DON’T WAIT TOO LONG
September 16, 2012
There I was over enemy territory in my crippled Mosquito after eluding the Luftwaffe over the V-2 site at Peenemunde. I just dropped my bunker buster and thought my plane, at the time the world’s fastest aircraft, would take me safely back to the pub in Hereford when it dawned on me that something wet and warm was dripping from my ear. It did not hurt so the wound could not be too serious. I kept trying to keep my plane aloft but was losing the altitude game. I would crash and hopefully it would be painless and quick. That darn ear wound kept my attention from the instruments. Just then consciousness brought me to the realization I was not in that mosquito but in the rack on Why Knot. My wound was a wet willie from Scurv who was auguring a six inch tongue in the ear on my port side. The whole side of my face was dripping. The dream would wait but for now; Scurv wanted me to hit the deck. Wow, how’s that for getting out of a tight spot? All I needed to start the day was a towel and some soap.
Boys and girls, there are many rewards to cruising and though I write of the never ending list of stuff to do, those rewards make all the work seem insignificant. Many do not see it and wonder why the heck one would want to compact life into a few moving square feet. To some, the call of the sea is great and most who answer it are rewarded beyond all imagination. Those who stand on the beach get some glimpse at the world at sea. My first such glimpse, that I remember, was in a small Texas coastal settlement, Seadrift. I stuck my toes in that warm bay water and looked for the notch in the land where one could see the curvature of the earth on the water. Just over that horizon was the rest of the world. Years later my Mate caught the dream wave and the rest is history. It was years in the making but one sail out the jetties in Port A and we were hooked. If we have learned anything along the way it is to suppress the need to do just a few more years of nine to five and get out here now. After all, the Mayans claim the deal is done in December 2012. There isn’t much time left.