From my notes, yesterday:

It is Sunday morning and Sunday mornings have always been special. At the risk of shrinking my small coterie of readers I shall now tangent-wise beat and drill away from boatlife, with which I am so thoroughly identified, which so inhabits my unconscious mind that even if it not mentioned, not even hinted at, surfaces always (all ways), mesmerizing my vision, filling my ears with the sound and sand of ocean, and, compass-like, guides my wayward, seeking thoughts.

I have been immersed in Mark Helprin's book Freddy And Fredericka since I woke, on board, in the pre-dawn darkness, and, unable to sleep, opened this story at the mark and began again, riding freely with the metaphorical wind on Mr. Helprin's magic carpet of long undulating sentences, manic riposts, waterslide dialogue, never-before-seen juxtapositions, breathtakingly accurate pictures of the human idiocy and poetic descriptions of nature which almost threaten to exceed her grandeur - in their chaotic yet perfectly ordered forms, dazzling, delighting and delivering ourselves to ourselves, entirely reborn.

If I read Shakespeare long enough - and I once owned the Bible-sized Complete Works of Shakespeare - upon closing the tome began to speak in rhythms of iambic pentameter, with wisdom encapsulated in folded sentences and pithy word-wrapp'd grammar, Shakespearean in essence and style. It's as if I had swallowed a Shakespeare pill, imbibed that century and can but speak thus, digesting the bard like carrion.

Preparing to write the BOOK OF THE VOYAGE - From Panama To Hobart Port or Crossing the South Pacific In A House - or whatever it is to be called I wonder in which voice, what style, what wordrushed miracle of past-becomes-present-again it will be written. Obviously, if it were written today the sentences would be long, joyous and Helprinesque, although looking now at the open pages of his book I realize dialogue makes up more than half of it. Joyous I want it to be.

Look, I won't strain your patience a moment longer. I want to write the book - and I don't know how to begin. That's a lot like the trip itself: I wanted to sail the world's biggest ocean but I didn't know how to begin. That's a good start, don't you think?