Ceremonia de Amor and Destiny's Dreams

The bow of the clipper ship Destiny’s Dreams plunged, sliding down the towering wave while the boat's stern rose in the air.

The stormy waters of Cape Horn, at the southern tip of South America, surged and splashed over the bow and across the deck.

Soaking wet sailors grasped the railings and riggings to avoid being swept away.

Despite the struggle, they felt confident they would survive the gale force winds and wild seas.

Passengers inside the ship held onto the hull structures while it tilted.

Captain Alfonse turned the steering inside the wheelhouse and his heart thumped.

In 1898, they were on their way back from Buenos Aires, Argentina, on the east coast of South America, to Captain Alfonse’s home port on the western coast of South America.

One of the most dangerous crossings in the world was Cape Horn. But Captain Alfonse was experienced and confident. If he felt any fear, he never showed it.

For the crew and passengers, he presented an outward reassuring presence, despite the feelings inside of him.

A month ago, his ship was anchored in the bay off Buenos Aires, Argentina, attending a musical production at the world famous Teatro there. That was when the new plan was born within him. 

There might only be one more crossing of Cape Horn if his plan worked out successfully.

Inside the Teatro in Buenos Aires, while he was watching the musical play called "Ceremonia de Amor," a turning point in his life struck Captain Alfonse. Tears ran down his face.

Someone next to him whispered, “Are you alright?”

He nodded.

Somewhere inside, he knew he was going to embark on a voyage to somewhere he had never been, to start a new life doing things he had never done before.

Several miles away, his sleek clipper ship, Destiny’s Dreams. She rocked gently at her anchor in the bay. Her clouds of white canvas sails were reefed and wrapped around the spars. 

Most of her sailors slept deep down inside the hull. A few of them walked the starlit decks under the moon and kept the night watch.

Earlier that evening, Captain Alfonse and a few of the passengers and crew took the small surfboat from the ship to the shore.

Then they walked through the cobbled stone Spanish colonial streets, surrounded by tall stucco buildings with arches, carvings, and red tile roofs.

At the pride of Buenos Aires, the world famous Teatro, Captain Alfonse and his group walked past the horse drawn carriages.

It was a magnificent building. There were pillars, curving designs, carvings and statues of dancing figures, and an elaborate double door entrance way. The group stared with eyes were widened, and their heads kept turning.

Then they were sitting on cushioned seats. They were surrounded by ornate balconies full of distinguished audience members, watching the story unfold on the stage.

The actors and actresses performing the “Ceremonia de Amor” glowed in the spot lights lining the stage of the dark theater.

Captain Alfonse Belanger gazed at the figures lit on the stage. He was seeing them as if in a dream.

Reality faded. The music of the orchestra swelled. The theater was dark except for the stage. Actors and actresses in sweeping, draped garments whirled. It was ethereal, as if they were emerging from a fog or a mist.

For Alfonse, the audience disappeared. He related to the man singing in a powerful voice to his bride on the stage as if it was himself. 

The music went soft. The bride sang back to him in a lilting voice of her love for him.

The audience was still and soundless. They were spellbound.

Alfonse felt like he was in a trance.

It was as if he was the groom.

The bride in the opera “Ceremonia de Amor” reminded him of his own beloved Luciana. She was waiting for him at their home port.

Their stucco cottage with a tile roof was on the west coast of South America, on the other side of the continent.

Emotions swept through him.

His Luciana. So far away.

He thought, “”What am I doing here? Thousands of miles away from my love?”

Then his feelings gathered momentum.

“What is life if not for love?”

Then, “How long can I keep doing this?”

Alfonse knew he was in the Buenos Aires Treatro. Yet he felt he was also somewhere else.

In his mind, he saw himself embracing his wife, Luciana, at the seaport near their cottage.

They fell into each other’s arms with desperation.

Their pent up feelings were bursting. It was like water breaking through a dam and exploding downstream in a river.

Tears welled up in his eyes. They ran down his face in the daydream. His throat was tight. A pain ached in his chest.

Sitting in the theater, the tears ran down his face in reality, and not only in his daydream.

He imagined himself on the deck of his ship, Destiny’s Dreams, having a Ceremonia de Amor with Luciana. They were already married. But they could have another ceremony for their anniversary.

“Yes,” he thought. “This year we will do that.”

Captain Alfonse imagined they were leaving on the ship to start another life somewhere. A new beginning. It was time for a change.

They would live in a place where he did not need to take such long voyages. He would stop being away for months at a time.

