You know that phrase “never have I ever”? Sure you do. Well never have I ever cut a naked man’s hair in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Until. This. Day. I had no idea this was on my bucket list but the day arrived and I seized it. It was a perfect day for wielding sharp instruments over my husband’s body in relative safety. Winds are softer today and the seas are gentle. We are heeled about 10 degrees without any of the big waves that hit the boat like thunder claps. So I grabbed my bag of scissors, a towel, and a rat tailed comb and set up shop in the cockpit.

Mike has been growing his hair out since the Covid 19 hit and he had to stop going to Mexican barber shops. I haven’t seen it this long since the early 1980s. We have been moving well into man bun territory with his hair and while I do love me a nice man bun on the right person, I felt like since we are moving home to find jobs for awhile he would be misleading employers if he showed up with his hair in a topknot, regardless how tidy. He doesn’t do enough yoga or meditation to rock the look without question. I mean, what if his potential employer wants to go for a burger and the assumption is that Mike is a vegetarian? That could lead to all kinds of unpleasantness. In order to transition slowly into civilized culture where people are expected to at least wear pants, I convinced him to let me have a go at that hair. Hair first. Pants later.

I have hair cutting scissors because I used to wear bangs and had to trim them about every week. What I also have are my grandmother’s thinning sheers. She used to cut her own hair with them and I imagine the last time they were sharpened was 1967. I got to work with my implements of destruction and happily snipped away. The thing about Mike’s hair is that there is a lot of it and it both curls and waves, as well as growing in all different directions like it can’t decide which way to go. So even though I have zero haircut training, I have watched hair being cut many times and I figure I inherited haircut knowledge from my grandmother. Plus I am pretty good at acting like I know what I am doing even if I am clueless. Confidence is half the battle won. Between my confidence and his hair which hides all kinds of disastrous cuts with its curls, it doesn’t look half bad. After the cut he bounced and behaved all the way to the aft deck shower to rinse off. It was so cute. He couldn’t stop touching his hair.

When he gets his hair cut for real back home someone’s surely going to ask, in a tone that here means ‘oh my god who did this to you’, where he got his hair cut last. I encourage him to say ‘In the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a boat going 5.5 knots at a 10 degree heel by an overly confident woman with no training using dull scissors. Any further questions there, pardner?’. Then I will jump out and photograph the look on the barber’s face and it will be hilarious.

Also we caught a Dorado today but also our fridge is acting up for the first time in 3 years. That figures because it did the same thing on the way out of Puget Sound when we started the trip. So now I have to go hold tools for Mike and admire his new haircut while we check the freon level.

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Day 6 out here and the voices have already started. This is a weird thing about being at sea that many sailors write about, the hearing of voices, even music. This passage I have also added ghostly hands knocking on our hull, as though someone wants to come in. I mean, who could possibly be knock knock knocking on the hull out here besides either a ghost or some other undead creature. Could be an alien, I guess. Whales don’t have hands. And besides we haven’t seen any.

Ordinarily hearing voices is considered in the realm of the insane or the terribly psychic, which are not mutually exclusive terms. The key here is whether the voices come from inside your head or outside. These voices are definitely outside my head, so that means I am probably sane, no matter what some people say.

I hear them often. I will be reading a book and suddenly I think people are talking in the back cabin. Or it will sound like someone is up in the cockpit talking but when I check, Mike is in the forward head. This happens for Mike, too, so that proves it’s not just me. On our last passage we both heard the same ‘people on the radio’ at the exact same time. I don’t know if that proves anything but it probably should. If only they would communicate more clearly!

Many of the sailors who have recorded these metaphysical experiences have been single handing and are seriously sleep deprived, making their reports slightly suspect. They have also been isolated from other people for long periods of time. None of those conditions apply here. We have been getting plenty of rest and we talk to each other a lot. A week at sea isn’t long enough to become psychotic when you get the level of napping we have reached.

