I place the small red laptop computer on my bare hairy bony legs, and wait for it to boot up, my mind booting up too, the cockpit shade swinging with the roll of the boat, the breeze gentle on my shoulders. The blue sea is truly blue, and it is spangled and crazed with light to the north - to starboard - and to port it is incredibly, unbelievably blue, indescribably! blue, and scattered far afield with little white horses. Sixteen knots of wind, I guess. My wife sits cross-legged opposite, reading. A day on the verandah.

If this sounds like it could be the opening lines of a novel (except the premonition of danger is absent), maybe it's because I just put one down - a Nora Roberts paperback with a green and purple cover - - - I never thought I would read one of these. Hey! If you count the time I spent in the womb my body is 70 years old, so what use would I have for images of young, lusting, hormone-driven bodies - incredibly attractive - finally yielding, surrendering! to overwhelming desires of the flesh, mere pawns of their over-riding passions, carried away on the flood-tides of the burning, ravening madness of the sexual carnival in full swing? Mix a metaphor or two . No, I have serious things to put to you in my light-hearted way, so I would have none of these excited, messy fluids staining the page, and I would stay celibate, at least as a writer. So, back to my story -

White puffy clouds in a paler blue sky form the wallpaper in this vast outdoor room. The sounds of the sea, and of a boat moving through the sea, are continuous, insistent, satisfying: the slurp, slosh and swallow of the waves as they pass, the creak of the rope-pulled self-steering vane on the wheel, and the occasional whump!! as the big headsail refills with wind. Never seasick, my body dances with the waves, yet is the mind lovesick for the meaning of the sea: its magic, romance. Always loved boats.

Today we hoisted the stays'l, boomed it out to port, with the big genoa jib wind-shaped full to starb'd; the twinned jibs roll with the mast, as the waves say they should, and pull us steadily, hypnotically along our steady course. There are so so many ways I could write this: brief and technical, wordy and romantic, funny/ironic, or just think it, don't write it at all, and I really don't know you well enough to tailor it to your liking, so let me rave, and maybe we'll get there together.

This a good boat. Built well in New Zealand, a quarter of a century ago out of steel, big enough to be comfortable (like a small apartment down below) and small enough to be sailed by two people, even as old as we are. Sure the sails are a bit old, systems need overhaul, and things keep breaking down (yesterday it was the starter solenoid that wouldn't function) but I have learned to look for the quick fix, or the "Keep It Simple Stupid" method of repairs. Adrienne wanted to read the engine manual (madness!!), and I was stuck, so we did, and the answer turned up there - another solenoid, which I didn't even know we had! - well, the wire from the ignition switch had simply fallen off it. Clean and tighten it, put it back on, the engine started, as always it does!! Yea!! Rum and home-made ginger beer! (Just one, we don't drink on passage. After all, it's your birthday, I say)

This is day 8 of French Polynesia to Tonga, counting from 3pm, when we sailed out the pass, Bora Bora. I am beginning to enjoy it, this sailing, way out here beyond any thing, only just beginning to enjoy it. After two years! Part of your mind stays like a land-based person, whispering in your mind: Why are you doing this? This is crazy! Why risk your life? It's so uncomfortable! At your age! You're mad! So what if the night's sailing with the full moon leading your barque among the musical waves is as magical as it gets? Anything could happen!! What about PIRATES!? blah, blah, blah . And the challenges CAN be extremely confronting, worrying, even terrifying - if you let them. The trick is, not to live the future today, specially if it gets your fears going. That's a choice. Do exactly as you need to this moment.

And - I don't believe that the visible, physical world is IT - there's more, call it Faith, God, Reality, Love - just remember to use a capital letter.

A wave slapped us port side, amidships, just then, but no spray came aboard. I suppose it could, right onto the computer. Then this would not get sent, and ... you wouldn't ... Ah, I think it's time for lunch. Listen, my friend, to the sea ... the sea ... the sea . ...

The new, black velcro under the little red laptop is clinging to the golden hairs on my legs. Is it? No, just imagined it. Silly sausage.

Wow! WHUMPHH!!! That was a big wave.