1/2 Moon.

November 25, 2007
2130 hours

It occurred to me with a shock today that it's one month from Christmas. One month from today, I will have returned home after various stops along the way, will have accomplished (or not) all the things I hope to do before the holiday, and will be sitting around my parents' house, oversaturated with gifts and food. Now that we have finally (hallelujah!) left Sacramento behind us, the final countdown of my tour begins.

We've been in Half Moon Bay with the Lady Washington for the past several days, doing public sails, mock cannon battles and dockside tours. It's been glorious to sail in the ocean again, even without much wind. There is room to maneuver here -- a broad plane of water to navigate instead of a twisting line -- and there are waves. Not huge ones, but enough of a swell that those of us aloft while going in and out of the harbor today got quite a ride. Alas, we cannot stay; we're headed for Santa Cruz tomorrow (0430 departure, ugh) and leaving the Lady behind. Santa Cruz has its own pleasures, no doubt, but it also means I'm that much closer to The End.

On the surface it doesn't seem to make much difference, this looming terminus for my life aquatic. Yes, I'm spending more time training my replacement. And I said goodbye to a dear crew member of the Lady Washington today who'll be departing before the boats cross paths again. But everything goes on much as it did before I began to consider that my days on this boat are numbered. There's just an underlying awareness that things will not always be as they are now. Soon, this or that issue that I feel really ought to be dealt with will be someone else's problem. Soon I will no longer brush my teeth while looking up at the stars through the rig. Soon I will sleep on a much softer mattress. Soon I will be parted from people who have invaded my personal space and my heart for these many months. Soon this volume will conclude: time for a different set of characters, different setting, different genre. And the transience of this segment of my life is a sharply pointed reminder (an etching in miniature) of the transience of human life, how quickly its beauties and pains pass, even while you're thinking it's lasting forever.

At least, those are the kinds of thoughts I had today while rubbing neat's-foot oil into the leather chafe gear in the rig, while the setting sun cast a coppery light across the harbor at Half Moon Bay.