The ocean never stops. That’s why I get seasickness so bad, but I also think that’s why I like it. The tide goes in and out, wave lapping upon wave, carrying the sand out and placing it gently down in a new place. However, despite constant motion, things stay, ultimately, the same.

…

J-Dawgs, Provo’s premier hotdog hangout, has always been a think tank for me. I’m not sure why, but when I’m there discussion comes easy and ideas seem to flow. So, upon getting back from the U.K. it felt like a good place to meet Christian to share my travel stories. Our thirty-minute lunch talk ran long, stretching one hour, then two, then three, four, five, until seven hours later we decided it was time for dinner.

Travel stories often lend themselves to travel plans, and so the travel bug spreads. As we reminisced, we planned a sailing trip, looking up charters for the week of spring break, just ten days away. Christian took to calling marinas all across the west coast looking for charters, which led him to talk with an old, balding man, currently sailing out of L.A. He said his name was Mack, “like mac-n-cheese?” asked Christian. “Yea, except with a ‘K,’ but the ‘K’ is silent,” replied the fuzzy voice. At the moment, Mack was currently sailing his boat just off the California coast with a handful of models in need of pictures. We decided Mack was our man.

Mack offered us a good deal to sail to Catalina Island with room to fit three other people on the boat. We began filling up the rest of the spots on the boat as quickly as possible. Christian’s cousin hopped on quick, then Christian’s classmate. The last spot went unfilled until the night before we left for L.A. Christian’s classmate, Reagan, reached out to her friend and invited her along. She said yes, packing her bags late that night and arriving at my house at 7 am the following morning.

We left for L.A. early—Christian and I in the front, with his cousin in the back and the girl none of us knew, Madi. Reagan would meet us there. We stayed that night in a cheap Airbnb and woke up early to slog through the L.A. traffic to meet Mack at the marina. The boat was 40-feet of beautifully painted and polished wood, Mack’s life work. He got it for $5,000 as a scrap boat and spent the last twenty years restoring it to a model ship. His work paid off, the ship being in high demand as models and celebrities alike paid big bucks for photo shoots with his handiwork.

Mack didn’t seem to care. He told stories of sailing out movie stars with a nonchalance that suggested that, to him, it was all a day’s work. Be it Amber Heard, who’s “surprisingly short and quite rude,” or “that girl, well, guy now, from that Juno movie,” or five college students on spring break, it was all the same. Regardless, they’re all just people fascinated with a life that was as ordinary to Mack as going to the grocery store is for the rest of us.

We all squeaked and squealed our excitement as we motored out of the marina, and I wondered if Mack ever got tired of the young people giggling and fidgeting with excitement at the novelty of his life. If it did, I imagined the money helped keep it fresh, yet from all our time with Mack, he seemed to thoroughly enjoy taking us out.

I was the first to puke as we got out of the marina. I’d like to say the seas were rough, but they weren’t. I’m simply a featherweight mariner and learning this was far more debilitating than the seasickness itself. I wanted to learn to sail, my previous experience was limited to a few days on the Puget Sound and some classes on a lake, so I expected to be grilling Captain Mack with questions on the eight-hour trip to Catalina. Instead, I spent most of it laying down with my head covered. Knot-tying lessons were interrupted by me throwing my head over the side of the boat to feed the dolphins, of which we saw many.

By the time we reached Catalina, I could keep my head up enough to admire the rock formations as we rounded the island’s tip. Out here, where the mainland was just a distant pencil streak on the horizon, Catalina jutted up from the Pacific Ocean over 2,000 feet with sharp peaks and large cliffs, striped with white, black, and green rock. As we sailed, Mack pointed out the many faces hidden in the cliffs, glaring eyes with crooked mouths and broken noses judging every passing sailor.

