Crossing

Tomorrow morning we make landfall, Suriname in the first light, but my heart is still bobbing along on days made of nothing but water.

Water everywhere, and yet never the same: from whispering ripples to waves flexing their muscles, colours that shift like thoughts at the horizon.

Birds, unexpected companions, circle with us for a while, as if they too are amazed at that one little boat on that endless sea.

The rushing never stops, nor does the rolling. Sometimes you find the rhythm and sleep rocks you along, then again you roll around your bunk as if the sea wants to keep you awake.

Three hours on watch every night, special every single time. Standing there, in the cockpit, life jacket snug, tether clipped on, some music soft in my ears, and feeling— that immense power, the breath of the ocean.

Above me stars, at first a full moon that turned everything to silver, below me that boundless sea and us: small, but alive.

I am grateful, deeply and quietly grateful, that I got to experience this, got to share all of this with these men, on that one little boat between sky and water.

/Tanneke