A Year Ago.....

It's 6:05 as I write this, a year ago I was probably in quite a state considering I was about to leave my home and family to explore the East Coast by water.  A twenty six foot boat would become my home for possibly the next year, and maybe more - or maybe less. Who knew?

The important thing at the moment was to not think in terms of years or months but figuring out how to get thru the next few hours, loading the boat, getting off the dock before dark, but most important saying good bye to Sue.

I always promised myself during this whole process that I wouldn't in the very last hours and minutes be in a state of panic and disarray.  A seemingly common occurrence amongst those who are about to to leave the safety of home and hearth, and venture into the unknown. Yet here I was, not concerned about toilet paper (really bad choice), or even a tooth brush, but instead fighting to get the dinghy's sail rig into an already full awning tube bag that would only fit on deck for the rest of the trip.

"Why are you taking that"asked Sue, in a way that a person would ask concerned about the sanity of said person. I couldn't answer I just new at that time it was really important.

I'd shoot a glance at Sue who calmly standing on the dock watching me in a frenzy jump from one task to another, had a look on her face that said slow down, there's no rush, what can I do? Here she was sending her husband off for possibly a year. We would meet in Stamford and she would help bring the boat thru New York to Staten Island. There was a plan to meet in Washington after I sailed up the Potomac, then again in Charleston S.C., and again in the Bahamas. But that was weeks, and months away.
It was getting dark and all I could think of was getting over to East harbor in Fishers Island. A place I would daydream about a thousand times in my head while planning the trip. This would be the official beginning of the adventure.

The packing or "throwing things down below" was at an end. It was time to leave. Its strange but since the time that the idea was hatched I never thought once that what I was doing was either wrong, or destined not to happen, it made it possible to just say goodbye to Sue as if I would see her the next day. This would happen thru out the trip, either saying goodbye or seeing each other again after months. It always felt as if only a small moment of time had passed since seeing each other last. I so wrapped up in my own little world, it wasn't till much later in the trip that I would recognize how truly lucky I was to have a place in this women's life.

All bundled up and ready for home

Poor Star, sitting all forlorn by herself in a strange harbor and stranger boatyard, with no one to keep her company.
 For the last 6 months the boat never really failed me, the engine always started, the rig stayed in the boat no matter how hard I tried to shake it out of her.  In most weather conditions she tracked well, even though the owner snapped off the centerboard (a vital piece for direction stability) the second night out.

And now I left her in the hands of others that may not have the same sense of  - well - connection to her that I do. But she's going to come up to New England and have a life up here, between berths in Mystic and Marblehead her cruising ground will extend from the Connecticut shore to the top of Maine and maybe beyond.

We traveled together from Mystic to Dinner Key, and then back up to Titusville, where she now sits waiting for for her ride. From September 14th to March 23rd, not bad for a 27' ft boat with an eight horsepower engine.

Snippets of the trip keep popping up in my head, I suppose thats going to happen for a long time. I do wish I kept a better journal or blog but after a long day the last thing I wanted to do was email an update on an iPhone keyboard with the boat rocking and rolling.

I'll keep updating the blog as I remember things, I have more pictures from the trip on the iPhone to transfer. Oddly enough I have more time now to spend on the Blog.
This is so much easier on the computer.