So, here starts my blog about the next chapter in my life...

After months of considering, listening to some acquaintances dismiss the idea as a "midlife crisis," and wondering how I can possibly throw out enough accumulated stuff to fit my life on a 40-something foot sailboat, my adventure is about to begin... Two days ago I surveyed and sea trialed a Catalina 42, and if the last little details work out, I'll be living on her in California by the end of July.

(The image is my first time at the helm of Windrunner, at sea trial in San Diego Bay, 6-4-2013).

That may not sound like much of a transition, but it sure feels like one. And a homecoming at the same time.

(A little background) For the last year, at 49 years old, daughter in college, 27+ years of marriage frayed to the point of finally breaking, I looked forward to the last decades of my life, and not surprisingly, found the ocean. And a sailboat.

See, I started sailing when I was about 7 years old in Biloxi, MS on an old KOOL Snark we got for free after collecting a bunch of cigarette carton ends out of dumpsters. Years of sailing on Sunfish, Laser, Hobie, Flying Scott, Force Five, then onto one designs like the old Rangers, Merits, San Juans, and later J's of varying length, put saltwater in my veins.

My childhood family boats (after the Kool Snark) were Chryslers; a Bucaneer, then the 22, then the 26, which I lived on occasionally my senior year in high school and in college.

Sailing has always been my escape; from crippling shyness and criticism of my non-stop daydreaming as a youth, to stress of family, school, and just life as a teenager, to everyday adult stresses and noise. I wasn't just sailing. There was an alchemy taking place when I came together with the elements of salt water, wind, cloth, line and tiller. I was transformed via some elixir of life.

After college, my time in Southern California saw a colder water version of the same elements have the same results. It is universal. It is elemental. It is essential. Every moment aboard a sailboat has been nothing short of transformational for me.

Then I was landlocked in Atlanta for a long time (by choice, for reasons I do not regret at all). Through that entire time, every visit to the ocean transformed me. My daughter would notice and comment "You're a different person when you breathe salt air. It's instant and noticeable." I love the mountains, woods, desert, streams and lakes. Any part of nature does for me what it did for Thoreau. But nothing compares to the ocean.

If you've read this far, clearly you've got a lot of time on your hands, so maybe a blog from a middle aged sailboat live-aboard and wine importer (hence the Water and Wine moniker) is just what you need. For now it feels like something I need, so we'll see how it goes.

Welcome aboard.

Tom