Who do you thank for helping you get into sailing?
Your question has been posed in different ways to me in the past. Mostly in the form "Why do you want to sail?"
So recently I wrote a poem to try and explain it. I reproduce it here:
I watch a video of sailing
through straights in Northern lands
and my heart accelerates it's beating
as I dream of lovely, far off lands.
Born on a farm, far from the sea,
I wonder how this feeling came to be?
What occurred, to cause in me,
Such a longing for the sea?
I recall when 3 years old
and swimming in a stream.
My siblings wanted me to wear
a floating vest, to keep me safe in there.
But I just kept on swimming
with nothing on but skin and hair.
I taught myself to swim alright,
from shore to here, to there!
And then when I was 12 years old, I visited a friend.
I saw the ocean, smelled the sea, my mind began to bend.
My soul ignited as if on fire, freedom to the end!
The ocean's where I need to roam, with ship and no known end.
Now many years has passed since then and many miles sailed.
But that thirst for freedom is not lost, and so it must be hailed.
The need to go and sail again, with nothing in control -
beyond the earth to know - of when and where and how to go.
dj