Good Morning Boston!

Boston,

August 17-19, 2012

We had just finished our 22 hour passage from Maine to Boston at 0900, and sleep was calling.  But the city was also calling and we were SO excited about taking showers and eating food.  So we got our acts together and took the dinghy past all the mega-yachts, “parking” at the marina.

Our new friend EJ from Joe’s

We had an early lunch at Joe’s American and enjoyed chatting with our waiter, EJ.  We then took a trolley ride all around the city.  Our trolley driver, Vinny, was one of those live-outloud characters who create their own personal party wherever they go.  He is a born and bred Bostonian from the Italian North End.  Vinny narrated the tour, showing us all the historic areas of the city, telling funny stories, stopping in the middle of traffic to show us something cool, and pointing out which places were worth checking out and which were just tourist traps.

Vinny, describing the city in colorful language. Good thing the kids have heard it all before….

choosing candy at Quincy Market

We topped off the day with the requisite visit to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market.  Though completely ironic, we took advantage of the free boat ride that came with our trolley tickets.  It was a hot day and it was nice to be on the water.  It was funny when the boat went right by Patronus.  We learned about the history of this important harbor port.

a little schoolwork back at the boat

We ended the day by relaxing on the boat, rocking in the hammock, doing laundry at the marina, watching all the boats go by in this busy harbor, and eating a light dinner.  The view of the skyline at night was incredible.  We were right in front of the best view of Boston and the music playing at the waterfront bar was the perfect soundtrack.

Good Night Boston

Mangia!

The next day we decided to get back on the trolley and get on and off at the places that Vinny had suggested.  We hit the North End and discovered a traditional street fair for some saint that was getting underway.  We had sausage and peppers from the Italian street vendors, enjoyed the music, and had fresh zeppoles.  This may have been the exact moment when I fell in love with Boston, shocking me to no end, as most cities fill me with anxiety (too much going on) and disgust (too dirty).  Boston is super clean and while there are a lot of people around, they aren’t running around in a frantic rush, like in other unnamed cities twenty minutes from my house.  The boys all got haircuts in a traditional barber shop and Porter grew up in front of our eyes with his big boy hairdo.

follow the red brick road, follow the red brick road… (I almost wore my ruby slippers)

We followed the Freedom Trail (a red brick line that traverses the city, leading you to historic sites) and toured Paul Revere’s home, a famous cemetery, and the hill where the British attacked the Americans.  Porter was our official Freedom Trail guide.  He loved following the trail and leading the way.

Porter leads the way…

Ho-Ho-Kus in the house! We spread some HHK School Pride and Pack 54 Cub Scout Cheer at the Paul Revere House.

Porter and I hopped back on the trolley while Chris, Bryson, and Reese challenged themselves to the long walk to Charlestown.  We thoroughly enjoyed touring the USS Constitution and the WWII ship there.  We happened to be in Boston for the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the battle between Old Ironsides and the HMS Guerriere during the War of 1812.  To honor their victory, the USS Constitution would be taken out to the harbor for the second time in almost 100 years to sail under her own power.  The shipyard was a-buzz with Navy soldiers preparing for this special occasion.

We spent a lot of time looking at the ships and I was pretty much done with the learning section of the day, but Chris wanted to go to the USS Constitution museum as well.  I’m so glad we did.  This museum was incredible.  The first floor was well curated and had several areas where the kids could make rope, pull a (pretend) cow up onto the ship using a pulley, and try other aspects of sailing.  But the upstairs was even more amazing.  The kids come up the steps and have to take a test to see if they will be chosen to sail on the Constitution.

climbing around on the USS Constitution

This display asks the children to think about the emotions they would have if their loved one left for 2 years. It was so cute to read all the responses and fit in well with our own situation.

In the next room, they have to say goodbye to their loved ones.  In the room after that, they get their job assignments, from cook to deck-scrubber.  They had a room where they could pretend to eat in the mess hall and sleep in hammocks which hung from the ceiling.  At the end, they find out what happens to their “character” after they finish their time on the ship.  All three kids (ages 6, 9, and 11) were engaged and interested the entire time.

After another short trolley ride, I got off to shop in the fancy-schmancy Newbury Street section while Chris and the kids continued on to the waterfront.  I enjoyed seeing all the pretty clothes in the shops but didn’t buy anything since Prada doesn’t seem to carry waterproof evening gowns.  Meanwhile, Chris and the kids approached the end of the trolley line, which is right next to the marina, but there were firetrucks and emergency vehicles everywhere.  They started walking to the marina and discovered that the hoopla was coming from the docks.  Panicked about Patronus and the dinghy, they tried to get closer and found out that a powerboat at the marina was having an engine room fire!  The owners were on board and smelled smoke.  The fire got out of hand quickly and the boat sustained a fair amount of damage.  Scary.

