Under Way

I left Highborne key about 09:00 to cross Exuma sound, just over 100 miles. The wind was on my nose (SE) most of the day and I had to motor until 16:00. The wind shifted slightly to the east, and I had a nice sail from 16:00-23:15 when I had to kick over the motor again. Once I make the turn more South after I round Long Island, I should be able to catch the wind, I may stop in Clarence town for fuel. After that my plan is to go to Great Inagua to clear out of the Bahamas.

I couldn’t sleep much last night, I never can with the motor running. I lay on deck all night looking up at the stars, and they looked as they did to me when I was a child. Perhaps it’s the fact when we get older we don’t tend to ponder the stars, or maybe it’s because we usually look up through the light pollution from our city, or towns and they seem less interesting. The sky was ablaze last night, no light pollution, the Milky Way, along with billions of others. I counted 7 shooting stars, spotted a few satellites, and countless planes.

Something dawned on me last night.

I’m becoming the man I’ve always aspired to be. As a child I religiously watched every episode of Jacque Custo (Spelling?), and every pirate, ocean travel adventure I could. I grew up in “Hell’s Kitchen” in NYC, and knew nothing of the ocean. My mother (single actress) thought it odd when I would clip pictures of sailboats at the age of five, and thumb tack them to the wall next to my bed. “What do you know of sailing” she would ask, and I would proudly reply “I’m going to sail around the world some day, and be a marine biologist” she’d laugh and ruffle my hair. My first major in college was marine Biology/oceanography, but I didn’t think I could forge a living from it, what a shame we think that way. But after spending many years off course, here I am, sailing across the Caribbean, fulfilling my childhood dreams. I don’t think it was the motor that kept me up last night, I think it was the ear to ear grin. I felt as excited as a 5 year old, riding a roller coaster for the first time. Shouldn’t we all do a bit of that?

I’m toying with the idea of going to the Rio Dulce (Guatemala) after I round Cuba, and enter the Caribbean. I should pass “The Tropic Of Cancer” tomorrow, which will put me in the tropics, and out of the sub-tropics, Wahoooooo!

Big SMILE!