Into the Wind, and Not Knowing

“Perhaps the Point of the Crossing is to lose track of time...”

 

Elaine Eagle, Pianist and Singer on Wind Surf

 

Wind Surf Transatlantic Sailing Day 4

 
Last night became another late evening of music and wine at Compass Rose, the kind of night that seems to belong either to great philosophers, college students, or people who have finished a couple of bottles of whatever they are enjoying and suddenly feel qualified to solve the world’s problems. There was laughter, conversation, and the easy drift of shipboard music, and for a few hours, we stopped trying to justify ourselves.

 
Perhaps that was exactly what we needed. I cannot remember the last time we had simply stopped and enjoyed an evening without measuring it against some obligation, task, deadline, or worry.   It was not productive in any conventional sense. Nothing was solved. No plan was made.   No choices clarified.  No article was finished. Yet something in us loosened and began to let go. After months of feeling wound tight by noise, uncertainty, and the exhausting churn of daily life, a few hours of unstructured pleasure felt less like indulgence than medicine. 

Of course, there was a cost. Neither of us slept much. Between the late night, another scheduled time change, and our general inability to stop once we had finally begun to relax, we returned to our cabin close to midnight and were soon after out of bed and on deck around five-thirty. With the clocks moving forward again, it felt, to our bodies, more like four-thirty in the morning. This came only a few days after leaving the west coast of Canada and losing three hours before even boarding the ship. Travel may expand the mind, but time changes can be profoundly unkind to the body.
 

Reflecting on Knowing in the Modern World

 
Before we left home, both of us had begun to feel the effects of living in a constant state of alert. Headaches, tightness in the chest, shallow breathing, and a sense of tension seemed to follow every new condo board rule, every outburst from neighbours, every ambulance or fire truck passing outside, and every headline breaking into the day with some new crisis, outrage, cruelty, or absurdity. It began to feel as though the world had found a way to press directly against our nervous systems.
 
At some point, I began to question the value of knowing so much. Not knowledge in the deep sense, not the kind of practical, humane, or ecological understanding that helps us live well, but the endless stream of rumour, personality, conflict, gossip, mockery, breaking news, hot takes, and algorithmic distress that now passes for awareness.   It seems these days we are all told that we need to remain informed, but increasingly I wonder whether much of what we consume simply leaves us feeling helpless.

 
I do not think we are alone in this. In stores, in airports, in waiting rooms, and online, people seem increasingly strained and strange, as though everyone is carrying more than they can process.  So many seem burnt out, nervous and under pressure. Managers and security check the bags of elderly women while teenagers walk past with pockets full of stolen goods. People scroll through disasters while standing beside one another in silence. Leadership, too often, seems less about service or the common good than personality, performance, entertainment, distraction, and division. We are saturated with the worst aspects of humanity and then expected to continue politely through each day as though nothing has happened.
 
The result is not wisdom. It is exhaustion. We begin to feel that everything is pointless, that nothing can be fixed, that any attempt to care will simply expose us to more grief. And so the chance to step away - not forever, and not out of indifference, but long enough to breathe - becomes restorative. Out here, aboard Wind Surf, with the horizon around us and the ocean beneath us, there is space between the self and the noise.

 
There was a time when people paid for entertainment, spectacle, and distraction. They still do, of course. But more and more, we seem to meet people who are paying for disconnection, for quiet, for nature, for some return to the basics. Many passengers on board seem to love being at sea not because it is busy, but because it removes them from the constant reach of land life. For a few days, they are not expected to respond to everything.
 
All of this raises uncomfortable questions. Where is the line between escapism and restoration? Where is the line between ignorance and contentment? At what point does staying informed become a form of self-harm, and at what point does turning away become a failure of responsibility?

I do not have clear answers. But I do know that we would rather return to what feels essential, even when those essentials include rough realities, than remain trapped in the performative digital drama of the present age. Weather matters. Wind matters. Water matters. Food, kindness, shelter, health, conversation, sleep, and the ability to breathe deeply matter. Perhaps this voyage was partly about learning to let go of what we could not usefully carry, and to refocus on what still had the power to steady us.
 

Healthy Uncertainty and Perspective

 
With all that said, however, there is no denying that there is an irony in stepping aboard Wind Surf to escape uncertainty, because a transatlantic crossing is, by its nature, an uncertain undertaking. Last year proved that clearly enough. We had set out expecting one route, one port of call, one country of arrival, and one ending. The weather changed all of that. We missed our expected stop, never reached Lisbon, and did not even disembark in Portugal. Instead, the voyage carried us to Cádiz, and from there into an entirely different chapter of walking.

