We made it

This ocean is more than water.

When I first read the theory of how the oceans were made, it struck me as a wonderful thing. Not the continuous rain which diluted the acidic first seas, amazing and apocalyptic though it may be, but the Gaia theory in which bacteria enhanced their environment by making water.

So when I sailed the ocean it was more than transport by water. It was an ancient technique for arriving at new lands, perfected by the sailors through the centuries. The aborigines perhaps pioneered this sometime 60000 years ago, to arrive in Australia. Countless other species and tribes have done the same.

Studying charts while traversing the Atlantic ocean, one gets some notion of the unbelievable amount of water all the way to the bottom. When swimming in the water with goggles, the deep blue goes on and on, suddenly lending a very mysterious quality to ones surroundings. While the sun sends its rays through many layers of waves and water, the dark prevails deeper down.

And even though it looks like water, it's so much more. It's a collection of dreams, dreamt by people on both shores. It's planning, sometimes obsessing, about getting across. Most of all, it's impossible to imagine.

Even now, after living all of it, the ocean for me retains its violent and hostile quality, while simultaneously calming me. It's not hostile towards us, it just is. We are the ones maladjusted to its qualities. With our boats, our devices and our techniques, we are so ill equipped for dealing with it.

We master technology, but we never master more than a tiny piece of ocean at a time. We sail across, but only if our technology doesn't let us down. We cover great distances, but it's only when in harbour, protected by land, we can truly say: we made it.