1800 Days – Seg. 8 Ch. 2 Pg. 9-12

    On Monday morning we had to begin the 80-mile return trip to Summit North and, eventually, to our jobs and lives back in Easton. We awoke at 7 a.m. to a cool 50 degrees with the sun just beginning to climb above the trees on the river bank across from Chestertown. There were many boats anchored in front of the town and these were barely visible through the thick mist rising from the warm water in the cool air. Once again we were underway by 8:30 a.m. The water-lift muffler system on the big diesel was so good that we made barely any noise as we slipped through the mist at idle speed past the anchored boats. As we followed the tide down the river that morning there were line after line of geese in the cloudless sky. By late morning we made the big bend around Eastern Neck Island. There was no wind and the water was calm. The day had become warmer yet there was still a fall coolness in the air. When we reached the main shipping channel of the Chesapeake we folded the Bimini top back so that we could feel the warmth of the sun. Nancy took the helm and I lay down on one of the long bridge seats and slowly drifted off to sleep with the warm sunlight on my face. After my short nap, as we continued up the channel, we passed many private pleasure boats, both power and sail craft, that were obviously traveling to the south. These sights engendered an undeniable longing in us. If we were cruising south again on the ICW this would indeed be the time to go, traveling with the geese. Later in the day we decided to retain the exploratory flavor of our cruise and accordingly bypassed our usual anchorage at Worton Creek in favor of the Still Pond anchorage we had passed on Saturday. We worked our way into the bay almost two miles off the main shipping channel, past the entrance of Still Pond Creek, and then down into the tapering cove at the mouth of Churn Creek. We dropped our anchor in nine feet of water. If the wind came up from out of the north this would be an untenable anchorage, but conditions remained calm and by evening the water was like glass. At dusk, as we sat up on the bridge enjoying another cool evening, we were treated to the sight and sound of an osprey diving into the water. This seemed a fitting capstone to a perfect day.

    On Tuesday morning we covered the 25 miles to our slip at Summit North and began the process of returning to our life on land. We did our laundry, emptied our trash, cleaned up the boat and drove back on the interstates to our house in Easton. Though I cannot remember that either of us spoke the thought out loud at this time, I am sure that each of us knew that our true life, the one we most wanted to live, was the life on the boat. I know now that, after this wonderful cruise through the coolness and beauty of fall, after the haunting cacophony of the geese at Comegys Bight, Easton and Lafayette, for all their attractions, never had a chance.

**********

    Just because, in retrospect, it seems that the decision was inevitable, it does not mean it was made easily or quickly. What changed after our fall cruise, and we were hardly aware of it at the time, was our vision of the future: we no longer thought of the possibility of living and cruising on our boat full-time as merely an idle fantasy. Instead, after our cruise to Chestertown, it seemed we came to believe that there was some chance, albeit remote, that this could indeed be our future, if we could only find a way. And as the days passed we became ever more determined to find that way.

    After returning to Easton on Tuesday we came back to Summer School on Friday night just three days later. Even stronger than at any time before, when we entered the boat and saw and smelled the rich teak, looked into the forward cabin with its large V-berth, saw our L-shaped settee with its folding table across from the galley area in the main cabin, where we had consumed so many outstanding meals, when we put our weekend things away in the aft cabin with its cozy double bed, we knew that we had come home once again. In my journal I wrote that night, "I can see the strain drop from Nancy's face as soon as we get on the boat." Despite the lateness of the hour and the long drive down from Easton, Nancy settled down onto the settee and wrote in one of her notebooks, developing some ideas for a creative writing project she had tentatively called "Tirades." This was the first time she had done any creative writing since we moved to Easton.

    Over nightcaps we talked about the Annapolis Power Boat Show that was being held this weekend. Every year in October the city of Annapolis held a Sail Boat Show and a Power Boat Show on successive weekends to coincide with the annual migration of cruising boats through the Chesapeake on their way south for the winter. These were annually among the largest boat shows held on the east coast and they provided the boating enthusiast a great opportunity to inspect a wide variety of new products and tour new boats on display at the adjacent docks. Nancy had done considerable work preparing for our attendance using the website developed for the show. She knew what manufacturers would have booths in the exhibition area, what boats would be available for touring, and where they were located on the docks. Using her notes we discussed what we would particularly like to see and planned our visit.