Two Happy’s and One Sad

We all met up back at the North End for an authentic Italian dinner.  We were confused by all the restaurant options and found that all the “recommended” restaurants from online had lines out the door.  We finally just picked one and had a great dinner together.  Porter was a little frustrated because he has had a loose tooth for a week and it was painful for him to eat.  While Bryson and Reese have always been beyond excited about losing their teeth and getting a visit from the tooth fairy, Porter’s first lost tooth a month ago was sad and traumatic for him.  He senses that he is done being a baby and that change is on the way.  He wants to hold on to his teeth as a symbol of his being our baby.  He is so in tune with his emotions and has been able to talk to us about his feelings.  He is so sweet and adorable.

A haircut and a lost tooth in one day. It was all just too much…

I had a feeling that his current loose tooth’s days were seriously numbered.  Sure enough, he took a bite of bread and started screaming (in the really nice italian restaurant).  I took him to the rest room and he somehow allowed me to take it out for him.  I held him as he wept and he eventually worked up some excitement about the tooth fairy coming to visit us on Patronus.

Putting his tooth fairy pillow under his pillow..

Three bucks and a note from the Tooth Fairy

I have to admit I was a little scared for a minute…

The next morning, we got ready for our long trip south.  We hoped to make it through the Cape Cod Canal in one day and planned on staying in Onset, MA for the night before heading back to Rhode Island.  But first we had to witness the historic sailing of the USS Constitution.  We motored over to the shipyard and watched as the harbor police, Coast Guard, and tugboats escorted the giant ship out of her berth.  The boat is simply majestic.  She glided slowly through the water.  At one point, she was pointed right at us, at a good distance, and I could imagine what might have gone through a sailor’s mind having to face that ship in battle.

the USS Constitution being pulled along by tugs

We needed to get underway if we hoped to complete our trip before nightfall, so we watched the USS Constitution slide past the skyline and took our leave from the fleet of spectator boats.  We explained to the kids that they only planned on raising four of its many, many sails and it would probably only sail for about 10 minutes.  Reese was so mad, but not that we were leaving.  She thought it was a “total ripoff” to get all these boats and spectators on land to come out to watch a boat sail for ten minutes.

The USS Constitution moves past the Boston Skyline, flag flying proudly as they play “Taps” on board (see the video on youtube below)

As we blew our conch shell, saying goodbye to Boston, I thought again about how quickly this lovely, historic, quaint city had captured my heart.  I look forward to coming back to Boston again when our voyage is over and recommend it to anyone looking for a fun weekend away with the kids.  Just make sure you get Vinny as your trolley tour guide, and don’t miss the zeppoles….

YouTube Videos (also available on the conwaysailors channel)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN5gLybVEtA (USS Constitution)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_kd_HTdzPA (Porter and the Freedom Trail)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1zW2fdB0U8 (Porter Reading a letter from the tooth fairy)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQKbW8petbE (Nighttime dinghy ride)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdFemd26WxA (USS Constitution Museum: folding sails)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpaYglohxzc (USS Constitution Museum: Swabbing the decks)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0Yoo6FqNHk (USS Constitution Museum: making rope)

This one’s for Lisa Museler

Cute little house jammed in between two others

Paul Revere

Cannons on the USS Constitution

August 16-17, 2012

(Note to those reading this on a phone: there are a couple of really cool videos from this trip on our conwaysailors youtube channel in case they don’t show up here.  Check them out next time you are on your computer for a really good feel of what offshore sailing is like.)

“So what is it, this cruising racket?..It is storms and calms, lonely beaches, rivers, harbors, clouds, the wind.  It is the natural world we all need, the world that children know and men most generally lose.  It has to be won, for fear, and competence and fighting with oneself are a part of it as well as contentment and sunset at anchor in some peaceful, hard-won cove in Maine.  Work, sweat, pain, exhaustion, strength, peace, and exhilaration go into it!  Like love, it is dangerous, for you can get hurt in your innermost being – as when you fail yourself and flunk out.  But – also like love – it’s the ultimate ecstasy and joy in the world, the natural, unashamed, primitive, naked, lovely world.” –Elliot Merrick, Cruising At Last

I love the way Merrick writes about the sea and about sailing.  He captures the grandeur and the depth in a very real way.  We had been enjoying Maine so much, and frankly, we were ignoring the fact that we had to eventually leave.  All of a sudden, our first overnight passage was upon us.  We were certainly prepared physically.  The boat is in great shape, everything is working well, our safety equipment is complete, and we had fuel, water, and provisions to last a week.  This might be a good time to tell you that our “passage” would only last 22 hours!  But it’s always good to be prepared!