People have theorized that these sounds, like the orchestra music that somehow is broadcast from the starboard hull (so pretty) are just your brain trying to fill in the gaps, like it’s making it’s own noise or trying to make sense of noises already there. I have two things to say to those kinds of people. First, are you out of your mind? Have you ever born witness to the amount of noise already on a small boat plying the waves? It’s already very noisy below, thank you. I don’t need to make more noise to fill in any gaps. And I already know where most of thr noises are coming from. They make complete sense to me. Wind, rattles, squeaks, thumps from waves, no problem understanding that.

Secondly, shut up. When I am busy listening to what amounts to the music of the spheres out here, or ghostly conversations (even if I can’t understand what they are saying), your efforts to explain a legit mystery of life by getting all sciencey on me are not welcome. I mean, let’s just enjoy the mystery, no? It’s like letting your spouse watch you apply makeup or see all the things you do in the bathroom. Some mysteries are better left unsolved, just enjoyed for their own sake. Seriously as much as I love and depend on science, just leave this alone because you are totally spoiling the fun. Go ask your teacher if she forgot to collect the homework or something.

I will let you know if the albatross that’s been following us starts a conversation. If he does, I hope he speaks English.

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Day 3 out here on the big Pacific. We have had excellent weather and sailing. We are enjoying bathing suit (or underwear) conditions as long as they last. So far we have had consistent speeds in the 5-6 knot range and are very much on course. We haven’t felt like fishing lately because we are moving too fast for it to be pleasant. Maybe today.

We are grateful to have an Iridium Go as it keeps us connected to friends, family, and other boats out here while underway. Every morning we send and receive texts to people important in our lives and catch up with the news headlines and get position reports from other sailboats making the same passage. We like having this small routine of connections and appreciate the time it fills as we have nothing but time out here. With conditions this perfect there isn’t a lot to do to keep the sails filled but the boat motion and heel make doing work below a real challenge. So having a little bit of social media with our morning coffee gives us a little routine. If Mike really wants to irritate me he will sigh deeply while reading the headlines out loud, depriving me of the privilege of discovering for myself what stupid thing has happened this day. When all you have is headlines each word is a precious bundle of possibility.

Why do we even bother with this? I do ask myself this question. I guess we want to be prepared for the culture shock that surely awaits us back in the lower 48. Will we be shot for wearing our facemasks? Will people make fun of us and give us dirty looks for maintaining a respectable distance at the store? Reading the headlines makes us wonder what has happened to people. The same folks who talk about the rule of law, stop at red lights, wear pants in public, submit willingly to TSA invasions of privacy because 9/11 and put on their seatbelts have decided that wearing a mask to protect others during a pandemic is the hill on which they will make their last stand? Wearing a mask is just a bridge too far? Holy cow. What has happened to my country?

I don’t know where we are going to fit in with this new world. I guess if it’s as crazy as the news makes it sound we can put our family on the boat and sail back to Hawaii, where everyone appears to realize they are in this together and they cooperate without feeling unAmerican. On Kauai you will be required to mask up to go into any store, regardless of your opinion about it. You will not ride the public bus without one. They have done a good job of keeping the island virus free and they, as a community, intend it to remain that way. We really hated to leave because of this, if for no other reason. People there thought we were crazy to leave. I hope they were wrong.

My hope is that the reality is less grim than reports would have us believe, as is so often the case. I mean, after all, the purpose of so many headlines is to stir up emotions to get you to click. That is just the way it works now. Even here in the middle of the ocean we have to bear that in mind. As a people we have become a bit addicted to our collective outrage and a good headline can really get us going.

Just like when we have internet, when we have the opportunity to get spun up because of all the stupid posted on social media, our Iridium Go is a mixed blessing. We need it for the communication it provides. But when the crazy gets to be too much we step away and focus on what is most important in the here and now. And for us it’s this lovely sea and making the most of this passage.

Stay safe and sane, people. Take care of yourselves. And please take care of others as well. We look forward to seeing people. From a distance.

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