Sailing through large empty horizons at night on the ocean, under sail gives you true religion.... You can really reach deep down inside yourself under those skies... Sailing can be very difficult at times and presents you with many choices regarding your present situation, which means you are really living in the moment...Being alone surrounded by 360 degrees of empty horizons, with no trace of another living soul allows you the freedom to really examine yourself and become familiar with who you are... Probably my favorite part about being out on the ocean is the skies... A person cannot help but change under a moonless and cloudless night sky, far enough off the coast not to have any light contamination... Only the lucky few who are out there are enjoying the view, losing it is the price you pay for living in the city... Life can really feel amazing on the water, almost overwhelming at times... I knew everything I changed in my life so I could be on a boat, happened while anchored off an uninhabited island in the Spanish Virgin Islands named Culabrita... A wildlife sanctuary, with white uninhabited beaches lined with palm trees, cliffs on the north where I did a painting, and nearby on the short mountain top, the abandoned remains of a light house built in 1901 and I had the island all to myself... Living with nature, learning the laws of tides and moon phases, or trying to read the horizon approaching you connects you with the natural forces and if you are smart you will listen and learn from them...
Cape Hatteras has a bad reputation and over 600 shipwreck along its coastline to back it up, but so does my girl CHOICES, she's got a reputation she has earned... She was designed for the Northern Latitudes has proved herself worthy to the task, even at the expense of my fumbling abilities and constant begging her forgiveness but if she'd just give me one more chance I won't let this happen again, I promise... I passed Cape Fear which by it's name says it all, without incident going South, got me the most scared I have gotten off that same coast the Summer before, when it took me 6 days to go 200 miles, with hurricane force winds blowing my boat over to being in the middle of a major lightening storm headed North. That passage was what made me chicken out of going North around the outside of Cape Hatteras, and instead take the ICW through the backcountry of North Carolina and then transit into Norfolk via the Dismal Swamp Canal which is a real experience, despite it’s name it is beautiful..... On retrospect I really seemed to have the most challenging times while going around the Capes, they all generate their own weather patterns leaving them very changeable at best, got my best lessons handed to me getting around them 4 out of 5 times, but I also grabbed some great sailing and clocked some nice comfortable speeds at times over 7 knots… Those kind of lessons either steer us away from our dreams, or just makes it more worthy… What you come out at the other end with is the certainty that no matter how bad the lesson, you were lucky, it can always get worse….
I am now in the process of "de-cruising" me and my boat, having passed the 1000.0 Nm yesterday on this last leg of the passage south, which ironically, took place just down from where I went aground for the first time on this trip and after some throttling back and forth managed to power myself off... I should have read the charts a little better

Life is like sailing, I just hang on and hope I survive the storms...