Sunday, 10/16/16  Freeport, ME and Mystic, CT

Amelia is sleeping in the chair beside me. An un-needed but comforting fire burns in the wood stove. Quiet descends after I turn off "The Moth Radio Hour." David is on Grace in Mystic, CT, on his own. I've spent the entire day here at home except for a walk up to the ridge overlooking the Harraseeket River and our home harbor. Sigh. My first day of rest since David and I motored out of the harbor at 0937 on October 11, traveled to Perkin's Cove and parted ways. My first opportunity to miss him for more than fleeting moments in the mix of attending to responsibilities and joys. How did we get here?!!?

Our parting was amicable, a planned parting, only a day later than expected and way closer to Freeport than we'd expected and hoped. The plan for this year of boating and traveling south had always been that I'd start the journey but return on October 10 to take care of some commitments to my Freeport community. We planned (and tried) to leave in mid-September, as last fall. I'd co-pilot Grace as far as we could get by 10/10 and a friend would join David to continue the journey to...Norfolk or Morehead City or maybe somewhere even farther south. I'd take whatever public transportation available back to Freeport. Then David and friend would come back to Maine before Thanksgiving. We'd spend the early winter holidays here then re-join Grace, wherever she was, and continue on our journey to warmer climes.

This well-laid plan would honor my desire to spend more land time, nurturing and/or developing community ties and my need for creative outlets not available "at sea", and allow us to do some sailing and move the boat south honoring our desires to be out of Maine winter. We were pretty relaxed about the specifics of our leaving plans and the minuscule details of departure timeline/ deadline. Time slipped a little. Maybe we developed "port-itis." And then there were the nor'easters that kept the clouds and wind close and the seas, outside, kicking up. We, David really, continued to upgrade the boat for comfort and safety.

We got dinghy davits and installed them. David raised the mizzen mast 6" so the Bimini cover was high enough for standing head room on the aft deck. Deck lights got repaired. A new speaker for the radio was installed. The freezer box was relocated from front and center to the side of the refrigerator box. Grace was readier than she had ever been, galley was stocked and we were packed..."waiting on a weather window."

And then Hurricane Matthew blew up! We'd been watching this forming possibility since it was "97L" out in the Atlantic between Africa and South America. We followed the computer models daily, then several times each day, then hourly. When al the models agreed that "he" was not likely to come past NC we wondered, shall we start out? "Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe. Maybe not." We quoted an audience participation line in Freeport Players version of the Complete Works of Wm. Shakespeare (Abridged) that we saw several times.

The story continue....tomorrow or next day.