From Amarugia to the Southern Ocean

Destination Hemingway Marina, Cuba - Setting sail in my mind as my son
set's sail for the Dry Tortugas and then Cuba and onward into the southern
Caribe.

I am sitting here having just hung up the phone. Francis wants me to sell
the trucks and gear and purchase another boat and go--the adventure of
my own life which was cut short when I wasn't young enough to venture
on from the Dry Tortugas. Before my 4th Cindy who was also the 2nd. Before
things fell apart and the lost world of early adulthood slid away. To dreams
which were only that, and to things which I do now to help others.

I picture the vastness of the ocean, and, sitting at the tiller of a 37 foot
cutter, pointing the bow south from the haven of port for the living of it.

As a father, I worry of course. But both son's are pursuing dreams with
ability to accomplish them. If I did one thing properly as a father it was
this.

Francis(Frank) is setting sail at 26 -- a time when he should so that
he might accomplish the dream rather than tending to distractions
which lead to attachments -- those that make us happy momentarily,
but which leads to our pain and suffering, dreams only, that never were
to be.

I wish him well. I pray for his safety and happiness, from
the Amarugia Highlands at the edge of a sea of the grass of the plains,
to the Southern Ocean, to a beauty of living in the here and now and
nothing more. I see it now, the cold sweep of the Southern Ocean, the
vastness towards which my son will soon sail on a reach.

I wish him, God Speed.

dai