 
Yet the uncertainty of a voyage feels different from the uncertainty of life on land. At sea, there are unknowns, but they are not all yours to solve. The weather may change. The route may shift. A sail may catch differently. A sea day may become rougher or calmer than expected. But the ship has a captain, officers, engineers, deck crew, stewards, cooks, and systems designed to respond. You may feel the uncertainty, but you are not personally responsible for steering through all of it.  

At home, uncertainty often feels more corrosive because it seems that we are each constantly told that we should be doing something about everything.  The news demands a reaction. Neighbours create stress. Institutions change rules. Politics collapses into outrage. Social media insists that every crisis requires immediate attention. Even when the issue is far beyond our power to solve, we are made to feel guilty for not fixing it, or complicit if we look away. That is a different kind of pressure. It does not simply inform; it exhausts.

 
Out here, the uncertainty is more honest. The wind blows. The sea changes. Clouds come and pass. The ship adjusts. We do not control it, and there is a kind of relief in admitting that. 
 
Perhaps that is the healthier form of uncertainty: not the frantic kind that demands a response from us at every moment, but the humbler kind that asks for attention, trust, and adaptation. Out here in the middle of the ocean, uncertainty does not disappear – instead, I think that it simply returns to its proper size, becoming a part of the voyage and daily life rather than the force that consumes it.
 

Sunrise and Breakfast

 
Like every day aboard Wind Surf, I began the fourth sea day of our transatlantic crossing by looking out the porthole of our cabin. The sky was grey, and the sea had taken on a beautiful shade of greyish-purplish-blue. The waves were active, sloshing with energy, but they were not rising high enough to obscure the glass. It looked like a promising day at sea, but then again, to me, they all do.

 
When I found Sean up on deck, the sky was still partly clouded, but subtle colour had begun to gather along the horizon.  Today’s was not a dramatic sunrise. There were no theatrical bands of fire or sudden revelations of light. Instead, pale pinks and blues slowly illuminated the sky, spreading quietly above the water.

 
We headed to Veranda for breakfast: Swiss muesli, fresh fruit, a detox smoothie, and hot coffee.
 
Above us, interesting clouds moved across the blue sky, forming soft streaks, fluffy, rounded shapes, and pale, thin, almost scale-like patterns above the masts. Below, the sea had shifted into bright royal blue, its surface streaked with whitecaps.
 

Whale Surveys in the Atlantic

 
After breakfast, we stood at the railings for an hour, enjoying the salty air, cool breeze, and bright morning sunshine. The sea state was higher than ideal for whale watching. We estimated it around a five, which means that the swells and frequent whitecaps made it difficult to distinguish life from water. A distant blow, fin, or back could easily vanish among all that broken movement.

Even so, we completed an hour-long ORCA survey. Since travelling aboard Ambience to Norway the previous year and listening to a series of ORCA talks, I had passed several citizen science courses on whale identification, whale surveying, and whale conservation. My hope on this crossing was to complete two thirty-minute surveys each day, recording what we could from the decks of Wind Surf as we crossed the Atlantic.
 
Today again did not bring whales. It did, however, bring flying fish - thirty-seven in the first half hour alone, more than twice the previous day’s count. We also saw two or three shearwater-like seabirds with long wings flashing quickly across the bow, using the wind with extraordinary ease.

 
Despite the sea conditions, it was such a beautiful day that we stayed outside, giving up on the events happening indoors in favour of sunshine and sky. To our delight, the seabirds turned out to be two different species. They played in the considerable wind at the front of the ship, dipping, gliding, and skimming over the waves before being swept away again.

 
Later, using iNaturalist to examine Sean’s photos, we identified the smaller bird as a Sooty Shearwater: dark-billed, dark brown above, showing only occasional flashes of silvery white beneath the wings. The larger, bulkier bird, with a yellowish bill, light brown upperparts, and white underwings outlined in black, was a Cory’s Shearwater. 

We had seen Cory’s Shearwaters farther north as well, during crossings aboard Queen Mary 2 between New York and Southampton, and there was something lovely about meeting that species again on a different line across the Atlantic.
 

Opportunities and Enrichment

One of the nice things about Windstar Cruises is that they have an open bridge policy that allows passengers to stop by the bridge more or less whenever conditions and ship operations allow.  On a vessel like Wind Surf, this openness contributes to the feeling that the ship is not merely transporting you, but inviting you to understand something about how she moves.

