Calliope: Muse for Epic Poetry and Epic Adventure
How Skip and Wendy Rodriquez have gained skills and memories sailing across oceans for over 30 years
By Miranda Roberts
On a night that makes it hard for the eye to distinguish between sky and sea — the way the stars reflect on the water, still as glass around the sailboat — a marine animal pays a visit. One by one, whales approach the boat.
One floats up, close enough to tip the watercraft but only rolls on its side to take a look, then sinks down under the boat and reappears on the other side.
Next, two whales appear on one side of the boat, one on the other, keeping easy pace with the speed of the boat — almost playing with it. Swimming away just to come back and do it all over again.
This is not an experience many people can picture, let alone have experienced, but for Skip Rodriquez, a sailor for over 50 years, it was just another day at sea on his way across the ocean.
Waiting for its next adventure at Dock J, in Seattle’s Shilshole Bay Marina, sits Calliope, a 40-foot cutter sailboat that has seen many miles at sea and is aptly named after the ancient Greek muse for epic poetry and harmony.
Skip’s name suits him too, acquiring it after working as a skipper, a master or captain, on his uncle’s boat, who had the same given name as him, Arthur. The name distinguished the two and stuck all these years.
Cutter sailboats are small to medium-sized, built more for speed than comfort and capacity, and Skip has put this boat’s particular skill set to use for his lengthy trips across the world.
Calliope had just received a fresh coat of royal blue paint, done by Skip himself while balancing patiently between the dock and the boat.
With white sails bundled up on the stormy day ahead and a glossy dark wood interior, Calliope looks classic. Skip and his wife were never done puttering around the boat, dusting off souvenirs and cleaning old dishes to prepare for the next trip they could think of.
When Skip was just 12 years old his father bought the family their first sailboat and along with it, a sea of learning experiences.
“My dad thought it would be fun to test the response time of the Coast Guard,” Skip said.
Shortly after they sent out their fake distress call, the Coast Guard arrived with buckets of gasoline and an army of men ready to rescue the boat in trouble, but the Coast Guard soon discovered the only thing in trouble were the men.
Their next flirt with danger was when they got stuck between the shore and a larger ship, with only the sails and wind to blow them back to safety, before getting hit or stranded on land.
When Skip grew up, his love of sailing grew with him and he finally bought his own sailboat, Calliope, from a man who had previously sailed it to Turkey and back.
“Knowing that [the boat] had made it that far and that someone had done it before me inspired me to take that trip myself, and it was my first big cross-ocean trip,” Skip said.
“One thing to note about cross-ocean travel is that you are basically committing to being in a little pistachio shell in the middle of the ocean,” Skip said, “at that point, you want to just do anything to please the Gods.”
Contrary to what one might think from his history of lengthy sailing trips, Skip hates to be alone. He always takes a crew along with him on his long trips and often finds strangers on the docks of places he visits, calling for anyone willing to help.
“I can’t do anything alone, I need people around me all the time,” he said.
Skip met his wife, Wendy Rodriquez, in this same manner. While prepping for a trip to the Bahamas, Skip was calling for a crew on the docks, when a then 19-year-old Wendy said she was up for the adventure.
“I don’t know whose parents would let their 19-year-old daughter get on a stranger’s boat for a month on the ocean [but] here we are so many years later,” Wendy said.
The pair had gone on some smaller sailing adventures to start, such as one that started at the Great Lakes, followed the Erie Canal and ended down the Hudson River. After that, they planned trips to the Canary Islands, Barbados, the Mediterranean and The Azores in Portugal.
Destination 13.1939° N, 59.5432° W
One night during their journey from the Canary Islands to Barbados, Skip and Wendy were in the aft cabin, the suite towards the stern of Calliope, when they heard some motion on the deck above, next thing they knew a giant wave came over the boat and slapped down onto the deck, knocking over their two-person crew and startling those below.
“That’s called getting pooped, when a wave like that hits you out of nowhere,” Skip said.
The night was rough and never did the waves calm but, having made it through that trial, they pushed on and were inspired for more adventures.
Destination 19.8968° N, 155.5828° W
On a 21-day journey to Hawaii, the final approach to the islands is what worried those on board more than storms or whales ever could.
Skip and his crew were approaching a huge volcano island, and certain of their exact location because of all of their gear and meticulous tracking, but where was it?
“We were a thousand miles out, then a few hundred, then five, and still couldn’t see this giant volcano,” Skip said.
He put up the big sails in an effort to slow down the boat during their final approach to a still unseen destination.
Finally, a red light. Small and seeming to be in the clouds, but a small red light.
“That meant we were entering break water, so we knew we would be there soon,” Skip said.
Destination 38.9637° N, 35.2433° E
On a journey through the Mediterranean off the Spanish coast, Skip and Wendy experienced something almost magical.
“When you get over tropical waters, or even some places here up north, there’s often bioluminescence” Skip said. “There’s a little [bioluminescence] on every trip, but that night there was this blue-green light everywhere in the water. The wake from the boat was lit with this light behind us, the break at the front created these illuminated waves.”
Skip said the scene they saw was like a miracle.
“All of a sudden there were porpoises playing in the waves of the boat and they had the bioluminescence on them too, they looked like ghosts in the water.”
That first cross ocean trip through the Mediterranean to Turkey also included a stop at Flores Island, in the Azores of Portugal.
“Our arrival there was assisted by locals, having them help tie up our boat safely inside the rocky exterior of the island, and we [had] arrived in the middle of a huge festival.”
Leis and grass skirts and artwork from that trip, and many others, line the inside of Calliope. The next trip for Skip and Wendy will be more local, some quick trips to Vancouver Island or the San Juans, but the memories still line the main cabin and Calliope, with its fresh coat of blue paint, is ready to hit the ocean again someday soon.
