I cannot imagine what a parent goes through in the first year or more with their first child. Night after night with little or no sleep, while trying to maintain regular lives and being responsible for a little being that never stops. I can�t imagine what it is like to be sleep deprived for months on end or longer. I can�t imagine the consequences of losing attention for even an instant.

I am tired. I am a deep tired that I have taken 2 naps each the last 2 days and still can barely keep my eyes open through dinner. I feel like I have come as close as you can come to being a parent without the other 17 years� I don�t for a second mean to imply that my crew were anything less than stellar and self sufficient, but they would be akin to babysitters while I remained the parent.

It is different as captain. You always sleep with 1 ear for the boat, even while dreaming. You hear everything and you are responsible for not losing attention even for an instant. A luff of the sail wakes me because I know the wind is forecasted to shift, an odd roll of the boat tells me the sea state is changing, any one of the half dozen pumps on the boat does not shut off in a timely manner I can hear it from anywhere on the boat and be running through diagnostics in my head on the way to look at the pump, every bump, thump, wiggle, creak, whine, whir, and pop posesses me. The electronics, the engines, the fresh water supply, the watch schedule, the barometer, the navigation, the backup systems, the crew health, the list goes on and on.

I probably take my job a little too seriously which, if I captained another delivery might ease a bit. But the boat is my baby and my responsibility. As are the �babysitters�. I rise to the challenge and embrace it as if it were the most important thing in my life�. because it was - in that moment.

We arrived safely with minimal event. The boat was cleaned and reorganized, we had a night of rum and we began to go our separate ways. The crew left this morning and I am again alone on One Two Many wrestling with my new surroundings, language, and process. A 5 week journey has come to a close and I am once again thankful for the experience. Similar to a parent that might sneak 30 mintes for a bath while a child is asleep, each day i would escape after my afternoon watch to post some thoughts and ideas from my journey. Thank you to all that have read, learned, shared, and commented on the blog, it has been a wonderful outlet for me. It is time to close this chapter and I cannot think of a better way than a deep sleep with dreams of the next adventure!



PS � The Oyster skulked away in the final night never to be seen again, and while they may have had different travel plans they will always, in my mind, have chosen anonymity to defeat�

PPS - The blog will continue as we travel about Europe for the next couple years, but posts will be less frequent and hopefully will not rely solely on sat phone communication so we can include pictures. Stay tuned...