A few weeks ago I was invited to join a very special sunset sailing opportunity aboard the Alabama. As I walked down the Black Dog dock on a particularly clear and windy autumn evening, I couldn’t help recall the many other times I had boarded the Alabama — my son’s early exposure with his classmates to real sailing through the middle school program, various private parties and weddings I have been asked to photograph, and, most recently, the Wounded Warriors excursion two years ago hosted by Bob and Sarah Nixon.

But this time felt different. The occasion was more emotional, heartfelt and personal.

I had been invited to join a Sailing Heals occasion. The events are the brainchild of Trish Gallagher and her twin sister Michele who live in Boston. Both of their parents are cancer survivors. As the women nurtured their parents back to health, they noticed their respective spirits soared after a day at sea. Thus the birth of Sailing Heals.

Frances Gaskin. — Peter Simon

Sailing Heals was founded in July 2011. Since then, the organization has hosted over twelve hundred VIP guests (cancer patients/caregivers) and has launched boats in seven states, courtesy of over 80 volunteer host captains. Sailing Heals celebrates the caregiver as well as the patient, because as Trisha says, “often the caregiver’s experience can be as challenging as the patient and yet she may receive much less support.” The organization hosts most of its sails in Marblehead, but has also visited Nantucket, and this year the women wanted to branch out to Martha’s Vineyard. Plans for even more sails this fall and winter are being arranged for Florida and California, and perhaps the tropics as well.

Sailing Heals board member Jon Ollwerther spent summers on the Vineyard and his parents still have a home in Edgartown. Mr. Ollwerther got the ball rolling on the Island by introducing Sailing Heals to interested sailboat owners at the Edgartown Yacht Club as well as to Morgan Douglas of the Black Dog Tall Ships. Dr. Lori Wirth of Massachusetts General Hospital and a board member of Sailing Heals was also instrumental in introducing the group to the MGH-CC patient services department here.

The inaugural Vineyard Sailing Heals outing took place in mid August, sponsored by the Edgartown Yacht Club. A friend of mine, Chris McGinley, was one of the captains who participated, and I recognized him right away on the September voyage that I participated in, helping out aboard the Alabama.

There were about 40 folks on this trip, and as I looked around the boat, watching everyone enjoying the food provided by Stop & Shop, and taking in the dramatic sky that the billowing cumulous clouds were providing, it was hard to tell who was a cancer patient/survivor and who was a family member or friend. I approached a group of people I recognized.

Kristian Seney is my computer specialist who handles most of my technical issues out of a little cubby hole at Peacegate. He informed me that his stepfather had passed away just two weeks earlier due to pancreatic cancer. Kristian’s stepfather had hoped to live long enough to enjoy this special sail, so Kristian, his wife and his mother were taking the trip in his memory. “Two weeks before he died, we went on our own sail,” Kristian told me. “And he seemed to feel much better, at least temporarily. It took him out of his head and put a smile on his face. We were all in motion under the earth’s power. Now I wish he could be here with us, but today puts us all closer to him in spirit.”

Kristian’s wife, Laura Gillman, who is the store manager at Mocha Mott’s in Vineyard Haven, agreed.

Trish Gallagher. — Peter Simon

“There is the alchemy here between touching the wood of the boat with our feet, and the wind blowing all around and cleansing us,” she said. “We are on water and the sun has a power of its own. It’s all helpful for our own healing process.”

The next couple I spoke with I also knew from other circles. George Gamble, a VTA and school bus driver, once owned Among the Flowers in Edgartown. The two of us played softball together back in the day. He and his wife Susan live in Oak Bluffs and she is a special education teacher at the Edgartown School.

Susan explained that she had been diagnosed with lung cancer in May of 2013, and has been undergoing monthly chemo treatments at the Mass General oncology unit recently established at Martha’s Vineyard Hospital, to the relief and convenience of many Island patients who once had to travel to Boston for their treatments.

