The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

by Bernard Moitessier

I listen to the sea, I listen to the wind, I listen to the sails talking with the rain and the stars amid the sounds of the sea and I am not sleepy. I think of William Willis, alone on his balsa raft in the Pacific for months and months, with the sea all to himself in the middle of the universe. At times, he heard the ‘call’ with every fibre of his being. For some time, I have been hearing it too. And that, perhaps, is the long way. But I must not speak of it or let it be felt when rounding Tasmania; land is so far away compared to the questions the stars are asking me. I can only give them my first log, with birds, sea, daily sights and little everyday problems. My real log is written in the sea and sky; it can’t be photographed and given to others. It has gradually come to life out of all that has surrounded us for months: the sounds of water on the hull, the sounds of wind gliding on the sails, the silences full of secret things between my boat and me, like the times I spent as a child listening to the forest talk.