Wireless Pirates.

Yet again, the departure date is set for tomorrow. They’re still forecasting winds gusting as high as 28 miles per hour, which is higher than I really want to set off in, but I’m so impatient. I’ve been corresponding with a friend we met at the Newport Spring Boat Show, way back in March, long before we got the boat in the water or were anywhere near ready. He and his wife and two kids set sail in a 24-foot wooden sailboat, a la the Pardeys, and ended up spending five years going up and down the Atlantic coast.

He emailed today, and said—you better leave yesterday, because November is nothing but gales. I know we should have left mid-September, as was our original plan, and looking back I can’t even remember why we didn’t. Here we are, trapped at the end of October, with November and winter right around the corner. How could we have ended up in this pickle?

I know that there’s nothing to do but press on, wait for the good days and keep heading south, but I’m very frustrated with my lack of planning, or something. We’ve also been inspired by the Landrums, a couple who did the same trip from Boston two years ago, leaving on November 7. They didn’t get out of Newport until November 14, so we keep using them as a benchmark. “Well, we’re still a month ahead of Rubicon.” “At least we’re two weeks ahead of them.” Etc.

Our buffer is rapidly being eaten up. And somehow, mysteriously, time marches along, refusing to go backwards. Bewildering, isn’t it?

I always feel the need to use my journal as an apology for our actions, a rebuttal to all critics, but it’s still more than a little scary to get warnings from extremely experienced people. We have no choice, though, and if it gets to be more than we can bear, we’ll at least hole up somewhere else along the coast, somewhere closer to the glorious tropics, if only a state or two, where we can live on the boat just as well as we can here. I know all our doubts will float away that first glorious day when we hoist our main in Marion Harbor, put our bow into the wind, and head off for places unknown. That day feels very, very long in coming.

On the plus side, I’ve just discovered that November is National Blogging Month, in honor of which bloggers are supposed to unite to compose daily. That coincides nicely with my plan to write daily once we set sail, even though it’s unlikely I’ll actually have an internet connection daily. So if I disappear for a week, hopefully tomorrow, it’s only in body, not in spirit, and I’ll be posting as soon as I can pirate someone’s wireless.

Wireless Pirates. Arrrrrr. Terror of the Sounds.