i can assure you that it is fact, though i offer the following to clear up a couple of factual errors and to provide one more perspective on key moments.

ACT 1

the skipper’s account is solid save one fact. i did NOT have a helmet for that trip. it was this trip (and subsequent near death experience) that created the “you’re seeing jeff this weekend, you must wear a helmet while doing so” rule that is so steadfastly obeyed in my household.

the fact that the large rock (my memory is that it was about 3 feet square and about 2 feet thick large enough to do some major damage even to my thick skull) landing next to me, missing my head by inches was the impetus for trip to REI with my lovely bride so she could oversee the purchase of a shiny new helmet. actually she purchased it for me and lovingly reminds me to pack it anytime seeing the whites of jeff’s eyes is on my itinerary.

ACT 2

man was i stoked for this trip. the grand! are you kidding me? iconic for certain. it was going to be epic.

only small quibbles here. nonetheless, i must say a few words.

you may get the impression that we were slow to the summit because of jeff’s route-finding abilities. not entirely true. while they played a part in our timing, a bigger part was my general slowness. i’m not the quickest climber out there. dare i say i’m probably the slowest climber out there. my slowness coupled with an unexpected climb up a very cold and frozen chimney put us in the position to make the decision to have me wait it out while the rest of the team scrambled to the summit. a decision that would pay off huge dividends later in the day. it was that decision to observe our turnaround time that allowed us enough time to get back to the “pain cave” and safely wait out a very intense, lightning filled storm before heading down the mountain.

re: the rappel. my hand didn’t get hung up on my atc. the 8mm rope is a pretty small diameter rope. made even smaller when stretched under the stress of carrying a free rappelling big daddy off an overhanging cliff. the rope diameter became too thin to get enough friction in my atc (belay device). without enough friction, i was in a free fall and couldn’t slow myself down. try as i might and really cooking my hands as a result. great blisters from that one.

the catatonic state i went into sounds pretty accurate. i was fully functional but had shut down a bit as i was pretty certain that i was well on my way to creating a crater on the side of the grand.

i am afraid of mice and you too would have elected to push on to the parking lot had you encountered the hideous masses of rodents in the meadow. serious numbers there. gross stuff, like a living carpet. not a place i was stoked to spend the night.

ACT 3

the skipper’s recollection is sound here. i offer only one bit by way of color.

the wave had pretty well swamped the entire cockpit and as i was on the low side, i awoke completely under water, more than a bit unnerving.

got lucky with my feet and legs being underneath the lines for the windsteer while i slept. that little fact helped keep me aboard that night. and staying aboard kept me alive.

the second save that night was jeff making me go below and get changed. hypothermia was knocking on the door and his clear headed direction saved me from plunging deep into hypothermia. that’s what you call a good skipper.

EPILOGUE

personality disorders like mine seek out others with like disorders/quirks. that’s why i keep calling jeff in search of our next adventure. i know that whatever we do, it’s going to be epic. maybe epic for the wrong reasons sometimes but epic nonetheless.

he’s saved my ass more than once, as you’ve just read about, i hope he continues to do so in the future. keep answering the phone and returning those emails skipper, i’m counting on you (shasta’s summit still beckons). and thank you for all the times you answered the calls in the past.

and yes dear reader, in case you’re wondering, i hope he continues to blog about those misadventures. -trl

Greetings from Bahia La Paz, where Oblivion lies at anchor, across the channel from town, while her transmission water cooler is being repaired. Hopefully tomorrow, Thursday, January 27th, we’ll be underway again, bound north for Isla Espiritu Santo and parts thereabouts. It’s been two weeks since myself and Jennifer (Jeff’s sister, my wife) boarded Oblivion, and life onboard is certainly idyllic.

Admission time here: I don’t do idyllic very well. I’m one of those emotionally crippled types who crave action, even if it’s just the junior-varsity-grade action I’m capable of. For me, the payoff of sailing isn’t turquoise water, quaint beach restaurants, or watching frigate birds sail across the sunset while sipping tequila – although they’re all pretty sweet – it’s being heeled over by a gale off your beam, plowing through big swells, fighting the wheel as quartering waves push your stern off course, watching manta rays and dolphins throw aerial cartwheels, excited by the sea’s dance. To me, all that hand-on-the-tiller, sails-filled-with-wind thing is like a historic distillation, an iconic symbol, of the entire adventure exploration experience.

Which isn’t surprising, when you think about it. Oceans were, after all, the earliest wilderness, the first forbidding ‘here be dragons’ environment that mankind had to deal with – for food, for trade, for expanding the possibilities of a primitive existence. High seas tales like Moby Dick, Robinson Crusoe and Treasure Island were some of the earliest adventure literature, and ocean explorers from Erik the Red to Magellan and Cook were humanity’s first big-time adventurers, the astronauts of their day. Many, like Cook, relied on even earlier seafaring traditions; He was guided across the South Pacific by the Polynesian navigator Tupaia, whose people had already managed to find Easter Island by 1,200 AD, probably by voyaging from the equally remote Tuamotou or Pitcairn groups.

To a great extent all oceans, even the oft-placid, well-traveled Sea of Cortez, remain terra incognita, though we seem to have forgotten that fact. Our definition of the oceans, and adventure has been warped by luxury mega-cruises, X Game lemming sports, and ‘adventure tours’ that bus the overweight from buffet to buffet across Europe, Africa, and Alaska.

Even now, when massive container ships and luxury liners steam blithely across the world’s oceans, the high seas are still a place where an adventurous lad or lady can cast off and find horizons that literally stretch forever. And few know the sea well. Most of us live our lives completely out of touch with those massive expanses of salt water that gave birth to all life on this planet.

I was reminded of all this last night. Jennifer, along with cousins Kent and Debbie Richards, were off touring in Todos Santos while I pecked away at writing deadlines and Jeff worked on Oblivion transmission repairs. That evening we hosted fellow mariner Steve Millar aboard Oblivion for boy’s club beers and guacamole.

Steve, 55, a semi-retired family doctor from the Vancouver area of Canada, owns the small but handsome and very seaworthy 36-foot custom-built sailing vessel Silas Crosby, which is named after a sea captain grandfather. Steve is also an outdoor athlete, backcountry skier, married father of two, and a dedicated sailor since age 18 when, on a whim, he decided to help crew a friend’s newly purchased ship from Australia back to Canada, a voyage of some 6000 nautical miles.

Apparently the experience stuck, because Steve has since sailed from Canada to New Zealand, and back, at least three times, once solo, and visited exotic ports of call like Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) that uber-remote atoll in the far South Pacific.

Steve and his niece are in La Paz readying the Silas for a voyage to southern Chile via the Galapagos and Rapa Nui. Each leg of that journey will entail roughly 2,000 miles – and a month – at sea. Since they’re sailing south, and the Chilean coast often sports strong northward winds and currents, they might steer further west and skip Rapa Nui. That could mean two-and-a-half months without landing, in a ship smaller than many RVs.

As we were talking, Steve smiled in a slightly predatory way and asked if I would ever sail on a voyage like that.

“In a second,” I said.

Time aboard Oblivion will do that to you.

Find more of Steve’s writing online at: http://www.backpacker.com/blogs/the_pulse/ or www.howephoto.us