When I titled our last entry "A Pause in the Action", little did I think that it would be so long between that post and this one! Much has happened over the past several weeks...completed the work on Veneeni's new rig and bottom work, a surprisingly beautiful trip from Annapolis down the Chesapeake to Norfolk and a first experience down "The Ditch", better know as the Intra-Coastal Waterway, and an entire holiday season in Beaufort, NC, including a lovely Christmas, a host of new friends, and the local New Year's Eve celebration when Captain Shack walks the plank at the Beaufort Town Dock, leaping in, carrying all the previous year' troubles, mistakes and bad feelings, drowning them and letting them be carried away in the swift current of Taylor Creek so that the New Year can begin renewed! What fun!

Veneeni has been here in Beaufort since early December. We didn't expect to be here so long, but first weather, then the holidays fostered delays of our departure to Tortola...everyone in town knows we are going to Tortola, one of these days! And as of this evening, it looks like that departure will be this Saturday. But over these past few weeks in Beaufort, we have come to realize better than ever that when we leave is no one's choice but ours. Yes, we are largely governed by Mother Nature, who answers to a higher authority, but we will leave when we are ready, because we chose to leave then. This is the first time in our lives that we have been in this position, looking through a weather window and deciding what we want to do.

We are about to set off on a 1600-mile ocean passage, which may take 10 days, or more, but the simple fact is that we will get to Tortola, or somewhere we choose to go, when we get there. The trip is not about the destination, it is about the journey itself. Sure, this sounds rather trite, I suppose, but as we think about our lives up until now, they were all about the destination, not the journey.

I realize now that there are many windows through which one can look out on life--my friend, Andy Burton, who is making the passage with us, was complaining about the traffic and gawking sightseers in his home city of Newport, RI when he was reminded by his lovely wife Tami that he gets to see the beauties of Newport every day! How unfair it would be to deprive the visitors who may have never seen the views, the boats, the shops, the mansions before, of this experience? She was clearly looking at life through a different window, and is was not about the destination.

A couple of weeks ago, before we decided to stay here in Beaufort and enjoy the holidays, Matey Anne and I found ourselves feeling restless and wondering when we were ever going to get out of this place and get to Tortola!!?? Until somewhere along the line, we realized that we were actually having a great time right where we were, with cruising friends like Scot and Deb on Expedition, and Brian and Rachel on Equus, Tami and
Andy on Masquerade....and Jeb and the guys in the dock office, and the sea birds and the fishermen, the wild horses on Shackleford Bank. It has been great here, and now the winds of change are blowing and we will be heading out Saturday morning, Mother Nature and God willing, if we choose to....

Happy New Year to all our friends and loved ones...

Greg and Anne
aboard Veneeni in Beaufort, NC.