I take the wheel as Porter points to the man overboard.

We had done our man overboard drill and we were pleased with the results.  Chris surprised all of us, including me, by throwing the horseshoe buoy in the water early one morning while we were under way.  He yelled, “Man Overboard!” and we all looked at him like he was crazy for about 3 seconds before it registered in our brains.  At first, it was a little like the scene in I Love Lucy, when it was time for Lucy to go the hospital to have Little Ricky (I just realized I’m dating myself here.  If you don’t know what I Love Lucy is, please don’t tell me.  And I won’t tell those older than me that I only know it from reruns:).  We all started running to our positions, just as we had practiced, but it looked a little like a fire drill with lots of yelling and jumping around.

Bryson throws the rope as we come up alongside

I took the wheel and put the engine in neutral.  Reese and Porter immediately started pointing at the bright yellow horseshoe buoy (our “man”) so that we didn’t lose sight of “him”.  Bryson prepared a rope to throw.  I swung the boat around in a slow arc and came up alongside our man as Bryson threw the rope.  Bryson walked the rope around to the swim platform and I hauled the man back onboard.

Pulling in our man overboard

We praised the kids for remembering their jobs and for staying calm.  They all listened to the directions as I gave them and we saved our man very quickly.  We went over a few things, like deciding who would be in charge of pressing the Man Overboard button on the chartplotter, which “remembers” the exact position the boat was in when the person falls overboard.  We also talked about what would be done differently if we were under sail (instead of motoring) and what would change if the person was unconscious.

Our “Man Overboard” is safe and sound

For my non-sailing readers, when you sail overnight, you typically break up the driving into “watches”.  One person drives for 4 hours and the other person sleeps.  Then they switch places.  The more people you have, the shorter the watches need to be and the longer the rest periods.  A three-watch system might have 3 hours on and 6 hours off.  Chris loves overnight sailing and doesn’t need as much sleep as I do.  He also gets pumped with adrenaline that can keep him going for long periods.  We didn’t have a set schedule for our first passage.  We planned to play it by ear and see how each of us was feeling.  Of course, we also needed to watch the kids, cook, clean, and navigate while not driving.

The morning we left, Chris drove while I prepared everything we would need for the overnight watches.  We checked our life raft, ditch bag (a bag filled with additional supplies to take with us on the life raft in case we need to abandon ship), two satellite phones, an EPIRB (emergency beacon that alerts the Coast Guard with our latitude and longitude to assist in rescue), three VHF radios, and of course, our cell phones, though they don’t do much good out at sea.  I also submitted our Floatplan to my dad and Chris’ brother Tom, with Chris’ other brother Frank as an extra set of eyes on our progress.  I sent them a detailed description of our boat, safety equipment, contact information, time of departure, estimated time of arrival, and course.  They would be watching our progress on Spot and would be the point people to contact authorities if we didn’t arrive as expected and they suspected something had gone wrong.

Cheerful Smurf isn’t affected by the 6 foot seas

Porter models his harness

I laid out the foul weather gear, sailing gloves, sailing boots, life jackets for Chris and I (we don’t wear life jackets when day sailing), flashlights, jacklines, harnesses, and tethers.  Jacklines are 40 foot nylon straps that are attached at the bow (the front of the boat) and run along the deck to the stern (the back).  The kids wear a harness with a metal ring on it (our adult lifejackets have the ring built-in).  Each person also has a tether, which is a stretchy nylon strap with clips at each end.  One end clips to the ring on the harness and the other end clips to the jackline.  This will ensure that no one falls overboard (if used correctly and ALL the time).