    On Saturday morning we were away early on the drive to Annapolis across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge that we had so recently seen from the water. The city was crowded with people attending the show. We had to park on the outskirts and take a shuttle bus down to the waterfront. With our new conception that we might be able to find a way to make full-time boating our life, we were eager to see everything. We looked at all the products on display in the exhibition area thinking of what we could use to improve our boat and make it more suitable to be our only home. And we toured all the new trawlers that were moored at the docks. Aboard a new 36-foot Monk trawler we had a long and especially beneficial conversation with the company president. He explained how each of their trawlers, including the one we were on, was built in Nova Scotia and then brought down the east coast for sale in the States, and how this practice provided a very worthwhile sea trial for their boats. We talked of what features made their boats more seaworthy and more comfortable for living aboard, and we got some ideas for changes we could make in Summer School. We left the show even more excited by our future prospects than we were when we arrived.

1800 Days – Seg. 7 Ch. 2 Pg. 5 - 9

    Saturday morning dawned warm and still, almost like a summer's morning. We were awake by 7 a.m. and followed our usual cruising routine: I start the generator to allow us to begin charging the batteries and use the toaster. We take our morning's pills and have our juice, toast and coffee at the table next to the settee while listening to the day's marine weather forecast broadcast by the local station of NOAA (National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration – a division of the National Weather Service, NWS). I drink my coffee quickly while it is still very hot, then wash, brush my teeth, apply sun screen and leave the cabin to ascend to the bridge to begin preparations there while Nancy sips her coffee, cleans up the galley, makes the bed and does her morning personal grooming. On the bridge I wipe all the surfaces if they are covered by dew (usually), uncover the instrument panel, and then, in the large storage area underneath this panel, I turn off the propane tank, retrieve the cushion for the helm seat, and switch the radio antenna from the lower helm station in the cabin to the upper helm station on the bridge. I unfold the round wooden table we use for chart work and put it in its place behind the helm seat. Next I go below to get the navigational instruments (the VHF radio, the GPS receiver, the radar) and mount them in their brackets on the panel. I descend to the cabin one last time and tell Nancy all is ready up above. Then I shut down the generator and start our main engine, the six-cylinder Perkins diesel that has performed so well for us. Nancy takes the charts, the cruising guides and the binoculars, and climbs the steps to the bridge to take the helm. I go to the bow of the boat, unwrap the anchor rode from the samsonpost, and retrieve the anchor while Nancy moves the boat slowly forward. Finally, using the electric windlass, I break the anchor free of the bottom and bring it aboard while washing off mud with the hose connected to our salt water washdown pump. Nancy turns the boat and steers it back to the main channel of the Sassafras while I hose down the deck and make sure all is properly secured for the day's travels. Then I go to the bridge and usually take the helm while Nancy refers to the charts and directs our course. When we are cruising regularly and doing this every day we can usually get underway in an hour, but we were a little out of practice on this morning and it was not until 8:30 before we were once again in the main channel of the river and heading back to the bay.

    After we left the Sassafras we again followed the main shipping channel of the bay southward. In a few miles we came abreast of a small bay opening to the east that was known as Still Pond. This was another possible anchorage that we had never explored, preferring in the past to anchor in the mouth of Worton Creek just a few more miles to the south, which we soon reached. Below Worton Creek the bay opens into a large body of water over eight miles wide. By late morning the temperature had become quite warm, perhaps over 80, but the wind remained calm and the water flat despite the size of the bay. As we continued down the channel we were finally able to distinguish the Chesapeake Bay Bridge miles away through the haze. This high long bridge, which connects Kent Island to the east with the Maryland mainland near Annapolis in the west, was very memorable to us, and we talked of our first cruise south in 1993 when the weather was very much the same and I cooked breakfast while Nancy steered the boat down the shipping channel toward the center span of the bridge. This morning, however, we turned to the east to enter the three-mile wide mouth of the Chester River.

