Master navigator Manny Sikau paints a canoe hull (Guam)Tomorrow is the day. After nearly two months of waiting, the boat should be ready. Bro John arrived this morning and we'll be off early to drive up to the upper Delaware Bay in New Jersey, get Seawind back in the water, and finish the cruise that started in outer Long Island at the beginning of June.
We'll head down the Cohansey River and out into the Delaware. It's about 20 miles up the river/bay to the C&D Canal (Chesapeake and Delaware) and once we enter that, we'll be heading down home stretch. If things go well, we could be finished in four or five days. If things go well. But this is a boat. There is weather (thunder storms) to consider and mechanical things and the wind tends to blow from the southwest, up the Bay and in the wrong direction for us.
But still, that's what it all about. A sailboat is, at its best, a platform for adventure and we've embraced this idea fully for the last 29 years. Cruising the Chesapeake has been on my bucket list for a long time.
The picture above was taken on Guam. Manny Sikau, the master navigator from the island of Puluwat, is sitting in the thatched canoe house painting the hull of a hand-carved small proa or canoe. This canoe is used for ceremonies. My next book, The Spirit of the Voyage, concerns sailing/navigating in the islands of Micronesia.
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