Reese all geared up with harness and lifejacket

We got to test out our new safety system right away.  The wind forecast, which Chris had been diligently following for two days, was dead wrong.  Instead of steady winds from behind us, which would give us a pleasant and fast ride to Boston, we had 20-25 knots from the southwest, so we were sailing upwind into 5 foot seas and were heeled over (that tippy thing that sailboats do) for hours and hours.  This is not a pleasant point of sail and brings on seasickness in most people who are prone to it.  When the boat heels over on its side, one’s inner ear gets confused.  You look around at the boat, the beds, and the sink, and your brain thinks that those things are abiding by gravity and are straight up and down like they should be.  This throws off your equilibrium and makes you feel nauseous.  If you look outside the boat, where objects ARE abiding by the laws of gravity, you can convince your mind that your surroundings are tipped.  Aside from various and sundry medications, essential oils, old wives’ tales, and acupressure, if you sit in the cockpit and stare at the horizon, you can sometimes start to feel better.  My mantra, as I stare at the horizon during these oh-so-pleasant times is, “That’s not moving.  I am.”

Porter and Reese try to sleep it off

Our gimbaling oven finds the natural pull of gravity

We wobbled and teetered around the boat all day, hanging on to handholds, the companionway ladder, the galley counter, and anything we could use to get around.  Our little oven was gimbaling away on its cute little hinges, making me smile as I watched our teapot defy the waves by staying put.  Reese and Porter slept on and off and Bryson was a great helper while Chris manned the wheel.  I mustered up the will to make snacks, tidy things up as they fell from shelves, and help the kids, but eventually, I was down and out in Reese’s cabin with her and Porter.

using ginger to help brush off the last moments of seasickness

I can’t even begin to tell you how thankful I was when the wind started to die and clocked around to the West.  We all emerged from the cabin and felt better instantly.  We enjoyed dinner and an amazing sunset together and as it grew dark, Chris was finally ready for a rest.

notice the horizon

I geared up for my first watch, checked the charts, met with Chris about the plan for the next four hours, and got myself a Coke, a Skor bar, and my iPod (I haven’t had a candy bar in ages and was very much looking forward to it!).  The kids were down below, playing games.  Just as Chris was about to go down below, we heard a loud “THUMP!”  I was sitting on the bench that is behind the steering wheel and the sound seemed to come from behind me.  I turned around to look as Chris shined the flashlight and I was FACE to FACE with a huge cormorant, who was standing right there on our swim platform!  I screamed, of course.  He didn’t budge.  Chris charged at it and it flew away.  I was shocked at how big it was.  They seem so small floating around in the water and diving for fish every three seconds.  But this thing was about 3 feet tall with a wing span that I can’t even think about.

no photo can capture the creepiness and enormity of this crazy cormorant

Reese came running up and I told her what happened.  I was starting to calm down and Chris was again getting ready to go down below.  THUMP!  Right over my head this time.  He had landed on our bimini, which is the canvas structure that covers the cockpit.  Reese and I stood on the lazarettes (benches) to see what the sound was and sure enough, there was our friend, back for a visit.  He was way out to sea and cormorants don’t fly very well, so he was probably hoping to rest on our boat for awhile.  Within a few minutes of shooing him off, he was back.  I screamed again, looked at Chris, and said, “That’s it!  I’m off watch!”   Chris was fired up about protecting the boat, so I went back down and rested a bit longer.  I’m not sure if this story makes me sound like a wimp, but being attacked by giant birds, in the dark, by myself, for 4 hours, was just not going to happen.

I love my foul weather pants. You gotta love a scandinavian company that is used to 6′ tall women!

Chris stayed on watch until 2345 with no further waterfowl attacks, so I again donned my absolutely fabulous Helly Hanson foul weather gear and grabbed my Coke, my Skor bar, and my iPod.  I filled my four hours by staring at the stars, feeling the smallness of our little Light of a sailboat in the middle of the sea, and enjoying the sensations of the wind in my hair, the saltspray on my face, and the sounds of my favorite music.  The Coke and the candy bar worked like a charm and soon I was dancing in the cockpit (tethered to the jacklines, of course).

looking into the darkness

I spent about 45 minutes watching two ships that were far in the distance.  Their lights were so far away that they appeared like two stars on the horizon.  Over 45 minutes, they slowly moved toward each other.  I watched them get closer and closer until they kissed and became one.  They moved as slowly as the sun as it slips below the horizon at sunset.  I was a little sad when they started moving away from each other again.

