"Blasted spineless Yanks", Slocum would say.

Of coures we're spineless! We have spent our entire lives in the post-industrialist, consumer-oriented, service driven, information age. What do we know about building anything? If we can't get it at Amazon.com, then it must not exist.

It's amazing that we've managed to sink this low. This lack of emotional, mental, and otherwise fortitude in the face of our final 30 days of sailboatlessness is truly staggering. It must be the result of some bad tofu, or a slightly out of date box of soy milk.

The past seven days have been a blur of non-boatish activity, however, and perhaps this is the true culprit. I have spent a staggering amount of time in the pursuit of my private pilot's license. The kids, no longer tied to soccer and its routine have suddenly found themselves with a glut of free time to spend at their friend's houses, swimming in the pool, and rearranging all the furniture in our house into fort-like structures. Heather is baking a staggering amount of fresh bread and during non-baking moments spending a vast amount of time with her good friend Lesley, recently returned from Colorado.

Reading back through these past few sentences I realize we're not actually moving backwards, but healithily forwards. We are, possibly for the last time in a very long time, experiencing the joy and pleasure of a thoroughly land-based existence. All of this routine, and all of this variety will be relegated to memory once we've embarked on Good Omens. A fascinating new routing and a variety of experience we've never encountered will begin with our ocean life. But, for now, stuck halfway between the two, the reality of land life is suddenly fresh and real and wonderous.

Let's not rush any of this. Life is what happens while you're waiting around for... And this is life.