of it all. Commit to connecting with each other and with the natural world. Commit to connecting with yourself.
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