6:00 p.m. An hour ago I poured a libation, in this case an unusual for me rum, Bacardi Carta Negro. Although rum is traditionally a sailor’s drink and was given daily in the Royal Navy, I don’t drink much. It is too sweet. Yet in curiosity I bought a bottle a few days ago.
From the label I quote: Bacardi Carta Negro blended using rums between one and three years in heavily charred oak barrels, then shaped through a secret blend of charcoals, to craft a dark rum that has a bold and intense taste.
I think the claim is true, but it is still too sweet for me.
I stood in the companionway an hour ago sipping my first plastic of Carta Negro—I’m not going to pour it overboard—listening to Mark Knopfler’s PRIVATEERING, and noticed the name of the boat two slips over from GANNET. Usually there has been a boat between us. The name: SOMEDAY FOREVER. A great name. Ambiguous. I see several interpretations. Add a comma and it resonates: someday, forever.
——
I have had my small influences. Over the decades I’ve sold some bottles of Laphroaig. And now I take perhaps forgivable pleasure that people in many distant parts of the world are checking wind forecasts for the South African coast.
I am almost afraid to do so myself because what I last saw is a good possibility of a Friday morning departure and I don't want to find a change.
As regular readers will know I firmly believe in not doing things at the last minute and in the value of having a couple of days to sit and contemplate your boat to be certain that you have not forgotten something. Well, I have had more than enough such time. Some details can’t be sorted out until you are at sea. Everything on GANNET that needs to be done in port has been.
I did a couple of minor boat chores this morning, then spent the day mostly reading INTO THE SILENCE: The Great War, Mallory and the Conquest of Everest. An interesting book, though some of you will know that I don’t share the delusion that we conquer mountains or capes: we merely transit them; and if done honorably that is enough.
I had my laundry done last week. To avoid going to sea with a bag of dirty clothes, I am wearing passage clothes and alternating underwear and tee-shirts that I wash in the shower.
I won’t wait much longer.
Someday, forever.
