Surreal Sailing Stories Part 1: WTF 2020?!

In line with 2020 and all the bizarre shit happening in real life, I am starting a new little project called #surrealsailingstories. Stay tuned and follow my IG and FB accounts so you don’t miss out on some fucking magical shit. A little escapism and sublimation is a good thing.

The fucking magical shit all started when we got to Sucia. That first evening I heard splashes nearby. We saw seals jumping repeatedly, but didn’t know why. As the evening went on I saw this. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. I got my camera out to shoot photos just as this, sounds cheesy but….Loch Ness Monster thing, dove down below the water. I know they found dinosaur bones on Sucia. Theropod dinosaur bones. But maybe….maybe they aren’t extinct? 2020 keeps getting weirder.

The next day at Ewing Cove, we beached the boards to walk around a bit. Eric had the camera out just in time to capture this. What I don’t get is how no one is talking about the living dinosaurs up at Sucia. That is some magical fucking shit.

Also: if you have never seen Sarah Donner and the Oatmeal’s Mother Fucking Pterodactyl….today is your day to YouTube that.

On the way home, near Admiralty Inlet, we took this picture to show how cold it was in July. It wasn’t until I sifted back through my pictures later that I saw we got photo bombed. I couldn’t believe my eyes, I was like, “WTF?!” I know this is all really hard to believe, but seriously…..shit just kept getting weirder. It’s like 2020 just couldn’t hold back anymore. I wasn’t going to say anything, you all think I’m crazy enough I am sure. But honestly, this past week has been the strangest yet. I can’t hold back the pictures. You need to know what is happening.

I know I watched too much TV as a child. As an 80s latch key kid, I spent hours watching old Godzilla movies. The thing is, 2020 is shaping up to be a weird fucking dystopian novel in the US. Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury and others predicted so many things that are actually happening right now. Seems like anything is plausible and fair game at this point. So when I saw this giant ass monster, taller than the Olympic Mountains, lurking around, I started to just resign myself to possibility. Everyone has a breaking point where they surrender. This was mine.

This is where the story takes a huge turn. And folks, I know it’s unbelievable, but hasn’t everything in 2020 been that way? Just after we saw the Godzilla dude this spaceship showed up. I had to get the binoculars out, but if you look closely….they are beaming up people! I yelled at Eric to call Mayday on 16, we had to tell someone, even though it sounded crazy. I took this picture for proof. The radio was all static and our electronics started going crazy, turning on and off. We were both completely bewildered. Speechless, we stood in the cockpit staring at what could have been a bad sci-fi movie. But it wasn’t, it was just more of 2020.

As we got closer to the spaceship tractor beam, many weird images started to play out in my mind. It all felt super real, like it was happening in the now. It was a bit like a psychedelic experience. The one I remember the most, I tried to re-create here. I knew in the vision that it was of Eric on his 50th birthday, that’s TODAY (7/25) in our time zone and dimension. He was strolling the docks in this outfit with a little friend. He kept saying in a British accent, “Pish-posh!” and exclaiming “Indubitably!” In the background and all around us the music Space Oddity by David Bowie was playing. The penguin was singing it, Eric was dancing. I wanted to tell Eric HAPPY BIRTHDAY and hug him, but it was like he couldn’t see or hear me. I couldn’t get to him no matter how hard I tried. It was like I was there but wasn’t there. I couldn’t tell, was this a dream?

This is where the story gets outta this world, literally. The Godzilla dude started shooting lasers out of his eyes at us. I think he doesn’t like his picture being taken, or maybe he didn’t like my rainbows on the boat, either way he started shooting. We froze in fear, bracing for our demise.

Then the damndest thing happened. That spaceship put us in a protective tractor beam and hauled us up. All 8600 pounds of Poop Deck started rising out of the water. It was like a haul out with no straps. We were fucking flying! I’m serious here: FLYING. This picture is from a “friend,” to be explained later. It’s real though, no filters, obviously.

