5:oo am, alarm and coffee. Raining, but not hard. I hear some thunder close and wonder if 7:00 am departure will need adjustment. Second cup of coffee and the rain is moving out and the wind lessening. Decide to head out as the PredictWind forecast still looks good in the late morning and into the next day. Ease out of the slip and I again remiss at my choice of using Bay Street Marina in Nassau. The facilities here are out dated, pilings and fixed docks, accustomed to mega power yachts, not our much smaller 54’ ketch. We had every fender on the boat sandwiched horizontal in 2 x 2 overlays to protect the hull. That added to a 3’ foot tidal swing made for interesting side stepping on/off the boat.
The skies continue to clear as we pull out and it looks to be a beautiful day. The wind settles to Easterly at 10knts. Turn the corner out of the Nassau channel and head towards the northwest tip of Eleuthera island. Our route takes us north of Eleuthera and around easterly into the Atlantic, then south down the coast and to a cut between Eleuthera and Cat Island. There lies a tiny island that used to be called Little San Salvador. It was bought out by a cruise line company and serves as a private spot for them to land and let the cruise passengers enjoy crystal beaches and great snorkeling in the numerous coral heads. On the north west side of the island is an anchor zone open to the public. We dropped the hook and spent the following day
Crew now aboard Galini are Linda and Mark Berlinger and myself. All of us call Seabrook, Texas are land home now. Mark and Linda have a Tartan 34 and we have been wanting to cruise together for some time. Now that Galini is my traveling home, I hope to have many adventures to distant shores with many friends, some old, and many new whom yet to be acquainted. Those things, meeting new friends and discovering new shores, are up to a higher power. I now have Galini as a vessel to sail and explore. Where she goes is largely determined by wind, current, and a will to get there. The people I will meet along the way and the experiences gained are beyond my control. In fact, as I learn to let things outside of my control be as they are, as they will be, as they must be, the more free and at peace I become. Peace and serenity. It is that type of freedom that I have been searching for all my life. Galini is named for the pursuit, the discovery, the realization of serenity. Sailing the world has been a life long dream. I now have the means to follow a spiritual calling to unleash the dream and envelope a present unfolding. I find peace in that process and humility in the outcome. Now, I have hope to capture a momentary temporal fold of what could be, fleeting before a reality yet to be realized. Serenity remains as a Siren’s song, like the vespers Homer imagined so long ago. Gracefully at long last, I have found a new way of living. I am grateful to have learned from others who have found their peace, who continue to share their wisdom. I hope that if I continue to listen to their voice, I will be able secure a path toward peace. I am told that one path requires surrender, becoming one with the ability to gain freedom from self-will. Perhaps the path is not new, it is just involves my surrender to envision what is and not worry about what will be. Galini’s dream, I think now, is not the material aspect of the sailing art. It is the spiritual serenity of discovering what life is, what love is, and my ability to give what I find back to others. This is the moment I am in. What lies ahead is the journey to a final freedom.
Lovely! So well articulated.