Today's leg was the first time that I felt the stirrings of what die-hard sailors feel for the sea. We left Cape May, NJ at sunrise and glided our way up the Delaware Bay with the light gathering behind us. The autopilot worked beautifully, and the green water was smooth. Evan and I went through a couple of chapters in Huck Finn. A few seagulls bobbed in the water, far from shore or sandwich (although one hovered overhead, casing our boat for some bait or catch then moving on to the trawler behind us). Clouds filled the sky in interesting patterns, casting an opaline light over everything. Waves, sunlit from behind, looked silver and black, like a jeweled necklace splayed across a Hollywood Regency table.
All sorts of memories breezed in and out of mind while staring at the clouds and the waves, all of them of times, like today, when I felt most free and alive.