The last thing I remember was being put in the tractor beam. We must have passed out in transit because I woke up in space. The earth was tiny behind me and I’m like: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS HAPPENING?! Eric was speeding around the boat checking all the hatches. Then we realized that somehow we were still breathing in space and the boat had this rainbow wake behind it. We were fucking cruising amongst the stars!! But how, why and to where?! I put on my space suit and respirator anyway, thank god for Tyvek.

As we were adjusting to space life, we hoisted the sails and started to wander. How we got here, who brought us and why we were here were perpetually on our minds. At one point this jellyfish alien looking thing came drifting toward us. It was emitting lights in various mesmerizing patterns. It was calming and soothing, so I wasn’t too alarmed as it came right up to the boat and through our force field. My iPhone was working again and charged so I snapped this shot. This was the precise moment before the story became absolutely unbelievable.

I started the video rolling and what I thought took hours upon hours of explaining was only 20 seconds. The lights translated into voices in our heads explaining many secrets of the universe. It was like clarity and understanding shot through us on a cellular level. We knew why we were here, finally all the existential questions I had ever asked were answered. A great peace and now determination overcame me. We were on a quest, a mission, a great odyssey to not only save the earth and humanity, but the entire fucking universe. We didn’t ask why they chose us, we didn’t protest or ask questions, we simply agreed. We didn’t know what to do or where to start exactly, that was part of our great task. We just had to answer the call. All that mattered was that we take action now.

Trusting our newfound wisdom, we plugged psychic jelly coordinates into my GPS, which now somehow had infinite star charts on it. We took down the sails and started the 1976 Atomic 4 engine, which now had light speed with infinite energy thanks to whoever had beamed us up here. All we knew was that we were headed to a far away galaxy in peril. There was a war on, and the outcome would determine the fate of the universe and all existence. No bigs. No pressure or anything. I called a Skipper’s meeting to go over supplies, tactics and plans. We were flying by the seat of our pants and making it up as we went into the great unknown. Such is life in 2020….

We arrived in the correct galaxy and star system and were immediately confronted with an epic space battle in progress. Starships were were lighting up the sky with lasers. They moved so fast the eye could hardly track them. I watched in horror realizing we might be too late to do any kind of mediation. We had no weapons, we had no ammunition or defenses. All we had was a badass star sailboat named Poop Deck, our brains, an abundant sense of humor, a willingness to try, duct tape and a lot of love. Love for living. Love for being. Love for each other. I had to trust that somehow this would be enough. I had never felt so small. I had never felt so ready. Whatever happened, it was time to face the struggle. The complicated struggle of the ages: how to create peace without further violence amidst pain and suffering. The ongoing universal saga of two sides with different worldviews and strategies of how to live their lives battling it out. The fight of two sides holding fear of not getting needs met and vastly different views of justice and power. In other words, how can we all fucking get along? Of course the jellyfish picked a therapist and scientist for this shit. Eric and I had devised about 20 plans based off of what we might enter into and it appeared we needed plan 19. Not a lot of options, but at least we had an idea. Time to rock and roll.

Plan 19: Eric beamed down to the planet to use his powerful skills of observation and his expertise on all things mechanical or biological to see what he could discover to help our cause. As suspected, their planet was already on fire. The war was in full progress. They would rather destroy everything and everyone than back down off of their perspective sides. It was an all or nothing battle of how to think and behave. You were either on the side of individualism or community. There was no apparent middle ground. The planet was in gridlock. Eric started getting to work as soon as possible collecting data. He was one human, all alone, out to explore an unknown planet.

Meanwhile, I took the route of direct contact. With my spacesuit on, I bravely walked toward the space battle. As I got closer, I noticed that I was huge, and they were tiny. This is the part where I started to really wonder if I ate something like Alice in Wonderland or was on drugs. WTF 2020?! I also recognized that one of the types of spaceships that beamed us up on earth was in the battle. The jellyfish had explained the origins of the universe and our mission but nothing else. It seemed that one question was answered now, the round ship folks brought us to space. Then the jelly led us here. The dots were connecting. But now what?!

Stay tuned……