Sailing South

I leave on May 4th to  spend seven days sailing South towards the islands with the USF Waterfront!  We're hoping to make Key West, but honestly, I don't give a damn if we don't get past Key Largo.  I just found out about the trip on Monday, and I signed up for it Tuesday.  I have to go to the Waterfront in St. Pete in a couple of hours for a mandatory meeting about the trip where I should get more details.  Right now all I know is that the Waterfront is taking their two big boats, an O'day 37 and my much loved Pearson 32, as far South as Key West and that I have a berth on one of them!

Six years ago, when I was seventeen, my parents, sister, and I drove down to Key West for two days while we were in Tampa visiting my aunt and uncle.  The drive took eight hours and wasn't exactly what I would call "pleasant."  We were only in Key West for one night and two days, and I was under age and with my parents.  I'm not saying anything bad about family vacations, but Key West is a place that needs to be visited at least once under the appropriate circumstances for the location.  While we were at Mallory Square though, watching the sunset and drinking nonalcoholic beverages, a man walked by in a "band t-shirt" from my high school back in Tennessee.  I was stunned, and after my mom stopped him and started talking it came out that his son and his son's boy scout troop, all of whom went to school and were in band with me, had chartered a boat and sailed down to the islands.  I was green with jealousy by the time the conversation ended.  I vowed that if I ever got my own boat I was going to be one of the lucky ones sailing to the islands.  I never thought that in six years I'd be going to school in Florida and on my way to the Keys with  at least a couple of good friends and a few strangers, but here I am suddenly planning a (mis)adventure that, like many of my previous ones, has found me at the right time and under the right circumstances.  So, in case any of those guys from high school, particularly Justin Sanders or his dad, ever read this, may they remember good times and sailboats...and may they be as green with jealousy as I once was.  

It's funny the way things turn out.  Very little has gone my way this week.  I'm sick, I had to buy an MLA Handbook, it's the beginning of finals, I have to write two big papers, and I stepped in gum in the bookstore parking lot when I went to buy the stupid handbook and then the gum got in my car.  Monday morning I woke up wondering how I was going to survive the week, but Monday night I went to bed dreaming of sailboats and islands.  Somehow in the past year and a half I've tracked down almost everything that I dreamed of when I was seventeen.  I've learned that you can get a lot done when you live in the right place.  Okay well I need to do some work before I leave for St. Pete, but I'll write more about my upcoming (mis)adventure tonight or tomorrow when I have more details.  If you're a college student, then hang in there, it's almost over, and if you aren't then celebrate.