As some of you have noticed there is a Webb Chiles mini-festival going on. ‘Why I sail’ in LATITUDE 38. The interview in SMALL BOAT ADVISOR. ‘Lessons of the Sixth’ in CRUISING WORLD. And next month ‘Pacific Solo’ in YACHTING WORLD. That’s it. There may never be another.
I will include all in the articles page of the main site after the next issue of each publication appears, assuming I am still alive to do so.
I am declaring Webb Chiles to be a coronavirus information free zone. I will from this moment delete unread any emails about the snake virus, with the exception if you or someone close to you has contracted the virus and you want to communicate that to me. If so, subject your email ‘coronavirus personal’ and I will read it. I will not share it with anyone else without your permission.
I hope to be with Carol in forty-eight hours. We are both intelligent and competent individuals and will see this through, or not, as well as we can together.
Today again saw rain before dawn that continued sporadically until noon. I was able after that to walk around and have one of the world’s greatest tacos, and then in late afternoon to sit on deck, sipping, listening, watching.
I am now down below at Central where the above photo was just taken. From here by leaning forward, grabbing the companionway and standing up, I am outside, exposed to the natural world. I love having the minimal membrane between me and the natural world. I smell the sea. I feel the wind, which in a poem I once wrote is ‘more essential than blood’, not literally true, but perhaps I am as good a poet as a sailor.
Beauty is fleeting. Those clouds are no longer visible. Seek the fleeting moment. In the sky, the sea, the face and body of another, and hold it lastingly in your mind.