Good and Sick.

December 3, 2007
0900 hours

Less than a week to go now. It's my last day off, and I'm lying in bed trying to work out how to pack a box to mail home so that my remaining luggage won't be too much to carry. The trickiest part is that the box also has to be easy to carry: the post office is about a half an hour away on foot. Meanwhile, the Chieftain is underway, children on deck screaming "All hands aye!" in response to a new education coordinator. My departure is taking place around the same time as a couple of other long-term crew members, which to me indicates that I timed it just about right.

There are other indications too. As hard as it is to leave -- and believe me, it's hard -- it would be even harder to stay longer. I look at the incoming crew, full of enthusiasm and ideals, and think about how well they'll work together. I so wish I could be part of that. But I'm dried up, bleached out, burnt down to ash. My stated intention at the beginning of this tour was to stay until I was "good and sick of it," and I think it's fair to say I've reached that point. I'm always tired and often cranky. I have a cold (aka "boat plague"). I take things for granted that I shouldn't: the good-natured banter of my shipmates, the feel of a mooring line in my hands, the patterns the light makes on the water. And my fatigue shows: I'm no longer trying to be the best I can, just trying to get through the day.

So it's time to get off the boat. My successor's contract begins today; she's already very good at this job, even though it's a new one for her. I can see that everything is going to go just fine without me, and that makes me both happy and sad.

I have one last transit to make, from Santa Cruz to Marina del Rey. We were scheduled to depart this evening, but the weather may not allow us to leave until Wednesday. It's actually been clear and sunny wherever we are almost every day since we reached California. Offshore, though, big weather is brewing, and the route south will take us around the notoriously choppy Point Conception. So here we stay until the forecast clears. (Meanwhile, back in the vicinity of Tillamook, the waves are around 30', and Gray's Harbor appears to have some sort of hurricane situation. Yikes.)

Postscript: The box was 21 lbs 13 oz. It took me an hour to get to the post office. My future self (the one that will be traveling home by train next week) better be grateful. Having shipped off all the stuff I won't need before I leave, I immediately bought a bunch more: Value Village was having a storewide 50% off sale, and there was this cool Asian discount store... erm, let's just say that apparently I've been craving colorful clothing. In other news, the waters outside the harbor were so choppy that we had an average of 10 ralphing children per educational sail today, much to the secret glee of certain crew members. The ones who weren't queasy, I mean. Me, I was just happy to be on land for the afternoon.