 
Today's daily schedule suggested that we could go a step further and sign up to steer the ship.  Sean wasn't going to let that opportunity pass by, so he headed inside to sign up…or rather sign me up.  Sadly, it was too windy to go ahead with the activity today, but perhaps there will be another opportunity later in the voyage.   

At 11 AM, we headed inside for another enrichment talk by Peter Ranelli, titled 'Continental Drift.'  It was another fascinating lecture that traced the history of how we discovered that continents are moving, and how we came to accept the theory of continental drift. 

Questions first arose thousands of years ago when ancient cultures created various explanations for earthquakes. When the Age of Discovery took place, sailors needed to map the Atlantic, and they quickly realized that Africa and South America fit together like puzzle pieces.  This was the second clue. The next clues surfaced between 1750 and 1900 when the science of geology was developed.  At this point, people began finding similar geological formations and fossils on either side of the Atlantic, further supporting the idea that they had once been attached. The theory of continental drift was first proposed in 1910 by Alfred Wegener, but it wasn't widely accepted until 1968.   I found that delay striking. A reminder that even when evidence accumulates, people can be slow to change the stories they have inherited and created.
 

Surveys and Explanations

 
After the talk, we returned to the deck for a second ORCA whale survey. For half an hour, we watched the sea again, scanning for blows, fins, backs, or anything that might suggest marine mammals moving through the water around us.
 
At one point, we began to notice a strong fishy smell and immediately set about theorizing. Perhaps whales were driving fish toward the surface nearby. Perhaps a fishing vessel had passed through the area before us. Perhaps the scent meant we were crossing through a particularly productive patch of ocean. We turned the possibilities over with great seriousness before finally identifying the much simpler explanation.

 
We were standing beside a vent from a galley. It was not whales. It was not fish. It was lunch.
 
As always, the simplest answer was the most likely one, and we felt a little ridiculous for not realizing it sooner. After an hour of scanning the Atlantic for signs of marine life, our most exciting discovery turned out to be the smell of food preparation from inside the ship. No whales appeared, but at least the lesson in humility was immediate.
 

Sails Up and Deck BBQs

Amid my second Whale Survey, the captain gave his noon announcement.  Today, he informed us that we have sailed 700 nautical miles since leaving Sint Maarten, and we have 1,000 nautical miles left before we reach Ponta Delgada in the Azores.  We are travelling at a speed of 10.3 knots, and the ocean below us is 3,400 m deep.

Interestingly, the nautical fact for today was that on April 7, 1912, the HMS Titanic completed sea trials and docked in Southampton, England.  Without mentioning any of the tragic specifics, we also learned that there are more relics at the bottom of the ocean than in any museum on earth. It was a sobering thought to receive while moving through such bright, beautiful water.

Shortly after receiving this bit of trivia, we were met with two lovely surprises.  The first was that the full set of sails were being unfurled!  And the second was that the staff had prepared one of Windstar's signature deck BBQ's for lunch today!

The deck BBQ events always seem to feature a huge selection of meats, salads, cheeses, deserts, and an absolutely gigantic cast-iron pan of paella. There is always a festive atmosphere, and today, with the seas calm, the sun shining, and white sails flapping majestically overhead, it was truly a spectacle to behold! We found it a little strange that no mention of the event had been made in the daily schedule, but perhaps that made it even better. After days of trying to slow down, it was nice to receive a surprise without needing to plan for it.

 

We joined the festivities happily, surrounded by wind, canvas, food, music, and the bright open water of the Atlantic.
 

The Luxury of Disconnection

Much of the afternoon was spent roaming Wind Surf’s decks, photographing the sails and enjoying the glorious weather. Sean moved from angle to angle with his cameras, trying to capture the geometry of mast, line, sail, sky, and sea. I spent a long time at the forward lookout on the top deck, feeling the full force of the wind in my face, listening to the snap of the sails overhead, and gazing out toward an unbroken horizon.

 
Standing there, I could fully appreciate that this kind of travel offers a rare form of luxury. Not merely the luxury of good food, attentive service, and a beautiful ship, though all of those things are present. The deeper luxury is disconnection. If you choose not to buy the Wi-Fi package, the world cannot reach you in the same way. You do not know every headline the moment it happens. You cannot respond to every crisis, outrage, or demand. Even if you did know, there is little you could do from the middle of the Atlantic.

