The Final Leg of the Journey

Holmes Manor, Bateau Chanel to the Middle of Lake Ontario  - 52 nautical miles sailed, 45 kilometres driven, 2 kilometres walked

We are so close now. So close that it's difficult for me to comprehend the enormity of this journey and how it will soon be ending. By tomorrow evening, SeaLight will be gliding into our slip at Newport Yacht Club (inshallah), my beautiful Ana will be there, we will be surrounded by friends, and the trip will become a memory, tossed on the pile of previous adventures, but taking up more space than average. These memories are sure to pop up in the coming months as I go about my regular business. While putting SeaLight away for the winter in September I will be thinking about our brutal first passage across Lake Ontario to Oswego with our buddy Mike then the excitement of our first day on the Erie Canal. As I'm sitting on the couch watching tv in October I'll be remembering that first beautiful ocean passage from New York City to Cape May. As we go out to a restaurant in Paris for Ana's birthday in November, we will talk about her last birthday - an incredible day in Hilton Head. We'll probably be at home for New Year's Eve, and there all four of us will recall welcoming in 2025, wearing party hats and blowing noisemakers at that small Italian restaurant in Fort Lauderdale. On some cold night in January I will remember our first swim in Allan's Cay with a shark and a ray as we experienced that impossibly clear Exuma water for the first time. Some work day in February an image will pop into my head - Ana and I walking the perfect beach in Long Island while Stella sleeps on the beach lounger. We will be sitting down for dinner at home in March when Ana will remember us sharing pizza with Ben, Kate, Kevin and Ana in Hopetown, Abaco. I'll be polishing SeaLight's hull in April cursing the boat whose anchor slipped in Oriental, North Carolina and scraped up her sides. Not sure where I will spend my birthday this year, but I'm sure to remember how I spent last year's birthday alone in Coxsackie waiting for the Erie Canal to open. And we might just be anchoring out with friends in Hamilton in June when I start thinking of that lovely anchorage in Lake Chesapeake and those final days fighting our way through the locks with my brother and with my son.

These memories are so strong and fresh now. I can still smell the fishiness of Potter's Cay in Nassau. I can visualize the face of the Bahamian artist in Farmers Cay who sold us fruit. I can taste the lobster paella we made several times on the boat. I can feel the coarseness of the nurse shark's leathery brown skin in Staniel Cay and the warmth from the glowing pink fire radiating from the conch shell firepit we made on the beach in Egg Island. These memories will last a lifetime. And if those memories begin to fade, I will read these journals and they may feel like stories from somebody else's life, but I will know they are mine.

I am relishing these last few moments of the trip. The sense of freedom. The luxury of time. Relishing the mental space provided by the boredom of a long passage. Being at the mercy of the weather, SeaLight's mechanical systems, the gods. Being in control. Not being in control. Waking up thinking, I wonder what will happen today, knowing it could be anything. The excitement of possiblity. The agony of disappointment. A time where each new day is a blank canvas and is never like the last. Being so tuned into the boat I know her intimate squeaks and leaks, her curvature, how she moves in the water, when she's happy and when she's not. Over the months she has become the third partner in our marriage; it's Ana, Kris, and SeaLight. Always together. Taking care of each other. Relying on each other. Nurturing each other. Having fun.

Oh my. My reflections on the trip have already begun. Am I ready for it to be over? I certainly am anxious to get SeaLight home and moored safely in her slip, slightly bruised and batttered, but very much in one piece. I can't wait to see Ana and Stella. I'm excited for my upcoming trip to Saskatoon to see my family. But I will miss life at sea. I will miss everything about it.

Am I ready for it to be over? Regardless of the answer, it comes to an end tomorrow.

Today, Magnus and I had a morning of chores. We put the sails back on the boat. We sprayed off the thousands of tiny bugs which had collected on SeaLight overnight. We scrubbed the cockpit floor. We borrrowed Andrew's brand new kick ass truck and made a run into Kingston to pick up a few supplies and stopped for coffee downtown (one of the best downtowns in the country in my opinion). I noticed the K-Rock centre had been renamed Slush Puppie Place. I don't even know where to start with that one.

By 2 pm we had said goodbye to Victoria and Emma and were pushing off the dock, taking a full loaf of Victoria's sourdough bread with us and a really nice set of steak knives I found in a drawer. The wind was strong, gusting to over 25 knots, right in our face, so progress was slow. We stopped at Portsmouth marina west of Kingston's downtown to fill up with diesel, and did a fancy 360 in the harbour when I couldn't rember if the gas dock was a left turn or straight and I had maneouver to avoid hitting a dock. I told the gas dock staff I do a 360 every time I get to a new marina, as a sort of celebratory spectacle.

The open lake was choppier, with three foot waves and the odd four footer which sent SeaLight crashing. Magnus went down for a short nap at 4 pm and didn't wake up until 10:30! By that time I was tired and he was completely fresh so after a briefing he took over and I went to bed.

The clock tipped into midnight somewhere in the middle of Lake Ontario.