Glorious is the word for this day! There is nothing subtle or whispery or placid about it. The wind is whipping the water to a frenzy and the sun is streaming over and into everything. The water is such a liquid blue that although I can't see past the façade of its solid surface, it feels as though if I put my face into it thus peering through a window between two worlds, I could see all the way to the bottom to the deepest sea canyons from which spring the mountainous sea mounds and rolling hills and seemingly never ending plateaus of that land where sun beams reach golden in the blue miles beneath us. The surface itself is heaped into magnificent swells pushing up and receding beneath the boat which is oft times caught between the force of the wind propelling her forward and the roll of the water shoving her aside so that we race and then lurch and then roll and then race on again. Every fiber of the white sailcloth strains and stretches holding her in tow. The white capping waves rise up exuberantly to meet each other like football players in the end-zone jumping up to bounce bellies. It is the feeling of the first day of summer right as the last bell rings after a long school year, or the sensation of standing hat in hand on the train after having raced and leapt with the last ounce of effort for the platform just as it pulled away. It is a day full of audacity-the audacity to sail, stream, fly, dash and crash through God's magnificent creation enraptured by its splendor. The awesomeness staggers me. Not only in my soul but physically --I cannot stand upright buffeted by the powerful forces this way and that. To perform any task on deck I must wedge myself into a corner holding on with both hands while bracing my feet and elbows at ridiculous angles to prevent my own demise. I cannot stand against it even to cook in a tiny kitchen which almost surrounds me and has a grab bar at my stove. The angles are so extreme I cannot compensate. I cannot lie down to sleep without literally bouncing off the mattress and rolling from one wall of my tiny walled-in bed to the other. This is not happiness but joy. This is not pretty but ravishing. This is not good but ultimately masterful. This is the full pulse of life-- the throb-- gushing out into being with wild purpose. It is not a passing moment but rather an enduring moment -- A moment which now has lasted through the night eerie with blue moon radiance and the dawn dripping with gentle pink sun splendor and now noon's boisterous brilliance. Today is life lived without the fear of holding anything back-a fear which cripples our wills. And in this moment I see the lesson and I know that we too must find within ourselves the willingness to fly and to race and to lurch and to stumble and to roll and splay and hurt and flay and fly again and then to start it all over again--not with the hope of doing it better the next time but rather with the hope of doing it just as wretchedly yet magnificently, struggling and striving through human imperfection but each time learning to savor the moment which is life more abundantly. We are on our way from Suwarrow to Niue with full hearts and tired bodies and all is oh so well. Pat and John and Sushi, S/V The Rose 03 Sept 2012 15 deg 08 S, 165 deg 17 W