Swallows

They appeared at dusk halfway between Jamaica and Cuba. Darting through the lifelines, fluttering their minuscule wings to keep up with our 11 knots under main and jib, then letting the wind propel them backwards in an improvised game of aerial leap frog.
Five tiny feathered bodies crossing a large swath of Caribbean Sea. Where did they come from? Where were they going? Will they all make it?
They swooped in towards the boom then careened backwards past the backstay. We clapped at their maneuvers. We gasped as they deftly averted collisions with the rigging. We cheered them on and laughed at their pure play. They were the like the dolphins that had visited us earlier that day, darting past the bow and tossing themselves into the air off our beam. Creatures above and below enjoying our company and vice versa.

Bundles of feathers and tiny beating hearts became bold. They went for the lines, for the mast spreaders, onto the aft rail, clinging with their claws for seconds before losing their balance and being jettisoned back into the cool night air. One managed to hang onto the lifelines for a minute or so before getting bored and taking flight. I imagined they were daring one another to see how close to the humans they could get or how long they could claw the big fiberglass beast before it swatted them off with halyard lines and jib sheets (gibberish to them too).

The darkness settled and it was hard to see our fellow travelers. They appeared for minutes, settle on the lifelines with a newly mastered good grip, then glide over the water and away. We thought they were gone for good when one, then two, landed on the aft deck. Huddled behind the cockpit combing they realized they were out of the breeze, they didn't have to flap furiously or fear falling into the sea. (if that was even a fear. do birds fear?)
A respite between islands! Did their internal GPSs go haywire with this new information? Did they try to reason it out why the ancestral memory didn't include this little tidbit of information about a potential pitstop? Or did they just huddle together and tweet to one another how fucking lucky they were to find this sweet ass bonus? (I like to think the swallows have dirty sailor mouths too)

Because even when you don't necessarily have to rest, when you know in your bones that your body can make it, when everyone else in the group is pushing on unassisted, sometimes its not a bad idea to take a load off and enjoy the free ride while you can.

(And I swear I heard the smaller one tweet: "I'm on a motherfucking boat!")