Together we made up quite the crew. The Mormons, Christian, Madi, and Reagan, all came dressed and groomed for a weekend at Woodstock. I, the only one who actually smoked weed, and Austin, the other non-Mormon, least resembled 1960s hippies. I, instead, came dressed like I was auditioning for Miami Vice but couldn’t afford a sportscoat, and Austin came as a skater-boy with an affinity for Carhart. With Captain Mack in his straw hat at the helm and all of us behind him, I wonder if the faces in the cliffs didn’t let us pass more out of confusion than approval. Regardless, they did, for what we lacked in know-how we made up for in gung-ho.

We stayed in Cat harbor—a hidden cove tucked behind one of the many jutting cliffs that circumscribe the island. It was the end of lobster season, the last few traps sprinkled through the cove. Between the seasickness and sun, we arrived at the harbor tired, the sun now setting, but Mack insisted we go ashore nonetheless. We piled into the small dinghy and rode smoothly to the dock. The ocean, just three hundred meters away, maintained three-foot waves, but the harbor was like glass even in light storms.

The little town on the island’s isthmus was all but abandoned, only the seasonal workers who cleaned the cabins, served the drinks, and a few fishermen were there, but none save the bartender were out. Night laid itself over the town like a cool sheet, stilling all life. We were walking through a painting, the only movement in all the town being a lone buffalo walking through the park and the bartender sweeping the patio. Both kept rhythm with the lapping waves.

On the horizon was L.A. It can only be made out because of the light pollution which, at its most romantic, might be described as a corona of illumination, a sunset in minor that never stops falling. Perhaps more realistically, it’s a blotch of brightness on the night sky, like a mustard stain they couldn’t quite get off of Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Off the dock, we watched phosphorescent tadpoles or something of a similar sort swimming. Across the island, we saw a fire burning, and in the harbor a few boats’ cabins were still aglow. Every drop of light all around seems amazing, every star, every tadpole. Every clink of chain or bell around the harbor felt musical, synchronous with the heartbeat of Catalina, which was felt rather than heard.

As I sat on the dock with the others a memory cut through the sensory overload. I thought about the late nights I’d spend as a kid at La Playa, the Mexican restaurant minutes from my house which overlooked the Puget Sound. I’d walk down there late at night and watch the boats, the gulls, the Seattle skyline, constantly in motion, twinkling, twirling, and never changing. I’d sit for hours. It seems I’ve missed something since then, and as I sat on the Catalina shoreline, I realized it was never lost, just neglected.

We went into the bar for a late dinner. The meal was on Mack. Without his asking a Mai-Tai was brought out to him, made strong, just how he liked it. Despite the seasickness being gone, my stomach would only allow for a cup of clam chowder. Each bite had to be eaten slowly, delicately, despite my hunger. I ate bite by bite between billiards shots. I ordered a Mai-Tai and asked him to make it like Mack’s. Within minutes my billiards game suffered.

We all hyped ourselves up for a nighttime swim when we got back to the boat, but it never came to fruition. The night was cold, and we were tired. I slept on cushions that slid easy, often abandoning me to the wood bench below. Regardless, I slept well.

The next day was spent swimming till we were numb, exploring, and hunting for shells. Mack had us chew grass that tasted like licorice and explore the houses and cabins of the island, all of which had at least one ghost story associated with them. He told us stories of his childhood, of his parents bringing him out here. Of run-ins with celebrities and the night of Natalie Wood’s death. Every minute seemed notable, too decadent to be accurately retold. That night we recited pop songs like great poetry. We laughed lots and slept heavily.

The next morning, we took one last swim and sailed off. The sea sickness took a little longer to come on this time and lasted shorter. The motion of the boat is a sensory overload to your body’s equilibrium, causing your brain to lose its sense of flatness. There is no steady plain for it to cling to, and that discomfort is what causes the sickness. In time, your body adjusts, your sea legs come, and the boat feels stable. Once that happens it’s stagnant ground that feels unfamiliar, and your legs wobble on solid ground.

My sea legs are long gone now, my life is back to the steady plain. It’s more comfortable now—no more sharing a tight cabin, sleeping on sliding cushions, or seasickness, and yet, my mind still wobbles occasionally as it reminisces. I miss the people and the waves and the constant motion.