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This piece of carpet I got for Dubi to do his business on doesn’t seem to be really attractive to him. Don’t really know what else to do. Hoping it just takes time. He’s really putting that bladder to the test.

 

We’re still riding down the ICW and the water is really calm. Haven’t seen much blue water, but I keep hearing it’s not far. We’re cruising to San Fernandina and should be there sometime tonight.

The bug issue hasn’t gotten much better, but I’m staying a sleep for longer, heh. Woke up with the Sun today and tried my hand at some fishing, just to pass the time. Mike and Stephen remind me that when we head out to the open water (outside), bugs are non-existent. That’s exactly where I need to be. Either that, or tie a piece of floss around a dragonfly and keep it close to the boat at all times.

We hit San Fernandina around 10:30, decide to anchor, and will dinghy to the dock tomorrow.

When you’re sitting up in bed, wrapped in a cover you’re much too hot for, listening for the next buzzing sound, slapping your arms every time your hair grazes, the cover (or anything you’ve psyched yourself into believing is on you), something about the way you’re living is awry. This must be what people running from the police feel like.

At any moment, something could land on the back of your kneecap. Its not like you’d know until it’s all in there, getting it’s fill to the point you look like you cut yourself, its gorged itself so. I’ve never been so ready for the sun to come up… ever. I just wanted to get moving and generating some sort of wind for the love of (check on Greek/Roman god of Wind)! Twas definitely one of the more sleepless nights I’ve had in my life, and not due to pleasantries. Even spent a good while trying to devise a way of faking sunlight, but to no avail. I have no idea what time it was or how long til the sun came up. Luckily, the sky was pretty clear, and watched the stars until I could keep my guard up no longer.

After a few small skirmishes, I awoke to the sun rising. I learned last night that bugs, too, know when to call it quits. The Sun is sweet rapture from the horde. Fill in the journal, morning meditation, messed around with Dubi, and the fellas are up. We’re off…

We’re heading down the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW). Dubi hasn’t gotten busy in almost a day, and I’m starting to worry. Not sure how long he can hold a deuce, but I know his bladder can’t be that big. He just better not go in the cabin. We try to find some patch of land to ride the dinghy up to so Dubi could get down with the get down.
We see what we think looks like a beach just further down one of the rivers, but it ends it being a bed of shells. If it’s not green, it’s shells. Dubi’s getting restless.

We tug a couple more hours, and right before we head into an open sound, we see what looks like a pretty solid island, complete with mounds of horse poop. Figure he’s take the lead of such a majestic creature. We hit land and sure enough, he lets loose his wrath upon toppled palm trees and sand all about! Greatly spread and wrought on all was his tide of terror!
On the way back to the boat, Dubi broke his  semi-comfortable swimming record of 18″ to around 25 yards. With Stephen and Mike along for spotting, Dubi made it to the boat. Taking from his lead, later on I took a dive and nervously learned treading water for the first time, efficiently.

In the end, the decision ended up being easy: just pick. In this case, how many times have I/will I be offered a spot on a boat with two really cool people?

I kept asking myself, and since I didn’t come up with an answer, I didn’t get one.

One day, I felt like the decision needed to be made. Did I want to do it? If I did then, that was the answer.

Couldn’t pass it up. Hitched a ride from their parents, who went down to see them and the boat before they took off the next day.

The next day comes, last minute preparations are almost completed, and we get read to set sail. After some parting words with some of their marina neighbors, we motor out of the marina and head towards the Intracoastal Waterway. I get some pointers on basic sailing, and it seems to be pretty simple. You could tell how excited we all were to see how the four of us were going to fit in Mike’s Catalina 27 for however long our journey together lasts?

Who knows, but we’re on the way, and there’s not much I can do now (:

“Funny how shit come together sometimes [ya dig]…”

All this time I’ve been waiting for Life to show me what decision to make. I’ve been keeping myself open to suggestions or signs that I could interpret as, “ok, the Universe thinks that the boat won’t work out. That’s settled.” But that never happened.

Things came together at the time they needed to.

We’re off.

Classes are done. Even post-bach is temporary. I can’t put this decision off any longer. I have to decide what I need to do. The roommates and I have made the house really work for us and it’s a great setup for me. Finding a job locally would be easy. get cozy for a couple of months, and take off. Random city, answer a roommate needed ad, and the rest is up to

Over the last couple of months, I became real cool with brothers, Stephen and Mike. Lived in the same pseudo-subdivison I lived in, and had one of the only dogs, Sonni, that Dubi would play with. Good times shared by all. They tell me they plan to sail Mike’s boat down to Savannah from NY.
The adventures we’ve been on collectively would be a blog on it’s own. To keep the story on task, they end up, after much tribulation, successfully sail their vessel down to a harbor in Savannah. Tales of their epic quest can be found here at Travel by Foote. They plan to sail south from Savannah by early August, and ask me if I want to come. I immediately took the offer, but later realized that this is no decision to be taken seriously.

There are a great many questions to be answered before trying to make this anything resembling an idea:

• What will I do with the things I don’t take?
• How’s Dubi going to take to water?
• …

um… guess there really isn’t much else. I still have a couple of weeks to decide.
Time passes by and the date gets closer. I decide to weigh the for and against the trip that Life has accumulated thus far.

Mrs. Foote was nice eanough to  furnish Dubi with a life jacket that actually fit :Pros

:Cons

It’s still too risky of a chance to take, but I really have nothing holding me back. Afternoon Delight was gracious enough to be sold for a pretty good price, so I’ve been living off that until I find a job I like.

hmmm… this is the “big step after college”. Slipping on that step is a thought, a scary one.

This is the biggest decision of my life thus far…