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TRAVEL MEMOIRS
Road Tripping on the Baja Peninsula and a Sailing Disaster
Healing my 20-something angst with a Green Tortoise bus trip
I pulled the sail in close to the surfboard. The Baja Peninsula sun was hot, and I was exhausted and sticky from the salt water. Falling off the board thirty times or so, my energy was drained. I lay flat on my stomach, staring at the shore. Willing myself to float back to safety, I was spent.
A novice windsurfer, I sailed far out into the Pacific Ocean. I didn’t have the skills to sail back. Balancing on the board, I pulled my sail up and tried to catch the wind. Couldn’t do it. The beach was far, far away.
I couldn’t tell if anyone on the shore saw me. So I lay on the board, exhausted. Now what? The waves bounced the board around, and I felt alone. Farther out, the experienced windsurfers frolicked and played, making dramatic jumps and turns. They didn’t know I existed. Waves tugged at the sail, which I gripped tightly in its bunchy mess in the water.
The ocean is deceptive. Even as it gently pulled me further out, I thought I was drifting in. At twenty-eight, I was in trouble without a life jacket.
Solo travel was my way of escaping my messy love life back in Oregon. I needed time away from losses and heartbreaks that wore me down. One ex tried to talk me out of transferring to University of Oregon — “Honey, U of O is not community college. It’s really hard!”
I was with him off and on for years, and I almost believed him. Wasn’t I smart enough for university? Did I need to be a genius, like him? I hoped not.
He manipulated me to stay near him. It was stressful.
As it was, I had a late start to college at twenty-five. My family was a wreck. My brother died in a single-car accident when I was a teen. His death set off a chain of events in my family. Both my parents nearly died. Dad in a car accident, Mom in a bottle. I finally pulled my life together.
After I had my associate degree I wanted to transfer to a state university. But I was scared. It was a hundred miles from where I grew up, far from everyone I knew. I wasn’t an eighteen-year-old year with eager parents…
