Preamble

I imagine when I tell most people of the trip I’m about to embark on, they conjure up the notion that I’m a lucky man for being able to take time in the moment and go on vacation, sailing on a boat and living off the fruit of the sea. But you must know that it’s more than that.

This trip is more than just simple pleasures and rip-roaring shenanigans on Duval Street. It’s got more substance than that. At it’s proposal, those invited on this trip all felt a certain chord struck from within. It was a calling, really. Not in any heavenly or fateful way. “Time and tide wait for no man, gentlemen. This could be just another great idea, or it could be a trip like no other.” That was our battle cry, if you’ll allow me to use that term loosely.

The trip itself immediately conjured up images of the five of us sitting in the cockpit or cabin of the lovely Ella — a 27-foot Erwin built in the 1960s — whilst sipping rum and catching the salty breeze on our sun-burnt faces. But those images were quickly supplemented by the idea that this was our great escape from what we have come to realize as our lives, and it was to be our opportunity to find and capture the bit of life that has slipped away from so many of us. We find ourselves at such a confusing age, having each recently departed the security of college, felt the utter confusion of career pressures, been rocked by one or two schisms of what we once thought was the love of all loves and been faced with the brutal reality that we are now on our own paths, be they to glory or doom.

This opportunity we are now blessed with is one that is to be taken on with all our will and whim, and it’s not to be taken as a simple way to let our minds unwind and partake in a bit more vice we’d otherwise not. No. This is more than that. This is our opportunity to test ourselves and perhaps even our limits on the open waters, with our fate in our own hands and that of the gods above. Safety and sensibility will not be lacking on this trip, for he who denies respect to the elements is quick to get a harsh lesson taught to them. This is to make something of ourselves in what each of us has likely thought to be a trivial existence thus far.

“We will take only pictures and leave behind only footprints.”

This trip lacks a motto, at least for now. Perhaps, though, it can be likened to a memento of this nation’s great past, as we fly a flag of old revolution atop our mast, reminding us the luxuries we are afforded because of the pursuit of liberty by our forefathers. While their history might forever be debated and their intentions often scrutinized, there is no denying in any of our hearts and minds that such liberty must not be taken for granted and must be exercised thoroughly, else we forget what that notion of liberation truly means. Not just on a national level, but in the human spirit as well. Liberation is a grand theme of this trip.

As we set off into the sun setting into what I hope to be a calm Gulf of Mexico on Friday, July 25, I can’t help but to think of this blessing of life we have been granted. Our achievements as people are forever to be judged, but the possibilities for us as humans are as limitless as the vast expanse as the waters on the horizon.

I hope to return with a rested spirit, a full heart and a memory that will never be taken from me.

See you all very soon.

Dave