scrawling a few notes in my journal I turn off the light and fall asleep nursing my fear of falling off the Yard.

Working round the clock watches at sea, you’re either working, preparing to work, eating or sleeping. Life and time are not gauged by abstract numerals on a clock or even the passage of the sun. Events are measured by the degree of discomfort or elation they cause. Weather conditions, odd occurrences, landmarks all become points of reference on this time line and their relative positions are more a matter of their significance to the ship or their personal impact than on the exact number of hours or days since they occurred. After awhile even my age begins to slip away into the ships' wake. Time becomes now. The past is a physical or emotional scar or an amusing story, and if I am concerned about the future all I have to do is stand on the Fore Deck and look out past the Bowsprit.

The things that matter more than time or age aboard ship are the weather, food and work. Clothing is the only response available to the weather. Food is provided when the cook rings the bell, and if you are on time you get enough to eat, if not, you can always raid the pantry for a PB&J sandwich. Work is the variable by which you begin to measure yourself and others. Diligence, knowledge, dexterity and physical strength in the performance of your assigned tasks are the benchmarks of acceptance and self-confidence. I hoped that going to sea would make me young again and it seemed work, I felt just like I did as a high school freshman - inept, awkward, and outclassed. But with effort and repetition muscles respond and abilities grow to the point where physical exertion is tolerable and, in some instances, actually pleasant. Eventually it becomes necessary to my general feeling of well being, and I begin to feel exceptionally well. Even when working with a gang at the laborious task of raising the anchor, five people on either side of the old manual Windlass. Pumping up and down, straining to haul up the anchor chain, link by link, first thing in the morning, before breakfast (or even a cup of coffee), I feel stronger than I have in years.

Two young Dutch sailors among the five men at the windlass bar across from me work like a pair of tireless Clydesdales, their unkempt, long blond hair whipping back and forth as they effortlessly pump their side of the windlass. And when they strike up a sea chantey to accompany the click, click of the pawls against the Windlass gears and the rattle of the chain rising through the hawsehole, I am amazed to find that I have enough breath left over to join in the chorus.

So here I am after a few weeks at sea, oxygenated, exercised and challenged, sleeping only five or six hours a day (sometimes in two-hour snatches); but am I sailing toward my future, away from my past, or worse, just circling around to kill time. You tend to think about stuff like that when you're on Bow-watch. It's quiet and you're alone at the prow of the ship, you are standing at the forefront of your world. Your legs apart for balance against the sea's movements, the ship, crew and Captain at your back, only the Bowsprit thrusting out before you, your senses are on alert but your mind is unencumbered. Standing watch, now, on the last leg of this voyage and scanning the dark sea ahead, my mind tacks back and forth over the course of my life and I wonder if sailing in circles is all I've ever done. But at this moment, at four in the morning, stars surrounding me and the sensation of free-fall when the ship bows deeply into a wave, I feel as though I'm floating in space, like the image of the fetus at the end of Stanley Kubrick's movie "2001’,a bubble of identity, alone and awestruck at the edge of the universe. I’m as alive as I've ever been, as alive as I am ever going to be and life is good. When my watch is over, I roll into my bunk and sleep well, in spite of the noisy gurgle of water rushing past the hull.

My three-week odyssey had lasted a lifetime and was over much too soon. I never conquered my fear of falling off the yard, no matter how many times I tried, but I know that I'll be back, either on this ship or another. I still hadn't plunged into the sea over my head; I had only waded in chest high; but it was deep enough to learn that I am what I am - less than I wish but a little more than I imagined. Still on the journey and compelled, regardless of age, (or maybe because of it), to pursue and be pursued by destiny's white whale.

Lorenzo Caricchio, “Zingara”