The Fleeting Moment

One might think that I might want to report on a major happening this weekend, this being a blog, and blogs being the place where one reports major happenings in one's life. It was, after all, the weekend of the Commodore's Cup, the last big race of the Boulder Yacht Club racing season. But the most phenomenal thing that happened this weekend happened in the span of about 30 seconds, one of those fleeting moments that gets frozen in your memory of time like a superb snapshot in a prized album.

We were tracking down the lake toward the dam at a pretty good clip. The wind was clocking a pretty steady 16-18 knots with some higher gusts and we were enjoying it immensely even though it was a bit nippy at 53 degrees and the sun was hiding out behind the dark gray fall clouds. All of a sudden we were completely surrounded by the most cormorants I've ever seen in one place. We couldn't possibly know, but there literally must have been thousands of them. They were flying low to the water, jockying for positions in many long Vs as they prepared to head south.

(by Rafal Tarnas)

It took your breath away. It was amazing. And it lasted 30 seconds. That 30 seconds summarizes in so many ways why I want to move onto the boat full time and go cruising - because if you're not out there doing it, you'll never see things like those cormorants we saw today. The moments are so fleeting and at such unexpected times, that you just have to be there to catch it. And there we were, right in the middle of them, close enough to hear their wings flapping as they succumbed to the instinct of millennia.

Kind of makes me understand their desire to go south...