    The Chester enters the bay by making a large J-shaped bend around a long peninsula called Eastern Neck. We stayed in the center of the river and followed it around the bend, a distance of about eight miles, until we were headed north between Eastern Neck Island and Tilghman Neck on the Maryland mainland to the east. All of this was new water to us. As we cruised northward, and then northeast on this big river, we were excited to see so many places inviting exploration, such as Grays Inn Creek and Langford Creek (really a river) on our left, and Reed Creek and the Corsica River on our right. However our excitement was dampened by an infestation of small flies that swarmed all over us in the hot still October afternoon. Beyond the mouth of the Corsica the Chester River became narrower and the flies seemed to be fewer. On the left side of the river there was a significant bay known as Comegys Bight that extends more than a mile from the main river channel. The chart showed the bay to be adequately deep almost to the end where Comegys Creek enters, and we decided to anchor there for the night rather than go on to Chestertown, which was still at least two hours away, against the strong current of the Chester through unfamiliar waters.

    That night's anchorage in Comegys Bight was unforgettable. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that, in retrospect, it was even a turning point in our lives. We cautiously steered the boat as deep into the bight as we dared and set our anchor in about seven feet of water, a quarter-mile from the marsh where Comegys Creek enters. It was 3 p.m. The remainder of the afternoon we crabbed off the stern, finally using the crab traps we had previously bought. On her first try Nancy caught a large beautiful blue crab and we immediately started to plan a big crab boil for dinner. Incomprehensibly, that was the only crab we caught for the remainder of the afternoon. We returned him to his element and resigned ourselves to our previously planned dinner of ham with artichokes au gratin. By 6 p.m. the wind picked up out of the north, the air became almost immediately somewhat cooler and noticeably drier. At dusk we noticed several flocks of Canada geese flying over the boat and we heard their haunting calls. We knew we were on the Chesapeake and it was fall.

    We awoke at 7:30 in the morning to the loud honking of geese, a brisk north wind and a cool 64 degrees in the cabin. What a glorious, golden, beautiful day it was. We donned our sweat suits to keep warm and took our coffee up to the bridge so that we could feel the full crispness of this fall morning. Geese were everywhere in the sky and in the marshes at the head of the bight. Their honking was constant and unbelievably loud. As we listened and watched, immersed in these sounds and sights, something disturbed the geese in the marshes and they rose in great numbers, filling the sky like a cloud, gabbling and complaining loudly. It was a thrilling experience and we sat entranced.

    We decided that we would delay our departure for Chestertown and "take a Sunday" on this, our first truly fall morning on the water. According to our tradition, then, we made weak Bloody Marys. We took these up to the bridge to drink and talk in the warming sunlight. We did not play our usual music, an opera normally, deciding to replace this with the music of the geese. Later I cooked an open-faced omelet and bacon, which we consumed with a glass of cold white wine. Then we rested for a while, surrounded by the shimmering sunlight and the sounds of the geese.

    A little after noon we started the engine, retrieved our anchor and headed up-river for Chestertown. It was a windy ride, getting cooler as we went, but the river was comparatively sheltered and narrow, though the channel was easily followed and deep (at places the chart showed depths as much as 50 feet). We wore jackets on the bridge and I even wore gloves to warm my hands as I handled the wheel. What a new experience this was! We thought of the many times friends in Cape May would tell us, when we had to put our boat in storage in August so that we could return to our jobs in Colorado, that we were missing the best time for boating when we could not enjoy the fall. We knew now they were right.

