Gentle Trails journal

The moon was nothing but silver, and the stars were blotted out by a heavy, low-hanging ceiling of clouds. Once again, we were pulling anchor in the “Ghost Hour.”I am a woman of the prairie—I like to see the horizon, I like to see the snakes in the grass, And like to see the weather before it hits me.Sailing in the dark feels like walking through a thick hammock without a lantern, I prefer the solid ground; I’m not a fan of the darkness on the open sea. It swallows everything.” It swallows the distance and leaves you with nothing but the sound of the hull slapping the waves and the eerie glow of the instrument panel.”Trust the charts, Moe,” the Captain said, his voice steady. “And trust the boat.”I stood in the cockpit, my hands shoved deep into my pockets to hide the slight tremor. I didn’ttrust the dark, but I put my absolute trust in the Captain. He had spent his life reading the oceanand the river, and he was reading this black void with the same calm focus.The Morgan 51 groaned as she turned her bow toward Marathon. The crossing back wasn’tgoing to be the “Florida Magic” we had on the way out. The wind was quartering, hitting us at anangle that made the boat roll and pitch. Without the kids and the baby on board, the silence washeavy, filled only by the mechanical thrum of the diesel and the whistle of the wind through therigging.I looked back at the fading light of the Fort Jefferson lighthouse. It flickered like a dying candlebefore finally slipping away. We were officially in the “In-Between” again. Every shadow on thewater looked like a rogue wave; every change in the engine’s hum made my heart skip a beat.”You’re doing fine, Mom” Gordon said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “Just keep your eyes onthe compass.”I realized then that this was the final lesson of the voyage. Back home, I was the one incontrol—I knew every slough and every oak ridge. Out here, in the pitch black of the Gulf, I hadto surrender. I had to trust the men, the hull, and the God who made the wind.We were four souls on a 51-foot island, carving a path through the dark toward a home that felta thousand miles away. The salt was stinging my eyes, and the cold was seeping into mybones, but I stood my watch. This old prairie girl wasn’t going to let the dark win.She looked at her hands—they were red, calloused, and smelled like diesel and rope. A fewweeks ago, these were the hands of a woman who tended a garden in the scrub. Now, theywere the hands of a sailor. We were battening down the hatches, not just on the boat, but in ourspirits. The easy part of the vacation was over. The journey back was going to be earned.We were a lean crew now, down to the essentials. We ate a quick, silent meal, knowing thatsleep would be a luxury we wouldn’t see for a long time. The wind was already starting towhistle through the rigging, a low, haunting note that signaled the beginning of the end of ourjourney.