Our mast reaching up into the dark night

I found that the best place to stand was on the lazarettes (benches).  From that spot, I could hold on to the dodger (the canvas windshield) and had a clear view of the water in front of us.  It was pitch black out with no moon, so I only had about 3 seconds to react once a lobster pot was finally visible.  I missed one while checking the chart down below and came up to see it hung up on the side of the boat.  I threw the throttle into neutral and moved my tether so that I could look over the side to assess the situation with my flashlight.  I really didn’t want to wake Chris up, but I also didn’t think it would be at all within the realm of sanity to hang over the side of the boat in the middle of the night by myself.  So I called him up and we managed to free it before it snagged our propeller.  This was a close call for sure.  I kept thinking about what we would have done if the lobster pot line had gotten hung up on our propeller.  We couldn’t dive under the boat in the middle of the night, and we were over 60 miles from land.  We would have had to turn the engine off and use only the sails until daylight.

clipped in to the jacklines while by myself up on deck

As night wore on, we got closer and closer to Cape Ann, in Massachusetts.  The autopilot was headed towards what looked like a buoy on the chart, so I kept looking for it, nervous that it was going to just pop out of nowhere and that we would crash into it at 7 knots.  If you haven’t seen an offshore navigational buoy up close and personal, they are WAY bigger than they appear from far away.  They are approximately 15 feet high with a 5 foot diameter.  They are made of steel (or some other really strong metal) and one would definitely win a battle with the bow of our fiberglass boat.

listening to music and watching for lobster pots

I got more and more nervous as we got closer to where it should have been.  The chartplotter shows the chart of the area with a little icon to show our location.  I should have seen it by now.  I tried again to decode the description next to it.  Each buoy has a unique description so that you can positively identify your location, especially in the fog or the dark.  For example, “Fl Gr “1”” would mean Flashing Green Buoy marked with a number “1”.  There are notations for color, number, type, and features such as flashing lights, gongs/bells, etc.  The line that indicated our route was going right through the description of the buoy, I couldn’t really read it.  In addition, Chris had created a “waypoint” at that spot, so there was a blue square on top of all of that.  It wasn’t until the third time I ran down below to triple check our position that I realized the description wasn’t for a buoy at all.  It was some other abbreviation, indicating a no discharge zone or something.  I was so relieved, and a little mad at myself, that I don’t even remember what it was for.  Apparently, I need a little refresher course online for reading charts!

At 0400, Chris came up on deck to see how things were going.  It wasn’t yet getting light out.  I had hoped that there would be at least an inkling of daylight when he came back on watch so that it would “feel” like morning for him psychologically.  But he was up and ready to go and I was ready to take a break.  My eyes were dry and my stomach was unsettled.  It always gets like that when I stay up all night.  I flopped down in bed and thought about how comfortable it was.  On raceboats, the inside of the boat is gutted.  There might be a toilet and maybe one bulkhead (wall).  The off-watch crew sleeps on pipeberths, which are canvas and pipe “stretchers” that hang off of the walls.  A system of pulleys allow you to swing the cot up or down to counteract the heel of the boat.  They weren’t all that uncomfortable, in the same way that jumping in 63 degree water without a wetsuit feels wonderful after getting attacked by a swarm of flies.  Add wet clothes, 13 unshowered men, and a non-operational head to the equation and “off watch” on a raceboat starts to sound about as attractive as “on watch”.  But today I got to go off watch and lay down in my own bed-  by myself, in my cool sheets, after brushing my teeth, washing my face, checking my email, and changing into clean pajamas!  I fell asleep instantly, rocked like a baby by the boat.  The wind had strengthened, so Chris even shut the engine off, which made it quiet for the first time in hours.

Bryson picks up our mooring in Boston Harbor

I woke up when Bryson came in to tell me we were coming into Boston Harbor.  What a sight to peek out of the porthole in my cabin and see a completely different view than the night before!  The Boston skyline was in view, the sun was sparkling off the water, and planes were taking off and landing over our heads.  Lots of other boats were coming and going around us.  Toto, we’re not in Kansas (or Maine) anymore……

the view from our home today

Passage Stats:

Erica’s Hours on Watch: 2400-0400

Chris’ Hours on Watch: the other 18 hours!

Shooting Stars Seen: 2

Ships that passed in the night: 2

Songs sung and danced to: 43

Lobster pots nearly missed: 2

Sugar consumed: 1 Coca Cola and 1 Skor bar

Number of times I had to wake Chris up: 1

Potty breaks: 1 (a significant ordeal with all the gear I had on)

Epiphanies about Life Realized: 3

Freakouts: 1

*****Don’t forget to check out our videos on the conwaysailors channel on youtube.com (http://www.youtube.com/user/conwaysailors). Subscribe to our youtube channel to get an email when we upload videos.  I am not as good about videotaping as I am about writing and taking pics, so subscribing might be your best bet for seeing Patronus in action:)

