My warm, 98-degree body suddenly splashed overboard into the frigid 52-degree water of the North Atlantic! I tried to hold my breath, but the disabling shock of the cold water caused me to gasp for air--but instead of air, there was only more cold water. Nothing in all my years in and on the water has prepared me for this. I'm about to panic as I flail desperately for the surface and the life-sustaining air above the shockingly cold seawater!
__________________________________________
My Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (HIOBS) journal follows. Read with me as we experience the ultimate sailing, navigating, team-building, conflict-resolving adventure just as I did in the cold waters off the coast of Maine.
______________________________________________________
Daily Journal
HURRICANE ISLAND OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL (HIOBS)
ROCKLAND, MAINE
SEPTEMBER 12 – 17
What you just read is one of my first thoughts of this past week as I sit safely, days later, with legs crossed and pen and pad in hand on a granite cliff on the west side of Hurricane Island off the cost of Maine. Perched about 100 feet above the ocean, I realize that this is the first time I’ve been alone since I joined the group five days ago. My eyes squint as I face the sun streaming across the royal blue waters of Penobscot Bay. I gaze at the waters of the bay as they quietly blend into the waters of the open North Atlantic Ocean. Maine’s jagged coastline is 3,500 miles long, half of it seemingly compressed into inlets, rocky coves and many quiet anchorages of Penobscot Bay where our team has rowed, sailed, camped and hiked over the past five days.
The air is about 58 to 60 degrees with a 15-knot wind out of the southwest. It’s totally quiet except for the sounds of the water as it whitecaps on one-foot seas and breaks in a foaming swirl among the jagged rocks 100 feet below my perch.
I feel totally relaxed by the whisper of the wind as it blows softly through the spruce, hemlock and fir trees just behind me whose roots hold tight in the cracks of the mighty rock that I sit upon. Today’s late-summer colors have been so sharp and vibrant—the deep green of the trees, the light green of the water in a nearby stone quarry, the deep blue of the ocean and the light blue of the sky. The sparkling gray of the granite adds a soft touch, even though the granite itself is both hard and cold. The birds—a falcon, sea gulls, and others unknown to me—float silently past, sometimes suspended completely still as they ride the wind on the updrafts around the steep cliff. As I sit here surrounded by the sheer wonder of God’s nature, I want to try to recall the past five days and the wonderful journey that has brought me to this point.
It’s Friday. I think it’s September 15th or thereabouts. I know not of the time, other than it appears to be two or three hours before the warm rays of the now-bright sun will be slowly consumed by the cold waters of the North Atlantic. The setting of the sun soon will bring about another nightly dance of the twinkling stars in a moonless sky for another glorious night. Being this far north and this far east probably means it’s now about 4 or 5 p.m. Oh well, who cares? It’s not important now. So where do I begin to journal my epic adventure over most of this past week?
Let’s go back to Monday—so very long ago, it seems. My overall remembrance that day was the inhumane swim test and the sail out of Rockland harbor up to the islands north of Northhaven. My thoughts may be random as I recollect the events of these past five days.
(To continue, please see tab on left side entitled "Day 1.")