Sailing Coastal Waters
Life From a Different Perspective
Last year, I planned an incredible trip with my son white water river rafting down the Colorado through Grand Canyon. I was beyond excited to get out on the rapids. My grandfather was a river runner in the 60s and 70s making an infamous run down El Sumidero documented in film. To carry on the family tradition and pass it on to my son was a dream come true.
I cannot begin to describe the tangible disappointment I felt when I learned we were no longer able to go. I reluctantly added a post to IG asking if anyone wanted to take our place.
Given the expense of the trip, I was relieved when Peter Laughton reached out saying he would purchase the trip for himself and a buddy. After the trip, he shared posts and photos about it which only fanned the flames of my wanderlust and sorrow for not getting to go. To say I was jealous is an understatement. I had complete and utter FOMO.
Fast forward almost a year later - I posted on IG that I would be starting a Guest Blog page on my website inviting those interested in being featured to reach out to me.
Peter emailed me congratulating me on my decision to share other’s stories, telling me how he often thought about writing and sharing a story he wrote about sailing that had been published in a local paper years ago. He was not writing to ask to be a guest blogger, just intrigued by the idea.
I admit, I had every intention of just skimming the article he attached, but as I began to read it, his words spoke to me.
I felt as if I was there sailing the seas and seeing the east coast shoreline with my own eyes as he described what he felt and saw. I immediately replied asking for permission to share his story with my audience. Luckily for those reading this, he agreed…
“My Summer Vacation Memory: A Different Perspective”
by Peter Laughton
“I recently completed a single-handed sail from Boston to Stuart. I was ‘at sea’ for eight weeks covering more than 2,000 miles.
I have bicycled and hiked in Europe. I have been on top of mountains. I have visited some of the world’s greatest cities and villages and there are still many places in the world that I would still want to visit.
In recent years, a different awareness has slowly seeped into my consciousness: hard to define, difficult to ignore. It comes when I am out on my sailboat, detached from the land, driven by the wind into restless seas.
There is a strange sense of frailty and fear, steering a small vessel at the mercy of the wind on a vast unsympathetic ocean.
With this physical detachment comes a new perspective of the land we belong to. The familiar details of human activities quickly fade away. The land seems only relevant when located on a chart as I determine my passage. Then, as easy as it is to slip away, the time must come to return to land: to belong once again.
I stopped in many small harbors and anchorages along this seemingly endless passage. Seeing the land from the water’s perspective is so very different.
Cities such as Boston and New York become more digestible.
Sailing down the East River alongside Manhattan brought a strange sense of detachment from an intense city I know quite well from within.
The extravagant architecture teetering on the small Thimble Islands off the Connecticut shoreline cannot be approached from the land.
The way in which Atlantic City silently rose above the fog as I approached belied all the activity that sustains it. Nudging up small river estuaries in the luminescent evening light as the birds go to roost cannot be experienced from land.
Pulling into a sheltered harbor after battling a wild ocean for hours brings an extraordinary sense of relief and peace.
Drifting slowly under sail beneath an intense canopy of bright stars is intoxicating. Approaching a small deserted island surrounded by pristine white beaches far outdoes all those enticing travel magazine pictures.”
It is as if you can feel that sense of isolation and awe when reading Peter’s words. To learn more about Peter, visit his Instagram @laughtonart or website where he shares his paintings and I am hopeful, he might one day share his words.”
About Peter Laughton from his Website:
I am continuously inspired by the complex interaction between sky, water and land… the boundless horizon that provides an intoxicating space for my imagination to roam. My paintings strive to capture the ever changing moods that light imposes on what I see.
Evocative, suggestive seascapes and landscapes draw people into my paintings...into a timeless space that silences the chaos around us. I want to solicit an emotional response to images drawn from my imagination which is incessantly fueled by the world around me.
Lowlands by Peter Laughton
(oil painting, 36”x48”)
I was educated in Europe and the United States (BA, MA). I have been involved in Fine Art and 3D Design for the last forty years. My award winning artwork is in private collections worldwide and is currently shown in galleries in MA and FL.
Cohanssey River by Peter Laughton
(watercolor, 9” x 12”)
