The Southern Cross

Face to face with the crew of the outrigger, that passage about kidnappings and murdered tourists crashed into my courage. I had the notion that I entering the opening scene of a Noir flick, and that I was not the hero. I suppressed a rising panic. I was getting quite good at that by then, surpassing panic. Practice makes perfect, you know. No, no, no, my tortured jetlagged mind rebelled. This can’t be the boat. This isn’t right! This isn’t what I signed on for!

Jenny’s reaction wasn’t especially encouraging, either. This was the last straw. Long days of stress had finally derailed her. She deflated, looking as lost and panicked as I must have in San Francisco.
“Well…” I said, sucking up my fears and puffing out my chest in a display of male bravado. “Not to worry.” I pontificated. I screwed up my courage, not so much for myself (I was feeling like I was being led to slaughter, truth be told, and strangely resigned to my fate), but for her.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” she said, “I could call—”

“No more calls,” I said, putting my arm around her and giving her a squeeze. “In for a penny. We’ve come this far.”

I grabbed our gear and made for the boat.

How male, how cavalier, how arrogant. Who was I trying to kid? If these guys were going to kidnap us, torture us, kill us, what could I do about it?

Onward, just the same; I had come this far—we had come this far; and all because of her. And really, what else was I going to do, go home? I certainly wasn’t going to let her go on alone.

The eldest of the three onboard gestured to the younger ones to help, and the proprietor waved farewell.
I boarded the boat, Jenny right behind me. I couldn’t help but feel that we were consigned to brigands and pirates as I watched the Jeepney disappear into the night.

The ocean-going canoe pulled away from the jetty and then the harbour, pitching and yawing as it cut the inky swells. Aft, the lights of Puerto Princesa sunk below the surface as we slipped away into the bleak night, taking all hands with her. The city’s glow grew fainter the further we sailed into the pitch, until it faded altogether. Darkness, a waste without reference, embraced the small boat.

It wasn’t that bad once we got going. Ocean breath swept across its tiny deck, carrying away with it the stink of fish and exhaust. It stripped my heat away with it, as well. I sat, my knees in my chin, curled into a ball to conserve what little remained.

I felt a furtive tap on my shoulder. I twisted about, expecting Jenny. I was met by a tobacco-stained, gap-toothed grin. Was he the Captain? He must have been. What else could he be? He looked older than Methuselah, his face cracked by sun and wind.

“Would you like to see the compass?” he stammered in broken English while offering me a cigarette. Would I like to see the compass? What a surreal thing to say. I almost giggled. I almost burst out laughing. But I could see that he was trying to set me at ease. My apprehension fell away.

“Sure,” I said, accepting the smoke. “Why not? I’d love to see the compass.”

Aft, the Filipinos trained their single flashlight on their most prized possessions: a fixed compass and a map of the Sulu Sea. A faint line was penciled in, tracing our course and marking our position. Many such courses had been marked, erased and marked again, leaving the paper lightly frayed, feathery. Each destination was the same: the Tubbataha Reef, a near circular collection of dots that marked the centre of the map.

We were sailing east-north-east, so said the compass (I prayed that it wasn’t jammed with grit, and God being merciful, I saw that it wasn’t—it was floating on its gimbals), and at least as far as the faint pencil-line was concerned, heading directly for the reef, just as the map directed. I nodded sagely, precipitating a medley of chatter and head-bobbing amongst the crew.

I slept fitfully atop the cabin’s roof with Jenny snuggled against me, a few beach towels over us to keep the wind off us. It was cold. We spooned.

I awoke on a sea calmed to glass.

What time was it? I didn’t know. It was late—very late—three in the morning, maybe.

I sat up quietly, so as not to wake Jenny, and gazed up into the night sky. I was struck by what I saw, awed, mesmerized by a field of stars, as big as dimes, sparkling in a sea of infinite depth. The Milky Way, a broad band of brilliant light, swept over the world. An immense moon floated in its sea. Below it beckoned the Southern Cross.

Eternity hung over me, infinite and unfathomable.

I tore my gaze from its hypnotic beckoning and peered over the gunnels at our wake. Our path was speckled green with shimmering incandescence, life agitated and set afire by our passage, mirroring the arc of the galaxy above. I had heard about that once and had forgotten all about it, having never expected to witness it myself; but there it is, a galaxy unto itself.

Unimaginable depth fell below me, abyssal and mysterious.

I was lost in the wonder of the moment, that profound moment: at sea, blanketed by one sea of lights and buoyed above another. I was caught between, seemingly small and insignificant, drawn to both. I could feel myself drift.

Jenny shifted beside me, drawn to my warmth. Anchoring me.

I looked down at her, her hair mussed across her face. I heard the quiet whispers of the crew behind me. I remembered Methuselah’s smile, his cackled laughter.

A thought came to me, something I heard or read about travel, something I knew to be true, but only then did I understand it implicitly: it’s not about the places, stunning though they may be, it’s only scenery; it’s all about the people met along the way.

That said, I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world, just then.

Bliss.