The News Pundits are Killing Me: Let's Go Sailing and Fuggedaboudit.

Is holding a man down, stuffing a rag in his mouth and pouring water over his face until he can't breath torture? No? Really? Will closing Gitmo Prison make America less safe? It will? Really? Will putting terrorists in max security prisons on U.S. soil put our women and children in harms way? It will? But, wait a minute....On second thought, bugger it all. I'm going for a lazy sail down the East Coast.

To that end, here she is again, the sailing vessel Seawind on the hard (as yachties say), up on the very end of Long Island last fall when we bought her. Word from the shipyard is that all the work has been done and she is back in the water, safely in her slip, waiting for me.

Here's the plan: My brother, John, will be my crew. Among other things, he's a professional yacht delivery captain. I'm flying him up from his home in the Florida Keys tomorrow, Friday. Saturday, we'll pick up our rental truck, load it up with provisions and equipment and, Sunday, leave for Cutchogue, Long Island--about a 7-hour trip.

Sunday night we'll try to find the boat--I know the marina, but not the slip it's in--and maybe sleep aboard--if we can get aboard. I hope its locked. If not, we sleep in the truck, or get hotel room (it's Memorial Day, so maybe there's no room in the inns). It will take 2, maybe 3 days to get her loaded and ready and do a couple of shakedown sails. Then, we're off.

The plan is to head down Long Island Sound (2 days?) and then into the East River and right through the heart of New York City (great photo ops). Then out into New York harbor. I'd love to stop at Ellis Island and see where the Grand 'Rents came ashore early in the last century, all four of them from Norway or Sweden.

So, that's 3 or 4 days, if all goes well and weather is with us. Then, around Sandy Hook and out of New York harbor and on down the lovely, sandy coast of New Jersey all the way to Cape May with maybe an all-night sail thrown in there (2 days?).

A short rest in Cape May in that nice harbor and then through the Cape May canal into Delaware Bay and 51 miles up to the Delaware River to the Chesapeake-Delaware Canal (two days?). On through the canal (15 miles?) and into the top of the Chesapeake Bay where, we hope, Terry-the-Wife-and-Great-Sailor will join us for the beat down the Bay to the Onancock River (3 days?).

That's it. 7 hours up by truck, 10 days back by boat. Trucks go 60 mph, this boat goes 7 mph, max. As the Zen sage said, "Smile, breath, move slowly."