 
That may sound like avoidance, but it did not feel that way. It felt like space. These days, quiet has become expensive. Attention has become contested territory.

 

The wind, waves, and sails were not an escape from reality. They were a reality of a different type - an older and more essential kind. Out here, the body remembers things the mind has forgotten: how to breathe deeply, how to keep perspective, how to let one thought complete itself before another arrives.  I think it is fair to say that to be able to stand on deck feels like a kind of rare freedom and extravagance – but also a necessary one – in this day and age.
 

General Trivia

Feeling a little bit wind-blown and considerably more sunburnt, we headed inside for General Knowledge Trivia at 2 PM.  It was a fun time, but we only managed to score 11 out of 20 points, which wasn't a huge confidence booster.  Either we know less than we thought or that Nikki, the Entertainment and Engagement Manager, enjoyed making her quizzes more challenging than expected. Since the winning teams did not achieve perfect scores either, we chose to believe the latter.

To cheer ourselves up, we headed back out into the wind, waves, and sunshine.  Sean spent another few hours photographing while I simply enjoyed the scenery and kept a lookout for any signs of seabirds or marine mammals.  

Eventually, we took shelter under the awning at the Compass Rose bar, where, upon being recommended it by Bryan, one of the amazing crew members, I tried a Lychee Basil Cocktail.  It was unexpectedly lovely: light, fragrant, and refreshing after so many hours in the sun. In the spirit of slowing down and not overthinking every decision, I had a second.
 

Evening on Wind Surf

We weren't actually feeling too hungry, but eventually we headed downstairs to change for dinner.  We then stopped in the Lounge to listen to Danyi playing the violin.  

He is an incredibly talented musician, and although the Lounge began to empty out as people headed in to dinner, we stayed to enjoy the music until the end of the set. I think that in general, most of us don’t have enough opportunities to listen to live music in our lives, so we decided to make the most of the opportunity.

Dinner was delicious. We both had quinoa, feta, and zucchini patties, beautifully presented and full of flavour. We also learned that Executive Chef Darin Epp was on board, known for Wild Popcorn, a recipe book containing more than 1,600 popcorn recipes. His cooking certainly did not disappoint. I finished with a passion fruit cheesecake, which was wonderful, though by the end I felt almost painfully full.
 
Another time change awaited us that night, and after so much sun, wind, food, and motion, we decided to head to bed earlier than usual. First, however, we joined an hour of Music Trivia in the Lounge, where “we” managed to score twenty-five out of forty-nine by naming love songs and musicians. In this case, “we” mostly meant Sean, as I contributed almost nothing useful.

When we finally returned to our cabin, it felt as though the sails were gently pulling us forward, giving the ship a slightly different side-to-side motion than she had without them. The waves were high again, tossing themselves against the porthole and sloshing along the wall. After a day of fresh air, seabirds, sails, music, and sunshine, the motion felt peaceful. 

Undoubtedly, there are worse ways to end a day than being rocked to sleep by the Atlantic.
 

Uncertainty and Not Knowing

 
The end of the day brought my mind back to the strange question of uncertainty.
 
At home, uncertainty has begun to feel corrosive: too much noise, too much conflict, too much information, too many problems presented as urgent but left unresolved. All of which makes most people feel helpless, as though we were being asked to care about everything while being given the power to change almost nothing.
 

At sea, uncertainty feels different. The route may change. The wind may rise. The weather may shift. The sea may be calm one hour and white-capped the next. A sail may snap overhead. A bird may appear and vanish before you can identify it. You may search for whales and find only flying fish, or mistake the smell of lunch for evidence of marine life. Yet this uncertainty does not diminish us. Sometimes it wakes us up.

 
Perhaps the difference lies in the relationship. The uncertainty of the modern world often arrives as noise: fragmented, performative, and angry. By contrast, the uncertainty of the ocean arrives as weather, distance, motion, and scale. It reminds us that we are small, but not necessarily powerless. We can watch. We can learn. We can adjust our sails or course. We can admit what we do not know.  All of which is ok.
 
Maybe that is part of what this crossing is offering us. Not escape, exactly. Not ignorance. Not pretending the world is easier than it is. But a return to the essential: wind, water, food, music, sleep, sunlight, companionship, and the humility of not knowing everything at every moment.
 
What a blessing to be out here at sea!

See you on board.

Nautical Term of the Day – Close-hauled - Sailing as directly into the wind as possible.