You get very good at talking to yourself at sea, one seafarer had told me. Another had described these voices as “soul whispers.” Some are dark, others less so, but they all feel deeply personal. While valuable in its own right, this internal dialogue also seemed relevant to my understanding of the outlaw ocean. It hinted at why so many of the people I met around the world on this watery frontier seemed to share an independent mindedness that I rarely encountered on land.