    By mid-afternoon we had moored the boat in a shallow narrow slip in Kibler's Marina on the Chestertown waterfront. The main part of the town was in easy walking distance from the marina. The cruising guide referred to Chestertown as "a jewel of a small town" and "one of the most charming towns on the Chesapeake." It was easy to see why. We walked on tree-lined brick sidewalks past restored 18^th century brick buildings, some owned by Washington College. The center of town, several blocks away from the waterfront, surrounded a small park and we were lucky enough to find that we had arrived in Chestertown on one of its "market days." There were numbers of food and craft booths set up around the park, and we walked around town eating a "crab cone" we had purchased from one of the booths. Finally, we had our taste of Chesapeake Bay blue crab. Later in the evening we had a full seafood feast at the excellent restaurant next to the marina. Afterward, we relaxed in the boat, full and happy and satisfied, and we ran our electric heater in the cabin because it was such a cool night.

1800 Days – Seg. 6 Ch. 2 Pg. 1-4

Chapter 2 - The Leap of Faith

 

    I can remember so clearly how Nancy told all my doctors at Sun Coast Hospital in Florida in late 1999, when I was trying to recover from such a long and devastating illness, trying to gain enough strength to walk with my portable bottle of oxygen, how they had to make sure that I was strong enough to make the "Leap of Faith" before I could be discharged, and she would explain that, in order to get home, we had to step from the marina dock onto the deck of our boat, and how this was sometimes a long step, even a jump, when the wind was blowing the boat away from the dock. For some reason the doctors, especially Dr. Namey, were captivated by this term, and soon all the nursing staff and all my visitors were aware of Nancy's "Leap of Faith". But as I look back on everything that has transpired I realize that the true "Leap of Faith," the one that was so huge and irreversible, was made by Nancy and me together in that spring of 1996, when Nancy quit her job, we sold almost all we owned at auction, and we moved irrevocably onto our boat Summer School as our only home, to cruise the east coast and follow the seasons for as long as our meager funds and my failing health would last. We did this on Monday, May 13, 1996, almost exactly one year after the day we had left Marathon in the Florida Keys to bring our boat north as part of our move to Easton.

    Following my night at Youell's Oyster House, we were not able to find the time to return to our boat for more than two weeks. Nancy was kept busy with her classes and responsibilities at the college and I continued to work on my one course and see to the remaining tasks involved with our relocation. During these days the weather turned to early fall with the leaves showing the first hints of color. I was reveling in being in the east again in the fall, among the old established towns dotting the picturesque countryside surrounding Easton. We did find enough time to take some drives along some of the small country roads in the area, including the beautiful road that winds next to the Delaware River, in our continuing efforts to get to know the region, and these brief outings were lovely in the early fall weather. But our delight in exploring the land in the color and coolness of fall was to pale in comparison to our reactions to our first fall cruise.

    It was on Friday night, September 29, when we once again drove the 140 miles through the traffic past Philadelphia to our boat at Summit North. Although the weekend saw wonderful fall weather we did not take the boat out because we were busy getting ready for this cruise we were calling our "Inaugural Fall Cruise." Lafayette had a fall break in classes for one week that was scheduled to begin the following weekend and we were planning to take at least a few days to travel somewhere new in the northern part of the Chesapeake. Never before did we have the opportunity to use our boat in the fall, the favorite season for both of us. We began our boating in Cape May in the summer. Our cruise south on the ICW in 1993 was in the middle of the summer with record-breaking heat in the southeast. And of course once in South Florida, the Bahamas and the Florida Keys, it was always summer as far as the temperatures were concerned. Then there was our trip from Marathon to Summit North, again in the summer and with Heat Wave 95 that followed our arrival. The prospects of cruising with cool air in our faces when we might be wearing jackets and the warmth of the sun would be welcome, of sleeping with the boat open and no generator or air conditioner running to spoil the stillness, of waking in the mornings when a warm sweater and hot coffee would be welcome, all of these we eagerly anticipated.

