Lady’s Island Marina, Beaufort, SC
 
My eyes popped open this morning as if they were on spring loaded hinges.  I knew exactly where I was and what I was about.  You see, my feet are itchy.  It is time to seriously consider moving on down the hill; get out of Dodge, move it on down the road.
 
My thoughts are running hard and strong like a Santa Fe freight train through Texas or the Memphis Belle paddle wheeler down a Heartland River.  My head resounds with thoughts of engine checks, electrical issues, bilge pumps, fire suppression equipment, steering chain integrity, auto pilot concerns, and laptop navigation.  My brain is starting to disengage from land side events, now nothing more than mere trivia, small annoyances to be swept away like summer's gadflys.
 
I will find myself jumping down into the engine room to beg Leela and Liela (Skinwalkers two Lehman propulsion engines), forgiveness for seemingly abandoning them for a month, leaving them to fend for themselves in the dawning of winter.  My hope is they are so happy to see me that they will joyfully start right up with little crankiness.  I will say blessings over the sexually neutral generator engine and pat it gently to reassure our trust in it.  I will follow the food supply for all three engines from tank farm to injector systems and touch tough belts, thick hoses and stainless steel clamps.  Lastly will be the sounding of the bilges before asking the girls to share their enthusiasm with me during a brief test of their running and, well, maybe just to share a decibel moment of pure joy at the sexual growl of their duet at fast idle. 
 
If only Edgar Allen Poe had heard the joyful noise of these Ford Lehman’s throaty morning voices gurgling in anticipation of their day's work his life work would ring of the glory of love and happiness sans despair and bleakness.  His odes would be of Leela and Liela and not of Annabel Lee.  Bells, bells, bells would be the “tideful” clang of bell buoys and the raven so dark and dreary, replaced by the sight of a a pod of dolphin smiling up at humans while surfing a boat's bow or quarter wake, or splashing through clear blue water of limitless depths. 
 
Poor Poe.  The “Madhatter” of despondency, always late for his date with cheerfulness, missed the boat, didn’t he?
 
Tomorrow, as John Grimshaw is fond of saying.  “We sail with the tide”.  We will breach the common border of South Carolina and Georgia and sail well into it, where I will have “Georgia on my Mind” and the miles of switch backs, curves, mud shallows and few places to hide from what wind might blow.  We yearn with eagerness to be south, to be at our winter’s destination, our working port of call from which we can sally forth and sample the joys of friends, warmer weather and events that will keep us pretty darn busy for the next three months.

Tomorrow, we indeed sail with the tide as so many before us have led the way from their pilothouse.
 
Capt'n Lynnie and Skinwalker