Pittstown Point, Crooked Island, Bahamas

0 nm
Wind: E 15 knots, higher in strong afternoon thunderstorms

I’m sitting at the table, in front of my little white computer, listening to the rain fall on the cabin top above my head. Out the ports, to starboard, the sky is baby blue with towering white clouds, some edged the slightest with grey. To port, behind the spices I have tucked into the handrail, the sky is a cottony bank of white. I can just see the blue edging behind the gray as this storm moves above me. I’m listening to Belle and Sebastian on the computer as I write.

Do you want the rundown of boat objects? On the settee is a crumpled up green towel and our handheld VHF set on scan. My Turkish bag, purchased for me by my mother in Turkey, gapes open revealing a Doors CD. Piles of clothes still sit on the folded lapper. The clothes I hung on the rail to dry this morning are getting wet. I’m not so worried, though--sometimes I just leave things out there in the rain because it’s good for them to get a fresh water rinse.

I’m beginning to worry my journal may be getting boring. As am I. As of today, it’s my fifth straight day of keeping the boat clean, of daily and repetitive maintenance. Hence the clothes hanging on the lifelines, the clean floor, the clean bathroom. It feels great, but it also greatly impedes the drama of my daily existence, as it has done for women throughout the centuries, I imagine. This is ordinary life: I scrub the stove and the toilet, Karl kisses me goodbye as he rows to shore.

I miss sailing. Of course, I always long for endless travel of any kind, but I particularly miss sailing. I want to learn how to set the spinnaker. I want to feel the tug of the tiller under my fingers. I want to watch the GPS as we hit six and seven knots, and feel Secret leaning over on her side and straining into the wind. I want to spend hours surrounded by nothing but sea until I see the loom of mountains on the horizon. I want another of those awe-inspiring nights, doing yoga as the Master steers and keeping company with the moon. Keeping the boat clean is all well and good, but didn’t we come out here for adventure?