The Storm: Part 2

Continuing our story, with the rest of the crew incapacitated and Captain Halsted needing sleep, John Lennon was at the helm of the Megan Jaye, a 43-foot sailboat in the midst of a serious storm. For the next series of hours, Lennon was pummeled by wind and waves, feeling the storm’s full wrath. He described the experience as follows.

“There was no reference point,” Lennon said. “Wherever you would look, we were the center of a circle. There was no land to be seen. [The crew] were sick and throwing up and the captain says to me, ‘There’s a storm coming up. Do you want to take over the wheel?’ I said, ‘Do you think I can?’ I was supposed to be the cabin boy learning the trade, but he said, ‘Well, you have to. There’s no one else who can do it.’ I said, ‘Well, you had better keep an eye on me.’ He said he would. Five minutes later he goes down below to sleep and says, ‘See you later.’ No one else could move. They were sick as dogs.

“So I was there, driving the boat, for six hours, keeping it on course. I was buried under water. I was smashed in the face by waves for six solid hours. It won’t go away. You can’t change your mind. It’s like being onstage – once you’re on, there’s no gettin’ off. 

“A couple of the waves had me on my knees. I was just hanging on with my hands on the wheel – it’s very powerful weather – and I was having the time of my life! I was screaming sea shanties and shoutin’ at the gods! I felt like the Viking, you know, Jason and the Golden Fleece.”[1]

Lennon later told the story to friend and photographer Bob Gruen. Gruen recalled the tale as follows.

"[Lennon] said that even though he was the rich dilettante who had hired this crew, it was now down to life and death,” Gruen said. “And since he was the only one who was healthy enough to stand up, he actually got strapped to the wheel there and had to hold on and keep the boat steered into the storm…He said that they give you the raincoat, and a hat, and so on and, and you feel, you know, you're dressed like a sailor, so you feel like a sailor.

“And he was out there for a couple of hours steering the boat, and he said that he knew he was supposed to sing sea shanties to get into the spirit of…the rhythm of the waves and so on. But he didn't know any sea shanties. He said, ‘The only songs I knew were the ones that I wrote when I was in the Beatles.’ So he said he was out there singing Beatles songs to the storm, as he drove the sailboat.”[2] 

Hours later, after catching some rest, Halsted returned. He found Lennon a changed man.

“I met a different guy,” Halsted said. “He was totally washed, exuberant, ecstatic, singing sea shanties at the horizon and at the sea. He was virtually in rapture with being in control of his environment.”[3]

Halsted also said that the experience conjured up a memory for Lennon.

“He drew a corollary, a direct analogy, from driving this yacht offshore in a maelstrom, fully connected and needing to respond every instant to what was going on, to when they lowered them into Shea Stadium in a helicopter,” Halsted said. “They were being lowered down thinking, ‘Well, this is a little spooky, because the cops have no idea what is going to happen. No one does…But he said, ‘I was in control of that and no one else was, and it was just like that here at the helm of the boat. I was involved in the kinetics of the instant.’ And that’s a powerful space.

“We’d had a lot of conversations prior about human beings endeavoring to become pelagic – become of the ocean; drifting around on a raft, the relative purity of that existence and the attraction that it held for John. All of this stems back to his dad being a sailor. This put it into perspective and connected him in some way with his dad, although it is hard for us to know for sure. But I sense it brought some huge healing.”[4]

Elsewhere, Halsted said, “To see John so filled with life was amazing. To see him so alive and to have watched the change in him was truly a wonderful experience.”[5]

Image from Lennon Bermuda (reversed). Freisenbruch Brannon Media.

[1] Sheff, David. All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Kindle Edition. p.94. St. Martin's Griffin. 2010.

[2] Madinger, Chip; Raile, Scott. Lennonology: Strange Days Indeed, A Scrapbook of Madness. p.515. Open Your Books. 2015.

[3] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.28. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[4] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda . p 30. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[5] San Souci, Brian R. “There’s no place like nowhere.” (John Lennon, Bermuda, 1980). Rhode Island Monthly. June 7, 2010.