2213

For 2213 days we've been working toward the completion of this very moment, getting Kintala ready for full-time cruising and in the water on the East Coast. After steering her safely out of the launch pit and into the transient slip, Tim left to crew on a boat in the Wednesday night club races, but I opted to remain behind and savor the satisfaction of reaching a huge milestone. I want to remember this exact moment for a very long time.

The boat is rocking ever so gently in the water for the first time in two months, the frenetic parade of racing boats has departed, leaving quiet in their wake, I have a batch of chocolate chip cookies in the oven.  There are pink clouds dancing in the light of the last of the sun’s rays outside the portholes, their accompaniment the honking of the geese and the end-of-season mournful cries of the seagulls. Off in the distance you can hear the beginnings of the cicada orchestra and very faintly the announcer of a high school football game. Sound travels so very well over water. The air is cooling rapidly now that the sun is going down, and a cool breeze is drifting in the salon hatch, mixing with the cookie smells and the steam from my cup of ginger peach tea. Occasionally you hear the muted conversation of other marina tenants on their boats.

As Tim is fond of saying, our learning curve is a vertical cliff. The list of things that we know about cruising are so dwarfed by the list of things we don’t know about cruising so as to be non-existent. But for now, I’m going to enjoy this two thousand two hundred and thirteenth day of The Retirement Project.

Tomorrow’s another day.