Publish Date: Friday, November 21, 2008
The last week has been interesting. We have stayed in the ICW all week because of poor weather conditions. The navigation is tedious, the waters for the most part are brown and it’s been down right cold with temperatures dipping into the mid-twenties at night. We are trying to move the boat everyday, as we would like to get to Ft. Lauderdale by Thanksgiving if possible.
A friend asked me the other day, with a wistful sound in her voice, “Is everyday just like a vacation for you all?” My first response was, “Are you kidding?” Feeling a bit worn out by the week, all I could think of was this is no vacation. There are still bills to pay; groceries to buy; meals to prepare and clean-up from; laundry to do; bathrooms to clean etc., all with less room to do them. On top of that, there is home school to conduct, navigation plans to be made each night, the uncertainty of what the next day may bring with the weather, and what new challenges lie ahead in handling the boat that we may not have anticipated. No, this is certainly no vacation.
But as so often happens when I get a bit overwhelmed with the adventure at hand, magical things can happen to give me perspective on just how lucky we are. The other night, we were anchored in a salt marsh between Charleston and Savannah. The three of us where standing in the cockpit watching the last light of day fade behind the marsh grasses, when we saw three dolphins feeding about 100 yards away. Ayla and I started to make clicking noises and high pitch squeaks, with Dave teasing us all the while about our dolphin language skills. But to our delight, they made their way over to the boat, and for the next 20 minutes they swam and played right off our swim platform. To watch these incredible animals play right next to us was awesome. We went to bed that night, with lighter hearts and smiles.
The next day we made our way to Savannah, where it was cold and windy. As we sat on the boat thawing out, after a day of somewhat miserable sightseeing because of the weather, we heard several extremely loud BOOM’s over our boat. Ayla was greatly concerned, and jumped up to see what had happened. These BOOM’s were followed by many others, as we were treated to a beautiful fireworks display over the Savannah River and our boat. We have no idea, why there were fireworks that night, but it was magical.
For me this last week was about letting go of how this journey “should be”, and embracing it for what it is…sometimes there are muddy waters, and other times there are magical moments.