Hilton Head Island: an anniversary a day late

 

I woke not long after midnight and realized that yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of my departing for what would become my first attempt at Cape Horn.

EGREGIOUS had no engine.  As you can see the mainsail was up.  When I dropped the line in my left hand I was off into the being part of my life.

I could not have imagined what was ahead.  Six circumnavigations.  A cell in Saudi Arabia.  At least eight storms with hurricane force winds.  Adrift for two weeks.  Swimming for twenty-six hours.  A million or so words.  Suzanne was a year and a half ahead.  Jill nine years ahead.  Carol twenty years ahead.  Or that I would today be living in the marsh and finding beauty and a little peace here.  

The photo was taken by a newspaper photographer.  I do not know how they knew of me.  I did not tell them.

From STORM PASSAGE the part of Yeats poem, ‘An Irish Airman Foresees His Death’ I quoted at the beginning of the book and the first entry.