Lunenburg

The glow of our homecoming, nearly a month past, has not left me. Coming into Lunenburg harbor, all sails set, light breeze astern, and the gorgeous golden afternoon sunshine, it was better than I had ever imagined it, and I'd imagined it many times. This was real. The ethereal mist of my mind's-eye was replaced with the unglamorous details of reality, making the day far more exciting than my daydreams could ever be.

The heaving line was actually in my hands, the weight of the monkey's fist pulling at my palm, and the black, oiled-pine decks were solid beneath me. My starched dress uniform chafed in my too-tight belt, my boots were rubbing my toes raw, blistering these feet which for so many months had grown accustomed to treading barefoot in the tropics. Walt Flowers' harbor tour boat came cruising past with old friends and shipmates cheering, waving and snapping pictures.

We could see the lighthouse, we could see the academy, the church steeples, the Grand Banker! And Lunenburg! It was a nifty move by captain to bring the ship alongside, warping her in around the edge of the dock, and we were home.

And the whole time, there were Mom and Dad, waving and grinning, and Mom was crying, and I waved and grinned back, but no crying from me because there was work to do. We stowed sail, secured our docklines, rigged the gangway, cleared customs, and then the flood of people, hugging and laughing, reunited after more than a year from home.

That night came the only proper way to bookend a voyage like ours: Dory Shop party. When we left Lunenburg, the aftershocks of our outbound Dory Shop party were still reverberating, with cautious anticipation of the next one, in 365 days. It did not disappoint.

Anna, our local South Shore fiddle-siren, who sent us off so well last year, played for us again, standing and stomping on a sailmaker's bench while she tore into her fiddle. Finn showed up. Stephanie showed up. I was not expecting to see either, and was elated to see both, two of my most favorite friends and shipmates and people and fellow human-being-earth-citizens ever. We Cakewalked, we put on Purple, we danced, we laughed, we met each others' families, and sometimes we just jumped up and down. And Mom and Dad were there with us until the small hours of the next morning. I've experienced cliche's in my life before, and our Lunenburg homecoming is one of them: one of the best days of my life.

After that, we had a quiet week of buttoning up the ship for some time off before our summer trips: getting ready for a safety inspection, unloading the timber, and sending down the all the sails, which we did in a record 1 hour 52 minutes, over ten minutes faster than the record set by the last crew.

As I said, the glow of our homecoming has not even begun to wane, but rather it's evolved into excitement for the coming months aboard, some tall ships festivals, old friends, downrig, and then, the great beyond, our next steps from there. There's a lot of exciting things in store for us, and we all know it.