Walking the Dog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkrxct3UB-c

Kids Playing During Passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tphTNxuBGE

Preparing for Passage/Goodbye to Maine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8bT1JN5Hrc

360 degree view: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXnYedGnJWw

Whale!: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-_N9U_louI

Offshore driving in heavy weather: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aerbSYk09ck

Bryson and Reese during passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSD6KQGcKFY

Chris trimming sails on passage: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEXvok5Bg_o

Port Clyde, Maine

August 15-16, 2012

This post is about as varied, irregular, and long as the magnificent Maine coastline.  Hang in there.  There’s something for everyone…

Here are some interesting facts we learned about lobsters, since we have recently completed a total immersion course in Crustaceans 101.

The ConwaySailors ate lobster almost every day we were in Maine, from July 19^th through August 16^th.

It takes the average lobster 5-7 years to reach legal size.  They shed their shell about 26 times during this time.

Fishermen do not keep egg-bearing females (as opposed to egg-bearing males?), who carry between 6,000 and 100,000 eggs.

Patronus (not the skippers…) hit three lobster pots in the coastal waters.

There are more than 7,000 licensed lobster fishermen in Maine.  Each year they put out more than 3 million traps (we can attest to that).

low tide in sleepy port clyde

We left the Isle Au Haut and headed for Port Clyde, our last stop in Maine.  We sailed 31 miles and arrived in this busy little harbor.  We got diesel and water and moored out in the center of the harbor.  Port Clyde was, in some ways, an amalgamation of many of the ports we had visited.  It was just as protected but bigger than nearby Tenant’s Harbor, had cute little shops like Northeast Harbor, had lots of boats like Boothbay Harbor, and had a slow pace about it like, well, like everywhere!  In fact, we’re really going to have to retrain ourselves to look both ways when crossing the street!

A month on the Maine coast stirred up something very special for me.  A gratitude for solitude; the thoughts that accompany oneself in a sublime landscape; and a feeling of connection with the Universe.  These are all familiar feelings, ones that I have cultivated for years, but being in Maine has turned up the volume so that these feelings are in my consciousness all day long.

So that may sound strange: I enjoyed the solitude, but I felt connected.  I remembered something that Deepak Chopra said at a Dalai Lama conference I attended last year: “We are not just connected.  We are inseparable.”  But feeling connected to ourselves in the midst of busy lives that are aimed outward is tough, and if we are not connected to ourselves, how can we feel connected to all beings?  My favorite book, Gift From the Sea, by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, warns, “When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others, too.  If one is out of touch with oneself, then one cannot touch others…Only when one is connected to one’s own core is one connected to others, I am beginning to discover.  And, for me, the core, the inner spring, can best be refound through solitude.” Well said, Deepak and Anne.

So what does Maine have to do with all that?  Because Maine’s coast is comprised of glacier-formed boulders, soaring spruce trees, and a sea of rocky islands, there is a majestic quality to it.  Because it is so rugged, isolated, and pristine, we feel that there is a timeless stillness to the world.  If we stop moving for even a few minutes in this place, that majestic stillness seeps into us.  Or rather, that majestic stillness seems somehow familiar.  And then we look within and recognize that we have a stillness that is always there, always steady, keeping us balanced and centered.  When we take a moment to recognize and appreciate that stillness, we make it stronger by bringing it into our consciousness.  We have that oh-so-rare chance to see our True Self, the pure and loving soul that was out and about and giggling up a storm when we were babies.  We see that it is still there and know for sure that it is in every other being on earth.  And that’s when our moment of solitude turns into a moment of connection.  Have you ever felt something like this?

I remembered a moment I had like this years ago, in 1995, before I had given any of this much thought- when I still thought that working hard, going to the gym, racing sailboats, hanging out with friends, and keeping my house clean were 80% of what was required to be happy and healthy.  I wrote in my journal (modified for brevity), “I just had a moment.  One of those split seconds in time, when the powers within reveal their true beauty.  When you look at yourself in the mirror, expecting to see bloodshot eyes, but you see yourself.  You. Me. It. Whoever. And you are thrilled to death that you are you.”  In Maine, I can see my real Self all the time, all day long.  It feels absolutely divine to be in love with myself every moment of the day.  I will hold on to this feeling, but I know where to come if I need a reminder.

For all beings everywhere, my wish is that we can all tap in to the peace and stillness within ourselves, so that we may remember that we are ONE.  We are connected.  We are inseparable, just like these two loving trees…

Maine is so lovely even the trees hold hands….