One Water Story Blog
Crew: Eric Loss, Shanley McEntee, Asta Mail, Kate Gardella, Mitch McLean, Margaret Pietrak
Blog Written By: Eric Loss
I came on deck this morning at 4 AM to a bitter cold, with drops of moisture sprinkling from the sky and the warning from the offgoing watch that they had seem some snow flurries. This far North the sun comes up early, and by 5 as the sky started to lighten I could see that we were landlocked, a blue greasy smudge on the horizon in all directions. This is a far from reassuring sight for a blue-water sailor, who tends to view land with mistrust, the source of rocks and shoals and fog and mist. Give me a gale in the South Atlantic any day, with 1000 miles of sea in all directions, rather than ask me to navigate the fog and current ridden coastal waters of Nova Scotia.
On land, too, lurk a thousand perils of a more prosaic nature, the rush and bustle and chaos of day to day life, smog, garbage, stress, the cares and woes that seem to wait dockside to catch your lines as you come in from sea. Far better, far cleaner, to be out at sea,with nothing but the wind and waves and sky. But we are all tied to land, and to land we must always return, be it after 2 days or 200 of peace and purity, to contemplate our next voyage across the deep.
Sea Dragon, too now, returns to land, and will sail in the middle of a great continent for the next three months, with never a break from the constant threat of a lee shore, no escape from shipping and cares. But our voyage through the lakes this summer has a purpose, just as our return to sea after crossing an ocean, to explore and learn and share about the problems foisted upon these great bodies of water by all of us living ashore, but also to rejoice in an inland sea, to sail the greatest fresh waters of the world.
As the sun rises higher and the air warms, I can’t help but look forward to our great lakes adventure, a voyage that has just now truly begun as we enter the St. Lawrence River.
