#webb chiles

One of my hide-outs in the Philippines is Tablas Island; we were there last week to be immersed in beauty, rowing a banca (small fishing boat) towards blazing sunsets in the evenings and morning prayers floating in the crystal clear Sibuyan Sea as dawn broke.

Standing in the sea up to my waist, a small creature approached encircling my legs eager to take a bite. I let him try and then shooed him away and began to write as I realised it was time to relate this story; one of the sailor Webb Chiles’s survival stories I had logged earlier this year.

His boat sank off the coast of Fort Lauderdale 33 years ago at 3 o’clock in the morning and he was left floating in the ocean, in the darkness, waiting patiently for the sea to take him; all desire of survival spent. As he waited he felt something on his left thigh; it was a small fish taking a nibble. This small and seemingly insignificant creature catalysed an attempt for him to swim for shore.

For several hours then he swam, battling fatigue, thirst and waves, until he saw a light.

An anchored trawler was nearby and he shouted for help and was brought aboard. He had travelled more than a hundred miles north by then to Sebastian inlet, swept along by the gulfstream. An astonishing rescue story in itself but the outcome was far more extraordinary when you think about it.

What a gift! To receive an extension of life beyond that moment; in those 30 plus years since then he met the love of his life, circumnavigated the globe a couple of times, wrote books and had a great many of the joys, sorrows and adventures that make for life that could so easily have been missed or lost.

It’s not the ocean that is benevolent though, but the One who watches over it and us, who knows the day and the hour of our departure and holds the rudder of our life’s journey (gently), continually wooing us with the offer of the ocean of His mercy and the intimacy and union that flows from that to our eternal destiny beyond this mortal coil.

He sent Jonah a whale that taxied him back to shore! The rest of us may have to sail, row or swim!

A quote from St Faustina's Diary 'Divine Mercy in my Soul'

‘All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.’

We know something is wrong, or missing, in ourselves and the world:- most men will feel the angst and push it down in duty, discipline and conformity and perhaps dull the pain of it with a few beers at the weekend or some other leaning post and stoically carry on. Even with a Christian foundation most feel a bit lost with all the longings of desire fighting to get out. We were made for Eden, for bliss, for eternity and the heart remembers the original design.

What does it look like for the few who make the leap to try to find the destiny we believe is calling us, to a life worth living? It’s dangerous, and it doesn’t always go according to (our) plan.

I came across a video about a prolific sailor and author from the US, Webb Chiles, which told of his life on the world’s oceans; he was the first US citizen to go solo around Cape Horn where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans clash rather violently, putting the best of sailors to the test; he also chalked up many circumnavigations. Out on the fringes of life there will usually be close calls and life threatening situations which will test the mettle and bring them to the end of themselves and I asked him if there were any memorable events like that. Another video he shared showed a couple of examples. There was something in the stories; some small details that reminded me of something. To some they would be barely noticeable, put down to chance or luck but to me; I recognized the Modus Operandi… a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a much deeper reality.

One of the stories described how during a voyage, some 300 miles from shore, he hit something in the water which caused the boat to summersault and threw him out. Afterwards the boat was swamped, still afloat but not sailable; just drifting with the hopeful expectation of reaching land eventually. He rationed his water to a few sips per day and a small amount to eat. And then a timely arrival; a coconut, with its life-giving contents still secure inside, floated casually by the boat. Webb swam to fetch it. It would enable him to survive for another week and so he made it to land alive. Lived to sail another day!

Years ago I read the account of the Voyage of the James Caird (a lifeboat) from Elephant Island to South Georgia. Frank Worsley navigated the small open boat through hurricane conditions 800 miles to find a fly speck of an island using celestial navigation, and saved the lives of his comrades just as surely as Shackleton’s legendary leadership did.

But the more impressive piece of navigation, to say nothing of timing, must be the Voyage of that Coconut. First it had to fall off the tree and land, softly, in the sand without breakage. Then roll gently to the water’s edge, picked up by the tide, and begin its seaward journey. And then, without rudder or sail, chart or GPS it crossed how many miles we don’t know, moved by wind and wave for a high precision rendezvous with an even smaller fly speck in the ocean. As a scientist I can say that the mathematical probability of this confluence of events is approaching zero. Nature is anything but Precise; the Supernatural on the other hand is this precise.

God honours our efforts, our work and our achievements and only steps in when we are at the end of ourselves if He has purpose. We are trained through adversity, not spared any trial or difficulty but with one aim in mind; union or reunion with Him. We are made for fellowship with Him. He is not a remote being or a mathematical enigma for us to solve but the Father’s sincere love for us manifest in His pursuit of us across the sea roads or mountain tops of the world. The revelation is the invitation or trail head of another journey, another voyage of sorts into the unknown and uncharted waters of the spiritual life and that is where, for me, the real adventure began more than 30 years ago after an intervention on land with a similarly ludicrous probability, but that’s a story for another day!

..even the winds and the sea obey Him!

A sailor is an artist whose medium is the wind. Live passionately, even if it kills you, because something is going to kill you anyway.