Slag

I met Henry during a Russian film studies class. We sat in silence, the screen flickering white and grey and blue. We fit together.

Henry had grown up on the water. We read stories aloud and climbed trees. He whispered that I had olive eyes. That I’d reduced him to a fish on a hook. He once told me, “There are three kinds of men in this world: those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are at sea.”

Henry was the one who first told me about the Race to Alaska, the longest human and wind-powered sailing race in North America. It traverses the Inside Passage, beginning in Port Townsend, Washington and arriving 750 cold-water miles later in Ketchikan, Alaska. I was captivated. I’ve been fascinated by the sea for as long as I remember. As a girl, I’d devoured Jack London, Hemingway, Conrad, Jules Verne, Herman Melville, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Through their stories, I’d sailed on The Cruise of the Snark, fished for giant marlin, hunted sperm whales, and explored the ocean depths. The only books I had were about men at sea. I craved their grit.

Henry had run the Race to Alaska for the first time the year before. He told me about the triumph of reaching the dock in Ketchikan. The joy of rest after a long day of work. The men who sailed and fished and smoked. The exhaustion. The jellyfish that sting your face and hands. The boat he’d built to run the race, the Johnny Horton, a hand-welded 20-foot aluminum sharpie. The whole thing is held together with