Homeward Bound! The life of a sailor is usually one of cold, wet, long watches. If he has to cook for himself on watch the gourmet meal is often just a peanut butter sandwich and a lukewarm diet coke. To make up for this the Almighty has chosen to bless the sailor with sunsets of incredible beauty and night skies painted with more stars than you ever thought existed. On Saturday night we watched the sun go down in the west with rainbows on either side and to the east a full moon as rising. As Pat Conroy wrote it and the Bard of Duval Street sang it "The sun and the moon seem to acknowledge each other and they moved in both apposition and concordance in a breath taking dance of light across the oaks and the palms. My father watched it and I thought he would cry again. He had returned to the sea..."

After such a beautiful sunset we got up on Saturday morning to a slap in the face of cold wind with spitting rain but to make up for it the wind was directly on the nose and the current against us. See why we get such a wonderful sky. We got into Portsmouth about 4:00 in the afternoon and collapsed. Most of the chores are done now. The dogs need their final paper work and the food needs to get loaded aboard. The crew arrives in about 10 days and then it is time to head for Paradise.

See the photo section for the moon rise.