The Rhythm of the Sea is Restorative

Montse Pijoan

My fieldwork has been carried on old ships at sea. This Sail Training experience itself is restorative, it is a break to life, in which you are invited to work and live at sea for a while. It is especially supportive when people have a loss in life or simply for teenagers when they do not know what to do in life. 
What is lived at sea is always remembered in terms of relationships due to the involvement with the environment one is submitted once getting on board. In fact, the first effects to go through are seasickness and vomiting that also evoke homesickness. Once the first three days are overcome, one gets its sea legs. By getting your sea legs, starts a process of enskilment (Ingold 2000: 5-6, 36), in which everyone tries to fit at its best in the shared taskship (Pijoan 2020) on board. The process of enskilment through the taskship entails relationships with the other crew members but also with the boat and the other non-human aspects of the medium such as the wind, the swells or the waves. There is a shared rhythm, following the others rhythm, in which life is shared.
I would like to add the background sound of the boat, with the wind and the crackles of the wooden rigging. This is in the background of all the interviews and I would like to use it to present briefly how life at sea is involving everyone since the first moment on board, and which memories people have of the experience. 
The sound of the background involves the entire environment, and it is evocative of being back on board with the feeling of being fully accompanied, a human feeling sometimes careless in our current lives on land.