    We occupied the weekend preparing the boat, checking and readying the various systems (batteries, charger, generator, dinghy and outboard, air conditioner, navigation equipment, etc.), shopping for needed provisions and studying our charts. Although we had traveled through the upper Chesapeake numbers of times we had never explored any of the numerous interesting destinations such as Annapolis or St. Michaels, Maryland, which we had recently visited by land and enjoyed so much. At first we decided we would visit Baltimore's inner harbor and stay there a few days, but as we continued to evaluate the various possibilities we opted once again for a less crowded and more remote destination. We decided we would explore the Chester River on the eastern shore. The Chester is the northernmost of the long deep rivers that flow through the rural eastern shore of the bay. We read that it was rich in history and scenic charm and comparatively free of recreational boat traffic. It was supposed to be easily navigable for 28 miles up-river to the small college town of Chestertown. This was farther from Summit North than Baltimore, but it was still within range for a short cruise, and with our love for college towns, how could we resist? Our plans were set and we prayed for good weather.

**********

    Nancy had no classes on Fridays and she was able to re-arrange her office hours to allow us to leave Easton on Friday morning. We were at the boat by noon, had a quick lunch and left our slip with mounting excitement by 2 p.m. Luckily the tide was almost high and we had no trouble navigating through the shallow marina channel into the C&D Canal. Our luck continued as we found the strong current of the canal running with us, enabling us to make good time despite our late start. I pushed the throttle up to 2000 rpm and the GPS indicated our speed "over the ground" to be 9 knots, which was almost flying for a slow trawler such as Summer School. It was October 6, sunny and quite warm for this early fall day, but with great anticipation we were beginning our "Inaugural Fall Cruise."

    Given our quick pace we reached the western end of the canal where it empties into the Elk River in little more than an hour. Although the Elk River is comparatively narrow the shore afforded more interesting scenery than the dug trench of the canal. We passed Town Point, where the traffic signals for the canal were posted, and then we were opposite the broad mouth of the shallow Bohemia River, a favorite boating destination for dockmaster Doug. We were looking for a place to anchor for the night but decided to continue in the warm late afternoon. In four more miles we passed Turkey Point and entered the Chesapeake Bay proper. The bay is about four miles wide here. We continued to follow the main shipping channel, over 35 feet deep, straight, well-marked by large red and green buoys, and easy. Four more miles brought us opposite Grove Point, which marks the northern mouth of the Sassafras River, here over three miles wide, and we decided to turn into the river. This had been the scene of our very first boating experiences on Summer School when we had stayed upriver on the Sassafras after we purchased the boat in July 1992. Somehow it seemed fitting that we should pick this river for our anchorage on our first exploratory cruise of the Chesapeake more than three years later. We wanted to have adequate shelter in our anchorage in case the winds got up, so we followed the Sassafras upriver for about four more miles until the river narrowed down and we rounded a bend near a narrow spit of beach that projected into the river on the north side. On the opposite side of the river, near the mouth of Turner Creek, the chart showed the water depth to hold to nine feet almost up to the bank, which we could see was relatively high. We crossed the river and cautiously headed toward this high bank until we were well within its shelter and almost a half mile off the main boating channel. Here we dropped our anchor, made sure it was well-set in the soft bottom, and settled in for a quiet dinner and a peaceful night. We had come about 25 miles. It was 5:30 p.m. and a warm 78 degrees, but it promised to be cool enough overnight to allow us to open the boat and sleep without the generator or air conditioner. We were cruising once again.

1800 Days – Seg.5 Ch.1 Pg. 17-23: END OF CHAPTER

    When you have a disease such as leukemia, which, doctors have told you, is incurable, progressively debilitating as it slowly destroys your immune system, and eventually fatal, it is difficult not to make the disease the focus of your life, to worry about it almost to the exclusion of all else. During the years between my initial diagnosis in 1988, and the summer of 1995 when we were at Summit North, I had taken numerous medications to deal with various symptoms. I had undergone two courses of oral chemotherapy and experienced three hospitalizations, the last one of which, in 1993, was long and nearly fatal. But I had learned, through the experience of cruising and living on Summer School with Nancy, especially during our eight month cruise of Florida and the Bahamas in 1994, the importance of looking outside myself and the value of what we came to call a life-centering passion, which, in our case, was living on a small boat. I was now much less preoccupied with my leukemia and I felt healthier and was taking less medication than I had for years. Though I was still taking drugs to control my hypertension, I had even been able to discontinue all medications for my stomach ulcer, something that had been a problem for the previous ten years. I think that perhaps I had become complacent, that I had been feeling so good for more than two years that I did not give my general health the care and attention it needed. Certainly, it seems that with all the boat work I did in the searing heat of that summer, I failed to guard against dehydration.