“What I realized after my diagnosis was that there are so many different components to healing,” she said. “I have an amazing medical team and a network of loving and supportive family and friends. They have all given me the strength and hope to fight the battle. Sailing Heals provides yet another example of people, helping people, helping people, and that’s what keeps us going in this tight and special community.”

As we sailed past the outer harbor and into Vineyard Sound, buoyed and buffeted by a strong and steady northwest breeze, I approached a woman who had boarded the launch boldly, but her partner could barely make it on and needed her help. I assumed it was he who was suffering from cancer, but found out otherwise.

Dr. Frances Gaskin, a summer resident who has lived along the Edgartown/Vineyard Haven Road since 1970, is a doctor of research nursing and education at Fordham University. She developed breast cancer in 2002 and is now cancer free, but gets checked every six months.

“I’m a water person,” she said. “We are blessed to be here. People may have once felt ashamed or cursed by having the big C, but it is so important now to share deeper feelings and knowledge with friends and family. Some families are quiet about it, and I respect that, but that doesn’t help the next generation.”

We both remarked that the group on board the Alabama included mostly women. We began wondering why men seem to have so much trouble going public with their medical issues. Various female celebrities have used their available media platforms to tell their tales, helping others to seek proper treatment, and to not be ashamed to share their own stories.

We thought of Joan Lunden’s recent cover story in People magazine where she talks very openly about her ongoing battle with breast cancer. The issue included a striking picture of her bald head on the cover. Angelina Jolie also went public with the fact that she carries a gene that practically guaranteed she would eventually confront an aggressive form of breast cancer, so she took major preventative steps by having both of her breasts removed.

I wondered if men held back due to the “bravado effect,” something similar to their inability to stop at a gas station to ask for directions (this before GPS became so widespread). It’s built into the species to be strong and never ask for help or show signs of weakness.

Trish Gallagher said she wants to organize a sail specifically for men undergoing prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is second only to breast cancer in terms of occurrence, yet receives so much less public awareness and coverage. Both Dr. Gaskin and I hoped that men would become more open about their disease process, especially because this could help others.

As we started sailing homeward, the wind seemed to slacken a bit, making walking and talking a bit easier. The fresh veggies, fruit and dips were being more eagerly consumed, and the beer, seltzer and wine stashed on ice was slowly diminished. Folks were obviously having a spirited time as I galvanized the troops for a group photo.

When the Alabama cruised into its final resting spot and her sails were being lowered by crew and participants alike, a lovely lady named Melody Adams approached me. She said she was an ovarian cancer survivor and was extremely supportive of the Sailing Heals concept.

“I really feel that every woman should Google ovarian cancer and become familiar with the symptoms,” she said. “It’s an insidious disease that needs to be diagnosed early.”

As we prepared to disembark and head back to dry land everyone clapped, hugged and kissed goodbye. Nature provided a sunset worthy of Hollywood proportions. While walking to my car with my wife Ronni and a couple of dear close friends, I remarked that even if I didn’t have cancer, it would have been a very treasured three hours. In the spirit of full disclosure, this past June I was diagnosed with a rare and fortunately fairly early stage of lung cancer. It was diagnosed as an incidental finding, the result of an X-ray for an abdominal obstruction. When I first heard I had cancer, I just couldn’t believe it. Why me? No symptoms, no risk factors! Never smoked tobacco in my life. In fact, I avoided it like the plague.

It turns out, my version of the disease is a rare form that affects only five per cent of all lung cancers. It usually hits nonsmokers in their 50s and 60s, caused by an ALK gene mutation. People unlucky enough to have this non-inherited mutation are almost destined to get some form of cancer in their lifetimes. So while unlucky to have this DNA aberration, I feel blessed to have had it diagnosed early, and to have a targeted drug to treat it, which causes few side effects.

I’m not out of the woods yet, but hope to be “cured” over the winter. In the meantime, I’m just living one day at a time, and feeling hugely supported by loved ones and my medical dream team over at MVH and Mass General. It also helps to be considered a VIP with Sailing Heals. It never occurred to my that a cancer diagnosis could also have its perks!

To find out more about Sailing Heals visit sailingheals.org.