How do we love Adventuress?

Love comes through in meticulous care and attention to detail. Stewardship to every nook and cranny with every hand carefully, and with purpose, tending to wood, line, and sail

How do we love Adventuress?

Sole by sole swept, washed and squiggied  away from the cracks.  Walking the dog and scrubbing the deck, against the grain, and a bright, fresh water rinse. By coiling lines on deck over and over, working, ballentine, in and out and the dog bone, with precision.  Setting the sails one by one. Making fast each line to a peg or cleat and striking each sail and furling them in at night.

How do we love Adventuress?

With constant maintenence, engineer at hand and tools at the ready, filling tanks and pumping the bilge, With constant watch, around the clock, all eyes involved, checklists and chores. With vegetarian delights  from the galley, stirred and served with love. With constant leadership, deep wells of knowledge captain and mate, bosin and coordinator all working behind the helm and behind the scenes. We love in community with and as passionate and fun wielding deck hands. With adventure seeking participants. And with music and laughter.

How do we love Advenuress?

All hands on deck, nine knots of wind, tacking and pirouettes, broach reach and running. And heeling over with wind in our hair and our souls running wild.  

How do we love Adventuress?

We love in awe of her capability, in awe of her natural connection, in awe of her self contained beauty and power.

How do we love Adventuress?

With reverence to the wind, honor to the tradition, and high on the sail.

How do we love Adventuress?

We just do.

I fall in love, under the shrouds,
Staring up at a clear and star filled sky
Shrouds and lines pointing the way
Joining atop the mast

Stars exploding beyond
Milky way pouring over the side
And Perseids throwing stars down upon me

My heart expands in the silence of this
Star gathered solitude

This ship
My lover

Speaks in hushed tones, her cabins and creaks and hull against the sea
The sway of the waves
Held in the curve of her deck

She whispers
As waves lap on the shore and the breeze gentlly touches my face

Her lines lead me to dreams of wind filled sails and heeled over action
My mind races to the jib and the tack and the movement and the speed
Caught in her rush

But
Now

Water  grounding me to this floating vessel

I am staring up through her shrouds
To a blanket of stars
Waiting for the next one to fall
In silence, waiting

She is mine

For this moment, not another soul is alive

Just her and me

Someone walked off with my water bottle. Granted, I walked off first, forgot it and left, but it was an establishment, an easy lost and found situation.

And instead of turning it in, someone just walked off with it.

If it was just a sunshine orange and yellow top nalgene, that would be one thing. But it was a talisman, a magical good luck charm. It was years old, and treasured. Covered with history and love.

My "Where There Be Dragons " sticker clung boldly to its side reminding me of this awesome organization and the two trips I took with them: deep and long treks into Nepal and ancient ruins of Cambodia.  A reminder of the places, the journey, and the people that influenced my life.

And the Northwest Native block carving of an Orca to remind me of kayaking with my sister and the whales in the San Juan Islands. A beyond words experience captured by a sticker.

I had a "Fat Tire Tours" bicycle sticker to mark my time in Paris, pedaling around, eating french baggets, laying on the lawn at the foot of the Eiffle tower, listening to musicians on the bridges and sliding solo through a town.

And my most recent additions may be the hardest to lose, my "sailor badass" "you are kind" and " you are brave" homemade and gifted stickers from a captain of a tall ship on which I crewed. Reminding me that I am a seaworthy woman, that I am brave in this transition and discovery period in my life.

Not only did this water bottle make hydration possible, not only is it a piece of equipment that I now need to replace, but it was a witness to my life, a memory holder. It was a totem, a sacred object, a reminder of my journeys.

And someone saw that bottle with all those stickers and thought it should be theirs instead of giving me the chance to claim it.

I am disappointed
I am saddened
I am put out

I am now marking those memories with these words.

The memories are mine.

I am a blessed adventurer, a kick ass sailor, a brave explorer and kind enough to myself to let it go

Now

I am closing the chapter of that water bottle and will open up a new.

Perhaps I will find a sea blue bottle with an evergreen top.

A blank page
An empty canvas
Just waiting to be filled