“That’s it,” he thought. “Somewhere perhaps a week away from the other ports.”

His mind went deeper into his dream.

It was like a voice speaking to him.

“A farm. On the coast. On a deep river. His own wharf with the clipper ship Destiny Dreams gently swaying on the water next to his farm.”

“A port on the river. Trade and passengers. Only a week’s sail to the next trading port. His ship resting at his own private wharf... A simple house he could build himself. Growing fresh food... Rain. Gardens and crops….Evenings with Luciana and the children gathered around the flames of a fireplace or a warming stove.”

Like pieces of a puzzle he saw a plan take shape. His friends sitting next to him in the theater saw by his face he was in one of his famous trance-like states.

They always wondered what he was thinking then. Soon he would emerge from it. Often he began new projects then that were innovative and inventive.

“Remember those leaflets?” His inner voice kept speaking. “The green hills, meadows, forests, lakes, rivers, beaches. Homesteads available.”

Then he saw the words on the leaflet, “Mystical Coast Homesteads.”

In his dream, he made the decision to sail thousands of miles to San Francisco, California, and then north to the Mystical Coast.

He could anchor his ship in a bay or snug her up in a sheltered harbor, and make trips with passengers and cargo for trade on the routes between San Francisco, California, and Portland. Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest, on the Columbia River.

Then he would only be gone for weeks at a time, instead of on voyages for many months. The family could sail with him sometimes. Other times he could take a break to work on his farm.

A new joy began to fill him. The future beckoned. His spirit lifted with the anticipation. A heaviness he had not realized he carried floated away.

It would take many months, through the unfamiliar seas and stormy oceans on the west coasts of the Americas, for his ship Destiny’s Dreams to carry Alfonse, Luciana, and their children to their new life.

“We can do it. We must do it.”

Determination grew inside of him.

For a moment Alfonse saw his seafaring life like a story in the theater. His wife and kids were at home. He only saw them when the Destiny’s Dreams was in port, often for maintenance and repairs.

A sharp pang of pain started in his chest and for a moment his eyes saw Luciana as if she was standing now in front of him, her dark eyes looking into his soul. 

He imagined he could even see the variations of color and the reflections of light in her eyes.

“Luciana!” He could not help bursting out with her name, softly.

Next to him, his companions looked curiously at him in the theater.

“Is something wrong? What did you say?”

“Sorry, sorry, yes, I am fine.”

In a strange, unexplained way, far away on the other side of the South American continent, Luciana stopped for a moment in her home by the bay.

“I thought I heard uAlfonse say my name.”

She saw a vision of his eyes, framed by his unruly, wild hair in the wind on his ship, his mustache and beard ruffled.

“It seemed so real. As if he said my name right here,” she thought.

“My ears seemed to hear it as real as the waves splashing in the bay.”

In the theatrical production in Buenos Aires, the spotlights flashed on a man and a woman in love who were getting married outside where the trees formed an arch overhead.

Alfonse felt time seem to slow down, and the scene he saw was printed on his emotions. The bride and groom looking into each other’s eyes as if no one else was there made him catch his breath.

He remembered his own wedding. Luciana and Alfonse lived in their own secret world, where their thoughts and emotions seemed to float through the air. It was as if each of them knew what the other was thinking or feeling. Together, they created a universe of their own.

“No matter how much you love me, I love you more than that,” Alfonse whispered to his bride.

“And I love you for longer than eternity and more than infinity,” Luciana whispered back to him.

In the glow of the stage scene and his imaginings, something caught in Alfonse’s throat.

“How I miss my Luciana. I wish she was here, next to me right now, “ he thought.

“If only you could hear me now, sweet Luciana.”

Miraculously, thousands of miles away on the other side of the continent, Luciana paused in her work and sighed.

“Oh, Alfonse. We must make a change. I am too lonely here without you.”

In a few weeks, she and the children would begin packing some boxes. Her mind was made up.

When her husband, Captain Alfonse, arrived back in the port, his family was going with him on the ship.

“Children. Let me see your lesson work for today.” She looked at the handwriting and other homework.

“Very good. All of you. Thank you.”

Luciana pictured showing Alfonse how well the children were doing with their schoolwork. They were becoming bilingual now that they were learning English, too.

She knew Alfonse would be impressed.

Her plan was to use this to help persuade him to take them with him on the next voyage. Because the children were doing so well with their studies, they could take time off from school. 

