Sunday Thoughts

Did a little work on the dink today. Not much but something to keep me occupied while I wait for Florida weather to re-establish itself. In the seven years I've been here I've never known it to be so cold for so long.  The weather predictions for the coming week show temps getting close to 80 again.  I am SO ready for it.

Just for the hell of it, when I got back from band practice this evening, I loaded up the dinghy with my usual captain's bag, a couple of beers and my new fishing pole and lures and rowed out into the shallows.  I knew I was not going to catch anything, so I was not disappointed when I didn't.  It was still fun to watch the sun go down from the water and see the pelicans fly into their roosts in the mangroves.

I've always loved the outdoors, camping, hiking, exploring, seeing the natural world do what it does while paying no attention to this bunch of noisy, hairless apes (except maybe run from us).  Watching the dolphins head out from the shallows, the sea birds heading home for the night, the first planets and stars coming out fills me with a peace and happiness I rarely know in the company of man.

I've always been something of a loner.  Even when I was a very young child I would spend hours by myself, happy in my own company, playing games against myself, building models, working puzzles, reading.  Later in life I would go for long hikes or solo camping expeditions, grooving on the fact that everything I was doing was all me, including the trouble I would find myself in from time to time.  When I got my first motorcycle I would spend days getting lost and finding my way back, without compass or map.  Maybe I was born to explore.

Now I have this 27' sloop, Avalon, that has the potential to be a blue water cruiser.  This is the next, and maybe the last, chapter of my life.  If I die while doing this, I believe I will die happy.  I know my heart will kill me eventually, probably in the next decade.  What better way to go than doing what I have wanted to do all my life; explore.

Thank you, Gail, for the gift of this vessel, thank you, Christine, for your support and encouragement.  Thank you Dad and Mom for letting me be who I am and the moral compass you gave me.  Thank you Universe for the chance to live during this time and the will to live it well.

No one gets out of here alive, so live it like ya mean it.