There is a place in the tropics of Australia called the Whitsundays known for its beautiful islands and

fantastic sailing opportunities. I found myself there some 20 years ago spending six memorable months

learning to sail and race yachts, writing songs commemorating the remarkable sailors I met, and

experiencing my first taste of paradise on earth.

 

During this time I helped deliver a sailboat down the coast of Australia which required sailing three days

and nights, sometimes far enough out to sea that the coastline was no longer visible. As we sailed, I

learned that I enjoyed being at the helm, steering the boat, while other sailors preferred handling the sails

and sheets (ropes). Thus I was given the task of sharing the steering duties with Gingie, our fearless

captain. As we sailed through first the night, at midnight I took the helm for my three hour shift, while

Gingie was below deck getting much needed shut-eye before her next time at the helm. This particular

night had begun with storms and rough sailing and I was completely covered in my wet-weather gear with

only my eyes exposed so that I could see the compass enough to keep on course.

 

Gradually, the storms ended and around 2am the skies cleared and the seas calmed. By this time we had

entered the shipping lanes far enough out to sea that we couldn’t always see the lights from the coast.

One of our tasks on deck became watching the horizons for other boats, particularly behemoth container

ships that might be heading our way. We had about ten minutes from the time we first saw their lights to

the time they would be upon us if they were heading in our direction. Our instructions were to wake

Gingie up if we saw such lights as we would all have to help keep out of the ocean-liner’s way.

 

As I was sharing stories with Margaret, the deckhand who was assigned to keep me company, I

happened to look port (the left side of the boat) and saw some lights very close by and I realized another

sailboat was passing by us only a couple hundred yards away. This brought up something very alarming

for me. All of a sudden, I realized that I was on a small sailboat in the middle of the ocean in the dark with

no way of telling what we might run into. As I was beginning to think this, I happened to look starboard (to

the right) and saw more lights that I didn’t think should be there. Now I was in a true panic, thinking that

we were going to hit something and my only desire was to stop the boat. However, I had no brakes to hit

and the sails were all filled with the breeze that was keeping us sailing at a nice clip.

 

I was seeing lights everywhere and I was sure we were in for a major collision if I didn’t stop the boat.

 

I told the deckhand, Margaret, to go wake up Gingie. Margaret didn’t seem to think there was anything to

be concerned about as she had not seen the boat go sailing by us and she asked me if I was certain. All I

said was “Yes! There are lights everywhere!” What I didn’t realize was that after the storm had passed we

had sailed close enough to the coastline to be able to see the lights on the coast again. I started to

imagine that those lights I was seeing were more sailboats and we were bound to head straight into one

of them.

 

Gingie stuck her head out of the cabin and calmly said “Is something wrong?” Once again I belted out my

new mantra “Yes, there are lights everywhere!” Lucky for me Gingie did happen to see the lights of the

sailboat that had passed us to the left and she also could see the lights on the coast so she somewhat

understood my panic and didn’t think I had completely lost it. However, being the experienced sailor, she

simply came up on deck and began to calmly instruct me to get back on course.

 

She explained to me what all of the lights were and that we were fine, that the odds of us running into

another sailboat that did not have proper radar equipment (we had none ourselves) were slim to none

and the lights on the coast were far, far away only visible now because the storm had passed.

I finally calmed down and was able to handle the rest of my shift without another snag. We had several

other exciting events over the remainder of the evening, one such event being attempting to dodge a

huge Russian container ship. We were finally able to signal the ship with a very bright spotlight that we

kept shining on them to let them know we were there. Since they spoke only Russian (at least the person

standing watch at four in the morning did) we couldn’t communicate our course to them. They ended up

changing course and we watched them cruise by close enough to see details of the massive ship even in

the dark.

 

After my first experience with the “lights everywhere!,” I was much less inclined to overreact and could

handle more and more of the challenges that we faced with calm and confidence. As the sun began to

come up over the horizon, we all breathed a sigh of relief. Sailing with the full light of day made the events

of the night fade and become a mere memory.

 

I still love to tell that story even though it has been at least 20 years. Only recently have I begun to fully

understand the significance of it for me and all of humanity as we move towards the Light. We have been

steering in the dark for so long that we are more comfortable there than in the Light. In fact, the Light at

first appears terrifying and all we want to do is stop the world and get off. Slowly we adjust to the little bits

of Light that we are now seeing and experiencing and we can move forward again. This process happens

again and again until the terror and fear are gone and we are standing completely and fully in the Light

bathing in its glow with the darkness a mere memory and a great story to tell.