She felt she simply must get Alfonse to answer “Yes” to her request.

Inside the Teatre on Buenos Aires the play ended and the actors and actresses took many bows.

Afterwards, the audience and actors gathered together for food and music with festive decorations.

It was the last performance of this play for a while and there was a ceremony and a party.

“Hello Captain. Where is your ship going next?”

A woman’s voice spoke. Next to her stood a man in a dark jacket and pants. He had a white mustache and wavy silver hair.

“First, south. Around the Cape. Then up the west coast. Stopping at ports as needed to get fresh water, fruits and vegetables.”

Captain Alfonse noticed the couple were each listening very closely. This was more than casual conversation.

“We want to get to San Francisco. Then we might explore much farther north too.” The man listened with a respectful demeanor while his wife spoke.

“You are in luck. We are going to follow the coastline all the way to San Francisco. I’ll drop off cargo and passengers there.

Then take on a new cargo and passengers to go up to the mystical coast and over along the biggest river that connects to the sea to the large river port.”

“Are you interested in booking a cabin on my ship?”

“Yes, we are. I am Alof. My wife is Frida. We are retiring from our work here in Buenos Aires. My wife is a teacher and I am a medical doctor. We may settle near San Francisco. For now, we want to explore.”

“Always glad to have a trained medical professional and an experienced teacher on board the Destiny’s Dreams.”

Captain Alfonse’s inventive mind was working fast. He was thinking of possibilities. Plans started forming already.

Luciana would agree to bring the children because there was medical care and a teacher on the ship.

He would pick them all up at the home port after they rounded the Cape and sailed up the west coast of South America.

Introducing Luciana to Frida and Alof would be a persuasive touch. 

“Why not?” He asked himself. Then he thought, “yes, it could happen.”

“My wife and children may be on the voyage also. When we get to our home port, where they live, I will find out.”

It was not unusual or supernatural for Alfonse and Luciana to have similar ideas even when they were separated by distance.

They were so well matched and so compatible that the same ideas often occurred to them both. 

During this long voyage the separation of two people who shared so many similar wants and needs made it predictable that they would decide not to endure the separations any longer.

“When does the ship leave?”

“Not for several weeks. I am having skilled workers here in Buenos Aires go over everything on the ship to check it and make repairs.”

“It is almost 4,000 miles by sea from the port near Lima to San Francisco. From here in Buenos Aires to the port outside Lima it is around 2,000 ocean miles.”

“The trip around the Cape is very dangerous. Are you sure you want to do this?”

Captain Alfonse saw Alof and Frida nodding. They looked like they would welcome adventure. He was not sure if they understood the dangers of crossing Cape Horn.

“Let’s meet at the ship tomorrow afternoon. I can give you a tour.”

Alof and Frida smiled, and it was agreed.

“See you then.” Captain Alfonse touched the brim of his cap to show respect. The night was getting late and people were leaving.

The bustling port in Buenos Aires was full of tall masts silhouetted against the sky. Steamships with smokestacks were mingled with the white oiled canvas sails of clipper ships and of hybrid ships who had both.

The docks and loading wharves were busy. Horses pulling wagons pulled up to loading planks and workers carrying cargo boxes onto ships were everywhere.

Passengers with trunks full of belongings clustered near the ships who were leaving that day.

The Destiny’s Dreams was a classic, sleek, clipper ship that Captain Alfonse had renovated. He added steam engines and a smoke stack so it was a hybrid. 

But the artistic lines of her design were like a signature reflecting the experience and skilled eye of her shipbuilder. The speedy lines of her hull were graceful and she looked like a fast racer.

Varnished wood and burgundy red trims outlined her hull and the wheelhouse on the deck.

The three tall masts had their sails furled onto the booms while the ship sat next to a wharf in the port.

A flag blew from the top of the tallest mast. It was a matching burgundy color with the Captain’s emblem of two interlocking D’s standing for Destiny’s Dreams.

Captain Alfonse envisioned the next month on board the ship.

The voyage down the Argentina coast would bring increasing gale force winds and steep waves.

The Cape Horn crossing was an ocean whose stormy waters had capsized or overwhelmed many ships.

He would train the new sailors well to prepare them for it. The experienced seamen would inspect every inch of the hull, rigging and sails.

Once they got past Cape Horn, the Destiny’s Dreams would carry him back to his Luciana. 

He couldn’t wait to tell her about the new plans. Instinctively, he knew she would share his enthusiasm. They were so alike.

Two souls. One path. One dream.