Today's Daily Double is... charts on the galley table!

Sunday afternoon and the galley table has disappeared under paper again. Tide tables, a chart of waters I have never sailed, my notebook full of little pencil courses. Al leaned over my shoulder, pointed at a stretch of the Abacos where the water on the chart goes that pale impossible blue, and said "there." That was the whole planning meeting.

I study these charts the way I used to study for geology exams, which is to say obsessively and slightly wrong. Memorize the fun parts (cuts, cays, anchorages with names like songs), skim the homework parts (fuel burn, holding ground, what the wind actually does down there in February). The ASA classes are fixing that slowly. Every class the dream gets a little less cinematic and a little more possible, and I will take that trade every time.

The funny part about already living on the water is that the dream was never about getting to a boat. I am on a boat. The dream is the boat moving, Al at the helm, dock lines off, the bay opening up (ofc Lady is coming, wedged in the cockpit like a furry sandbag). Same water, different verb.

Back to the chart.