Ran Aground In A Harbour Town

Sandra Lee and I have been preparing for a little journey up the coast of the Smallish State next month. To that end there has been a great deal of repairing, improving, overhauling, installing, rewiring, drilling, sealing, whipping, splicing, seizing, greasing, oiling, and, when all else fails (as it usually does with autopilots), sending-back-to-the-factory-for-refurbishing. Today I successfully spliced an anchor line to put a new steel eye in it, which made me feel good.

At the same time, the age-old dream of crossing real oceans in my own boat seems lost at sea, or at least so overdue that we might realistically consider the possibility that it will never arrive. For a year or more I paced the metaphorical widow’s walk hoping to see it returning. But now I’ve decided to sell off the offshore gear accumulated over the years of dreaming—my sextant, an emergency watermaker, a set of rigging cutters, celestial navigation sight reduction tables… It makes me somewhat sad, but seems like the thing to do. You’ll find it all on ebay, if you’re thinking of setting sail. Fair winds.