Sundown Sailing Adventures

Sunset on Sundown

Our new life continues to provide an abundance of things to do every day. We are working kinks out of systems (like we still don’t have hot water), pesky drips (there’s still one coming from a sonar transducer), and projects that make Sundown feel like home (sewing window coverings) and/or makes her super safe and functional (hiring contractors to make our dodger/bimini, a new mainsail and safety rails).

In an effort to get into a “normal”-feeling routine, I ran four miles this morning and then came “home” and worked awhile—before I set to work on boat projects. During my pre-boat-work work, I sent a quick note to my colleagues at Unite for Literacy, which ended with a statement that I miss them. Mark Condon, Unite’s vice president and a literacy expert extraordinaire, sent me the following in reply. I think it’s very poetic, and just what I need to hear and recite often:

“We miss you too, but you have arrived where and when you two were meant to be.

You are settling in at elevation zero.

Close your eyes and smell the richness of the sea, the jetty and the beach.

Listen to the calls of the water birds and the never-ending whisper of regular gentle wash around piers and shore.

Note the rhythmic pinging of the rigging all around you in the whispering breeze and the murmurs of nearby sailors messing about with paint, chain and line.

Feel the constant, nearly imperceptible movement of Sundown, at home at last in the bosom of the Pacific.

Bon Voyage! Safe Harbor!

Mark C.”

Thank you, Friend!