four years ago today

the cliffs of bonifacio

snorkeling queen

that rock in the background?  not a ship.

this is a ship.  oh, argo.

four years ago was seamester, three weeks on a 112 foot sailboat exploring the mediterranean.  i was good about journaling, entries almost every day, and everyone posted pictures on facebook, so i was able to compile a bunch of stuff into a decent little memory blog.  every year around this time, i go back and check it to see what was happening, what i was thinking, doing, seeing.

august 19 just says we just finished an 18-hour sail.  but we’re just outside of bonifacio now.  i can’t write i’m too tired.  (eighteen hours would have been 2 shifts of three hours for each watch team, some of them in the dark, it was exhausting and exhilarating, i miss it more than i should) but the next day's is more robust and describes the events of this day, four years ago:

...we found this amazing candy shop sam and everyone had recommended, this cavern full of barrels and barrels of gummy rats and cubes of black fudge and butterscotch eggs.  i really shouldn’t have bought as much as i did, i should have just marveled at this primitive honeydukes, but oh well... 

we had lunch and then all the students, even pete and connor and alex, and chad and stephanie went for this amazing hike.  it was really difficult, 5.5km and completely shadeless and pretty steep in parts, but the view!  we walked along the edge of this huge cliff that peered out over the bright blue water.  from below the cliffs look like utah only less orange and instead of dropping into flat land, it turns to this amazing clear ocean water.  i don’t know how high we were, but you’d definitely die if you fell off.  so we hiked forever, and i actually kept up, and just before this lighthouse we turned down a rocky path that led steep down to the beach.  i stripped and dove in right away, hot and dehydrated.  the beach was sand covering rocks, and in the water it was the same.  i brought my snorkel and things, so i paddled around in the water some.  i saw some jellyfish and some regular fish.  it was really cool, so clear and gray....  

...after the hike we walked back to the boat, which had moved to a slip, and ate dinner.  we got ready to go out, and those of us not confined to the boat went to a bar on the main walk next to the harbor... everyone was just talking and flirting.  then we moved to this other bar... it gets sort of blurry...

we left bonifacio this morning, still wobbly from last night.  we’re headed for sardinia now.  this is the second to last day of sailing we have, this and a 24-hour sail all the way to rome.  it’s raining but it’s sunny, so i should go.

i was twenty, halfway through college, with no one i knew, the farthest i'd ever been from home, having the most wonderful time.  i'd always said i could live on a sailboat - i did live on a sailboat, for three weeks at least, sleeping with the waves, sailing with the stars, grinning in the sun.