Our trip south was fast. We left at noon, blew through the Upper Bay with a strong wind and an ebb tide, quickly reaching the Verrazano Narrows, which can be a difficult trip at times. Soon we were nearing the lighthouses, and the water became clear blue and choppy. The swell of ocean is unmistakable: large, rhythmic, and incessant. I was somewhat hungover from the night before, almost too disturbed physically to move about freely, feeling weighted down, leaden. At some point amidst the swells, with Denis insisting that I swim, I went below to to take out my swimsuit, and rapidly progressed to violently ill, puking over the leeward side. It felt wonderful.

The best cure for seasickness—other than throwing oneself in the water, which I admittedly felt too sick to do on this trip—is to sit out on the bow, between sails, and let the wind rush over one's face. After some time of lying there, with blue sky above and blue, blue waves surrounding, soaked in salt water every few minutes spraying over the bow, I began to feel that we were in fact flying, and that the rivers of wind gusting over the bow, rather than blowing past me, were actually penetrating my pores and piercing through me, washing my entire being through with fresh ocean air, a great cleansing.

Denis has made a ladder of loops for me to climb up after my swim; neglecting to use it, I have thrown it below with little care for anything other than my waves of nausea. I am repeatedly yelled at for dropping the line below, for leaving it on the floor, and finally, for not coiling it—which makes me smile, recalling E.B. White's pride at being scolded over a halyard.

Back above the Narrows, overhead, a plane buzzes by; there go several hundred people. Two Staten Island Ferries chug across our path—a thousand more, perhaps. And up ahead, another hundred crammed into a majestic tour sloop.

Here are two small people in a simple machine of wood, rope and sail.

1 July 17:09

Lying here with my view of the sky, masts, spreaders and shrouds, peaceful late afternoon punctuated by the barking of a woefully attention-seeking dog, I feel my head spinning at last, as I've known it to be doing for days.

It goes on and on and on and never seems to stop, conscious or not. My body and mind buzz with this endless, relentless pace, but the sky here asks me to slow down.