It starts on a cool moonless night with a pinniped pod lounging on a channel buoy about four miles or so off shore. The conversation goes something like this.

Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaat! Move over. How? Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Yes. Something like that. Yes. Your warm spot, my cold spot. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! And give me a scratch. Yes. Right there. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Now you have to turn your warm spot too. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! That was good fish we had today. Yes, good fish. Want more. We get more. Yes, more. Later. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Want sex. Want sex too. Too tired. No privacy. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Feel shark? No feel. Safe here Yes. Safe here. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Get off my spot. Ouch. Don’t bite! Oh God, gas. Jesus, Eddie. Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! What?! What the f is that? Where?! What?! That. Red light green light. Coming right for us. Who is that a**hole?! Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Dive for your life!

And so, so many things to attend to, so many things to think about. So many parts to get. So many failure scenarios that might play out, so many things that might go utterly wrong. This pump needs rebuilding. Gaskets must be replaced on leaking thermostat housing, mystery elements of standing rigging, main sheet blocks should be replaced, strange haunting noises of problems in germination … this leaking, that broken, this needing repair, that a cause of concern … As all of this like Ringling Brothers acts going on and on in three rings in my head, trapeze artists flying through the air, tight rope walkers high overhead, women with giant colorful feathers sprouting from their heads in skimpy sequined outfits standing on galloping white horses, clowns in baggy pants with white faces and big red noses, tigers jumping through hoops, some jackass with a snapping whip … It’s not like I live the boat. I am the boat. I feel all parts of the boat incrementally wending their way to compromised function, malfunction, defunction … It’s a bit like the implacable obsessions of the disaster mongers, those incurables who adhere to any report of calamity, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, avalanches, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis, tornadoes and sand storms … you name it. They imbibe it all. They absorb. And they share. Going to the mountains? Well watch out for the blizzard. You heard about that family that got caught and had to eat each other? Kid now only has one leg. Going to the beach? Don’t get too close to the shore; you heard about that guy who was swept off the rocks the other day. What? A vacation to Italy? You haven’t heard about the volcano?

Somehow, I just want to be free, just want to clear my mind, to draw in a deep breath, thought-free Savasana on a rubber mat on a wooden floor in a spacious room with tall glass windows and a view of the mountains and cherubs fluttering about over a green field outside, playing some sort of endearingly ridiculous slow motion game throwing big inflated flowers at each other that just float slothfully through the air. And there’s a mime, because talented mimes are always underrated. This one is cooking an elaborate invisible meal, a delicious work of culinary brilliance, aided by his sous-chef, a dolphin wearing an apron, because this dolphin has just had enough of swimming in circles in a sea show and has decided to take up cooking. That’s what I want. Everyone smiling, bright sun warmth and colors, and garden gnomes bringing me towels and water, maybe a bowl of miso soup.

But instead it’s a moonless night and there I am motoring out of San Diego at about 6.5 knots, autopilot on.  Sage mariner that I be, I have checked the chart and cleared the final pair of buoys and all is well. I go down for a minute to refill my water bottle and when I come back up, Jesus Christ. There is a tower of a buoy smack dab right in front of me closing fast. I go to the wheel but it won’t budge because the autopilot is on and now I have seconds until disaster. Must become robotic, logical, mechanical. Get flashlight to see autopilot control. Check. There it is. Hit “Standby”! Check. Back to the wheel. Check. Manic turn to port.

From the fellows on the buoy: Aarfff! Arrff! Rumfff! Pffblaaht! Holy sh*t here comes that son of a b*tch!

Seals jumping off in all directions like the soaring sparkling petals from one of those flowering fireworks explosions.

I missed that deep sea buoy by four feet. It must have been sixteen feet tall. And how big and bad and heavy and deep was the keel tube under it? 6.5 knots? Pretzeled bowsprit. Forestay popped. Cracking hull. Taking on water. Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!

But it’s not something that a supposedly salty fellow would like to admit. It’s not something that anyone whose sole abode is his hull would like to mention. It’s a scary thought to recall. So, for the sake of convenience, pride and piece of mind, it never happened. Yes indeed I shall try to learn from this near miss. But, on the flip side, ironically, when everything seems to be part of a larger scheme of impending doom and disintegration, when the needle for intervention is in red zone at DEFCON 1, I do find it somewhat diminishes the intensity of a “crisis” at hand and proffers comfort to think of what never happened and how much worse things might have been if it actually did.