Through a queasy roll of soggy days, we arrive into warmth and sunshine, back to island life in the place that is the most stunning we have seen all along the way. These islands are the most impressive, and whereas before, each and every day hinged on the number of miles we could put behind us, now our world has folded down onto itself to untuck around the edges, origami-style, and we careen along a pale threaded sea scrim on our grey open Japanese crane of an inflatable boat, forever on the verge of arrival in home port, hair fluttering in the paper breeze.
The island we are heading towards, the town island, is shaped just like a hurricane and nearby Hurricane Island is shaped like a crocodile. Ever since we made it back to these hometown waters to sit in our own cove on our wild little island with no town, and barely a roof in sight, I see that hurricane across the Reach and the giant sleeping reptile to our west with fresh and drunken eyes.
Just short of 1000 miles and exactly 35 days of motorsailing and we're back in this place of contoured steppes and dark blushing color. The land of 3 million shades of green, just around the bend, with summer pouring forth out of every sidewalk crack with her mossy forest breath, and the whole village chasing away the clean bitter aftertaste of winter. We turn to the long green tail of never ending afternoons. I am in love and planting potatoes. The bursts of bioluminescent algae, glimpsed all the way up the coast, are raucously beautiful here, sparkling in my late night toothpaste spit off the edge of the sailboat, and streaming behind us in a wide Peter Pan glow all the way home from town after work.
Thus go the first days; glittering and somnambulant go the days before the deluge.