    Three days after we returned from St. Michaels I awoke at 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning with severe pain in my lower abdomen. By 4 a.m. the pain had spread to my back and had become much worse. I was vomiting and could no longer walk. Nancy telephoned 911 and I could hear her trying to explain how to find the marina and how to find our boat, which was at a considerable distance from the marina entrance and parking lot. Then she called the overnight security guard at the marina on the VHF radio, using the Coast Guard mandated stand-by channels 16 and 9, to alert him to our emergency and the arrival of the ambulance. I can remember the confusion and noise when the two emergency medical technicians entered the boat and tried to get me out onto the dock, and I can remember being pushed up the dock on the gurney calling for Nancy, every bump giving me a spasm of pain. My one memory of the ambulance ride to the hospital, which was about 25 miles away, was of one of the technicians trying to start an IV, unsuccessfully, and me telling him not to try, that an IV was hard to start on me under the best of conditions.

    Sometime later in the morning I became conscious in a hospital room, an IV needle fastened to my arm, and Nancy sitting beside me. When I had a strong pain she could give me relief with a morphine pump that she could use to inject morphine through the IV tube. She told me that I had been diagnosed with kidney stones, that the diagnosis was confirmed by a CT scan given to me earlier in the morning, that I was being given a lot of liquid intravenously and we were waiting to see if I could pass the stone without using any surgical procedures. Later in the day I met Dr. Mahmood Sadeghee into whose care I had been assigned. He confirmed what Nancy had told me and added that my stone was lodged in the ureter of my left kidney and that, if I could not pass it in about a day, it would have to be removed by ureteroscopy. This procedure was done on Friday morning and I was then able to return to our boat, tender and sore but functional.

    I had to enter the hospital again one week later as a surgical outpatient to have the stent that had been left in the ureter removed. When Dr. Sadeghee tried to do this procedure without general anesthetic, the attempt was unsuccessful and caused extreme pain. Finally, anesthetic was administered, Dr. Sadeghee surgically enlarged the entrance to the urethra to permit the insertion of the ureteroscope, and the stent was removed. For days after this procedure it was difficult and painful to walk, and it would be weeks before I felt recovered.

    I found this whole experience not only painful, but sobering, even a little frightening, in the arbitrary suddenness with which my life had been changed. Now, in addition to the problems of trying to control my hypertension, the possibility of recurrent stomach pain due to my ulcer, or back pain due to my herniated disc, and of course the continued threat posed by the leukemia, I had to worry about continued problems with kidney stones, for I was told that it was likely that they would indeed recur, especially if I failed to consume adequate quantities of water. The whole experience had been so painful that I found the prospect of recurrence to be alarming. But the most disturbing consequence of this experience was not to be revealed until many months later when I discovered that Dr. Sadeghee had neglected to inform me of the most serious condition that was revealed by the CT scan, the existence of a prominent abdominal aortic aneurysm, an omission that could have had fatal results.

**********

    While I was on the boat recovering from the kidney stone removal we received our telephone call telling us that our furniture would be delivered to our Easton house on Wednesday morning. We had to drive to Easton on Tuesday, supervise the delivery of our belongings on Wednesday, return to the Delaware hospital on Friday morning for the stent removal, and then go back to Easton on the weekend to begin the process of settling into our new home, new town and new life.

