After so many weeks staying put in one place and working hard, it feels so good and so right that Windfola is moving again. Tomorrow we are planning a big shakedown sail, and if all goes smoothly, we’ll depart the next day to cruise down the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand.
Sitting here by the light of Windfola’s oil lamp, rocking gently on our mooring, I’ve been remembering the beauty of long days at sea with incredible sunsets like this one. It was memories like this, coupled with a poem by Pat Schneider, that kept me going through the last few weeks of labor. To those of you who, like me, are working with a focused discipline... don’t forget the equal importance of just casting off the docklines and believing.
YOUR BOAT, YOUR WORDS
Your boat, they will tell you,
cannot leave the harbor
without discipline.
But they will neglect to mention
that discipline has a vanishing point,
an invisible horizon where belief takes over.
They will not whisper to you the secret
that they themselves have not fully understood: that
belief is the only wind with breath enough
to take you past the deadly calms, the stopped motion
toward that place you have imagined,
the existence of which you cannot prove
except by going there.
- Pat Schneider
Day 6 of 25, singlehanding from CA to The Marquesas, French Polynesia