EPILOGUE

There’s a lot of preparation to setting up a sailing charter. Now that Terry and I have some experience, as well as all the safety supplies, it’s really just paying for flight tickets, food, and the charter itself.

Having only one other person on the boat made life easier in the social sense. You’re within close quarters of a person for a straight week, and it’s only a matter of time before you drive each other crazy. Fewer people mean fewer opportunities to stress over nothing. The thing about sailing is to not be selfish or self-serving. A boat stays afloat with cooperation, and both of us understood that. In times of trouble, we trusted each other. When we couldn’t stand each other, we took some space and forgot it ever happened.

The experience was beyond anything I could have imagined. This didn’t feel like a vacation, it felt like an escape. I was in my own world. More than a paradise, but a haven. A place where my mind would just stop running. I’d get lost just listening to the water moving past the boat. I felt my body put at ease as it gently rocked in the up and down motion from the waves. I was fifteen miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, in complete darkness, save for the stars and the necessary lights on the boat, and I wasn’t afraid. I felt at home on the water. A sense of tranquility that was incomparable to anything I experienced.

When we were anchored off of Cayo Costa State Park, I said to Terry,

“You know, this means I need to charter a sailboat every year. I’ll bring my significant other, and you’ll bring yours?”

“Even if I don’t have a significant other, I’ll still go," he said. "The sea will be my mistress.”

It was our first charter, and despite all the storms, the mishaps, the bouts of bad luck, it was a hell of an adventure. Here’s to a lifetime of those journeys. In the next few years, perhaps you'll read my blog when we cross the Atlantic ocean via sail. 

-Meredith Ann Eulalia, with Terrence Lee.