Trip log
Days underway: 5
States covered: 4
Nautical miles travelled: 252
Grog consumed: all of it
Purchases made: 15 gallons of fuel
Known songs modified so as to mock the dog'a newfound southern obesity: 27
Foil birthday balloons sighted: 5
Panamanian tanker ships with grandiose names: 3
Drops of valerian tincture administered to frantic seadog: 72
Top speed: 10.8 mph
Tiny boats crafted from food stuffs: one avocado shell, one sardine can, one Napa cabbage leaf
Current condition of hair (my own): one massive tangle
Record days passed without stepping foot on shore: 3
Natural phenomena observed: orange marbled clay beach, fish that are jumping, barn swallows attempting to nest onboard, tiny snake swimming just off the stern
Unnatural phenomena observed: rude, drunk jerkoffs in ugly powerboats (too many to count); waking to the national anthem at full blast in stereo drowning out all birdsong and all sense and echoing out from a deserted beachfront in Maryland
Postscript
Upon exiting the offending beachfront, crew glanced astern and grew more cognizant of surroundings than previous evening's fatigued travel mind had allowed. This new awareness came with the realization that said deserted beachfront abutted a powerful
military air base. What the crew could not SEE by dawn's early light was most certainly heard.
Not only did we leave on the hundredth anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, but we left on a Friday, which is completely taboo in the ultra superstitious world a sailor inhabits. Really outdoing ourselves, in this case, we departed on Friday the 13th. Our friend who saw us off from his long and blustery pier suggested, that, as Julep was largely untested under current ownership, that this first day would be just a trial run, a shakedown. We were underway all day, as off in the distance those glaring white sea birds called gannets dive bombed into shallow Chesapeake waters, firing off little watery explosions now and then all along the surface of the Bay.
The first night we spent anchored in a pleasant upscale neighborhood inlet, and first morning found us out on the main watery passages and heading north for the first time. As I write this, we are still going, past the cheerily stalwart freestanding lighthouses, past someone's deflated foil birthday balloon, past tugs keeping barges about their business and now, in the dark, the astonished lighted suburbia of a cruise ship, stacked and glittering a few miles away. It was naive of me to think that I would read on this trip, or even tell you all that I wanted to in these snaking lines. There is nothing to do, nothing that can be done but sail and navigate and remark upon the most trivial things and the most crucial ones.
We are small little things out here, dreaming of our beautiful friends and the excitement that awaits us, dreaming each moment into being, and continually astonished by the suddenness of living in the great unknown.
