Raising our sails, San Benedicto to our stern, we waved goodbye and followed on the heels of the previous days thunder storm. It's been 5 days since land. Every day we've had lightening. As of 4:00 pm yesterday we had 1960 nautical miles to go. To celebrate our departure, and to appease our unhappily dethawing freezer, we unloaded three steaks onto the grill. Alongside our tried and true, never disappointing, vegetable selection of potatoes and onions, we sat down to an elegant, outdoor, fine-dining experience --- in our swim trunks. Classy! As Bill says, "Only the finest for L'Obsession!" Needless to say, it set a satisfying standard that we seem to have little difficulty living up to each evening.
I wish there was something more to say that could adequately describe our present. It's more than swift winds and full sails, more than the repairs that fill our days, the laughter over meals. Looking back over the days spent preparing for this journey, it was this leg in particular that decorated itself in fear. All "fear of the unknown" cliches aside, it paraded itself as something much greater, and elusive, than that. Perhaps it was less a fear of the unknown as much as it was a fear of living. We all dream, but seldom do we dream into being. It's a certain stripping of dull and complacent comforts. It's a vulnerability that possesses the potential for individual greatness. It's an inescapable personal responsibility. When you're accustomed to life prided on the ease of accessibility, convenience and limitlessness, life on a boat leaves you with the sensibility of three minds and six hands, a bag full of tools and a roll of ducktape. Way out here you find you need to reinvent your imagination, collect puddles of resiliency, and seek within the farthest reaches of yourself an ability to trust and let go. Maybe none of that makes sense. Or maybe I've just been entirely too afraid of myself for far too long.
But then again, it seems like there's a lot at sea that one struggles to make sense of -- the pattern of birds entirely too far from land, how you find ways to keep busy, the way the wind shifts around the dawning of a storm, how a boat rolls, the enjoyment in sharing an orange, learning of the language of clouds, night watch and the way your mind wanders, how you keep screwing in the same screw, the satisfaction of watching fish fly. What words are there for an evening spent without light other than that of millions of unnamed stars, and innumerable phosphorescent constellations drawn in your wake? Maybe that's part of the beauty of the experience -- that it's enough just floating along apart of its mystery.
A funny way to describe the past five days, but it's pretty accurate.
A happiest of Thanksgivings to you all. Perhaps you'd think it old fashioned, sappy even, but rocking in the hands of this mighty ocean leaves you grateful for life -- grateful for those of you that sacrificed your time for us, put aside your dreams so that we could live ours for us, travelling to see we were cared for, that pick up our slack over and over as we're away, that encourage us to keep writing, and sent letters to warm our hearts, for those that answer our incessant mechanical questions, and placed days aside to organize, repack, rethink everything we'd need to be comfortable, to the one's that joined us, encouraged us and dissuaded us. To all of you in so many countless ways, thank you. And to my sweet, sweet boyfriend -- I love you.
And don't worry, we've got a turkey and pumpkin pie, too.
With gratitude, and all our love,
The crew of L'Obsession
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