Hey, Jude

I stood on the deck of the Exuma Park office building watching St. Jude sailing away with strange and overwhelming feeling in my stomach. Now, St. Jude isn't a vessel I was particularly familiar with and I met its captain only couple of times before. Any other day I wouldn't pay much attention to its comings or goings, but this wasn't any other day. I was profoundly sad on one hand but on the other I had this strange excitement rising up inside. So there I was standing above the Warderick Wells watching St. Jude leaving her mooring. Its tiny shape moving away, rounding up small cay at the North end of the island. She raised her sails that filled up quickly and started to follow other boats already taking the opportunity in the recent change of weather to sail towards the Nassau. I stood there watching St. Jude getting smaller and smaller. Finally I turned and walked away. I was alone.

I walked down from the porch to find some work in the Park where we were volunteering for the last few days. Yesterday we were assembling several massive water tanks. Like most other islands in the Bahamas Warderick Wells was generating its drinking water by reverse osmosis and we assembled these water tanks into a system that would provide fresh water for the use of the park. Just yesterday you could hear the clanking sound of the Jackhammer and see Johannes jerking to its rhythm. You could also see me climbing from the 16500-gallon tank completely wet and out of breath after cleaning it from the inside. It was hot and not much oxygen in there. Even now I am all choked up but it isn't from the lack of oxygen. St. Jude took Johannes away. And he is gone.

Lunch brake. I was rowing back to the AfterBlue, alone, tying up the dinghy to the boat. No words were spoken cause no one was around. I looked inside the boat, bunch of plastic bags lying around - a testimony to the hurried packing. I am forcing myself away from starring around empty now cabin. I chewed on some leftover grits without any conviction, trying to occupy myself with something. Being alone isn't what I imagined it would be. Having all this space to myself doesn't bring much comfort. Gosh, I had broken up with girls and it was sometimes easier than this. It's weird. I feel weird.

Johannes and I were sharing this adventure from the very beginning. We set out from Toronto not knowing what to expect and what we're up against. We spent five months afloat sharing great and sometimes not so great moments. There were, of course, some issues coming from sharing a small space with another person. Sometimes we got into fights over the mess in the cabin. Sometimes we just had a different way of doing things. Sometimes we just flared up because we were tired or scared or missed home. The worse arguments we had in New York City, when I was even considering turning the boat around. Then there was St. Augustine, when we lost each other. Once in Nassau when we hardly spoke for couple of days and, well, some two days ago we screamed at each other over an empty jar of peanut butter laying on the floor, unaware of it's sudden importance. I believe our friendship survived this all, yet it made us to face some realities of living on the small boat, cruising lifestyle, and some personal issues as well.

Ironically one of the two CD's that we have with us was playing: "nobody said it was easy... It's such a shame we have to part..." Without any anger or resentment, embracing each other like brothers, we said our good-byes vowing to stay in touch and visit each other when opportunity comes to do so. Maybe we would even consider another cruise together, a bit shorter, of course, and on the boat that would provide some more personal space. One thing is sure. When we left each other we were different men. Sea does that to people; being with someone else so close does that to you as well, maybe even more so. Just hours ago St. Jude left and both Johannes and I were waiving frantically to each other for the last time. Feels like an end of something. For sure it won't be the same. Yet I am strangely excited. Sailing solo would bring new challenges and risks yet I am eager to face them. I've never sailed alone before, but lots of people do it all the time. New adventure begins. At some point I am hoping to share this adventure with someone else again. Care for a little bit of sailing?

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