The Universe Conspires

In which the universe conspires to prevent us from crossing the Pacific Ocean, but we persist

Morning time back in Cabo San Lucas brought Groundhog Day vibes and a feeling of Hotel California captivity. We had fought so hard to make our escape from the continent—the months in the boatyard, the mad dash south the get our crew and provision the boat, and a long line of mechanical challenges seemed dead set on preventing us from leaving. We had finally made our escape and now a snapped boom brought us right back. Any appreciable delay would mean Sven would need to return home, leaving us without a crew for the 20-day crossing. We also risked missing the weather window to cross this year.

As the sun rose following our nighttime arrival, we awoke to the dreadful hum of JetSkis piloted by frat bros, still drunk from last night. They whipped the sea into a full-scale Ragnarok once again as we attempted to disassemble and remove our broken boom. Still a little raw from the JetSki that slammed into us just a few days prior, I thought bad thoughts, wished they would just go away. But instead of going away they zipped within feet of our boat all morning, whooping and hollering, making it hard to balance due to the ever-growing and unpredictable waves as one wave compounded the height of the next.

On our return trip from the sea, as we had lumbered back toward land under reduced sails, I had made contact with a workshop in town that specialized in marine welding and prop repair. The owner, Adriana, had sprung into action upon taking my call over Starlink, cleared the shop’s schedule, and awaited our arrival to repair our boom. We only had to get it to the dock and she’d take it from there. Over the years we’ve found that this is the way things happen much of the time. Generosity knows no bounds when a visitor in a foreign land has met their wit’s end—the good citizens of this world rise to the occasion and renew our faith in humanity.

But before our faith in humanity could be restored, it first had to plunge to new depths, and this was the job of the JetSki pilots. As Sven and I finished unbolting the boom and prepared to lower it to the deck we noticed a woman and her husband zipping toward us on matching neon JetSkis, clumsy, erratic. The woman arrived first, stopping just ten feet off our bow and then she sat there staring at our boat while her machine idled in the maelstrom of waves kicked up by her fellow flock. We looked curiously back at her. Out of the corner of my eye I saw her husband, still rocketing ahead at breakneck speed, elbows bent skyward and head tucked aerodynamically in his life jacket collar like a receded turtle head. Our eyes shifted back and forth between husband and wife, the moving and the stationary, not quite believing what we were seeing. Finally, in an act defying all logic, the husband slammed at full speed into his wife, knocking her violently off of her JetSki. Having plenty of excess momentum, the husband’s machine flew completely over his wife’s like a jacked up neon Vin Diesel and then came out of the sky right in top of her. She remained under water for an alarming duration of time despite wearing a life jacket. Sven and I restrained ourselves from diving in, hoping that she would first surface so that we could assess the damage. I assumed that at the very least her left leg had been severed, as the pointed tip of the husband’s JetSki had left a huge black gash right where her leg had been. Finally, an eternity later, she popped up gasping for air. One of the JetSki wallas arrived shortly after and pulled her up on his floating terror machine, just in time for the husband to flip around and run into him as well. We shook our heads and were relieved to see that the woman didn’t appear to have suffered any permanent damage—though the same perhaps could not be said for their marriage.

We attached halyards to the boom and then the three of us slowly lowered the boom onto the dinghy as it bucked wildly in the confused waves while JetSkis continued roosting us with their wake. We tried desperately not to let the boom slam into the hull, finding it hard to concentrate with such hateful thoughts toward the JetSki people coursing through my brain and so many profanities escaping from my mouth in Tourettic outbursts.

Sven and I hopped in the dinghy to attempt to lash the boom down before it fell overboard while Sheena lowered the halyard.

“Sven, slide your end up—it’s falling!”

(Straining back, fingers fatiguing…hold on!)

“Quick, tie that part!”

(F****ing waves!)

“It’s falling! Tie a rope to it in case we lose it!”

In the middle of this, just at our most desperate state as we strained ourselves to keep the boom from falling into the sea, a JetSki sped over, piloted by a drunk college student with his drunk girlfriend on the back.

“Hey, how much do sailboats cost!?”

(Can’t…hold…on…)

“What? They’re…ah! Sheena—hold on!—very expensive.”

(Leg getting crushed, violent whipping waves)

“We’re gonna buy a SAILBOAT man! We’re gonna cruise the CARIBBEAN and make VIDEOS man! We’re gonna just, like, drop everything and sail in the CARIBBEAN!”

(Reaching for my gun, realizing I don’t own a gun.)

“Listen, can you just get the hell away from us? Can’t you see that we’re struggling here?”

“What? I said we’re gonna buy a SAILBOAT! We’re gonna, like, sail—“

“Shut up! Just shut up and get away from me!”

He didn’t skip a beat and just as if it never happened, he, his backwards hat, his drunk girlfriend, and his destiny to never reach his full potential were gone in a torrent of flying water and noise.

Once the boom was strapped down, Sheena and I surfed wakes and took waves over the bow all the way to the dinghy dock where Adriana met us with her truck and a helper, loaded the boom, and headed to their immaculate shop overlooking the sea.

The repair took only four days—so quick that we hardly had time to zip overland to Cabo Pulmo to laze around on the beach, swim around the coral reef, and eat an unhealthy amount of fish tacos on the dusty roadside outside of the quaint hamlet of La Ribera. All at once we found ourselves back at the shop inspecting a job well done and handing over a 12-inch stack of money from an ATM that only dispensed the smallest denominations of bills. I once paid my rent in one-dollar bills. It was like that.

With the boom back on the dinghy we braved the JetSki hurricane once more, hoisted the thing aboard, and after one afternoon of re-stringing lines through the boom, installing, and replacing the mainsail, we were ready for action! The next morning, just a week after slinking back into port, we set off once again into the endless expanse of the Pacific Ocean.

How do you like me now, King Neptune?! As it turns out, he did not like me very much at all. But that’s for next time.