    It is amazing what a long and complicated and difficult process it is to relocate, especially to a different state in a different area of the country. The college had already arranged for our electricity and water, but we had to get telephone service as soon as possible, then contract with an internet service provider and arrange for cable television service. Of course we had to arrange for mail delivery and change addresses on everything. We had to locate the usual conveniences such as a hardware store, a dry cleaners, a source of computer supplies, furniture and appliance stores (we needed a washer, dryer and refrigerator), the major department stores (Sears we found across the river in Phillipsburg, NJ). We had to arrange for lawn care and find a source for firewood. We had to get fuel oil delivered so that we could have heat in our house when needed. We had to find sources for beer, wine and liquor, and determine what rules and hours applied. There were several chores associated with our cars. We had to have them registered in Pennsylvania and get new plates, but this, we found, could be done only after they passed required safety inspections, which necessitated locating a reliable and trustworthy car service shop (the TransAm failed and thus had to be serviced). Of course we had to get new drivers licenses, which meant, in Pennsylvania, that we had to pass written examinations (unbelievably, I failed mine on the first try). We had to identify a new insurance agent and get new car insurance. And of course I felt that it was important for me, as soon as possible, to find a new family doctor, identify a drug store that could provide my medications using my drug insurance company, and find a new hematologist or oncologist who could follow my leukemia. It took weeks to complete this process that we began on Monday, August 21, when we moved off the boat and into our faculty house.

    We were pleased with this house rented to us by Lafayette. It was a large old brick house, sitting up a steep bank above the street level, with a wonderful covered front porch made of stone, with stone columns supporting the roof. It had old-fashioned hot water heat with radiators in every room, a fireplace in the living room, a formal dining room, a small kitchen, two bathrooms and five other rooms from which we could choose our bedroom and home office. There was a full basement surrounded by walls of stone that formed the foundation (and leaked water during every rain, we discovered), and a shed at the rear of the house that we could use to store our firewood. Best of all was the location on Parsons Street immediately adjacent to the Lafayette campus and only a short walk from the engineering building.

    Within two days after we moved into the house, Nancy became immersed in her new job. I too became focused on working for the college because I had agreed to teach a sophomore course in circuit analysis as an adjunct associate professor. Initially we were both excited to be teaching at Lafayette, which was so completely different from the University of Southern Colorado. Lafayette was a much smaller school in terms of student enrollment, which was near 2000. Yet it was much bigger in terms of endowments and resources. The campus was comprised of about 60 buildings spread over 340 beautiful acres with large old trees and quiet walking paths. The college was founded by the citizens of Easton in 1826 and it had established a long and nationally recognized tradition of excellence, being consistently ranked in the top 2% of the country's independent colleges. There were over 180 full-time faculty, about the same as at USC where the student enrollment was more than twice that of Lafayette, and, in sharp contrast to USC, all the regular faculty held their doctorate degrees. Nancy, with her academic qualifications, fit in easily, but I felt somewhat out of place with only a masters degree, though with only one exception, I seemed to be readily accepted by the engineering faculty in my position as an adjunct professor.

    As we continued to work on the various tasks required to complete the relocation process we quickly fell into a comfortable routine. In the mornings Nancy would walk to her office in the engineering building while I would drive to the nearby health and fitness center where I had taken out membership, determined not to lose the good physical conditioning I had acquired during the past year. We would meet at home for lunch after which Nancy would return to the campus. Since my classes were on Monday and Thursday nights I had the afternoons free to work on domestic chores or perhaps grading papers or class preparations. At night, though Nancy often had work she needed to do, we continued our practice of quitting everything around ten o'clock to share our thoughts and ideas and experiences over nightcaps before bedtime. Even through the early days of our residence in Easton, when so much was new, the subject of much of our talk during these quiet times, was our boat and the life aboard Summer School that we had learned to live.

    On Tuesday, September 12, I found myself in Youell's Oyster House, a good small restaurant on Cattrell Street, the main street on College Hill, which was what locals termed the Lafayette campus and surrounding residential area. The restaurant was only a few blocks from our house. It had excellent food and an intimate and casual atmosphere. On this particular night Nancy was required to participate in a dinner meeting with colleagues and students as part of a "team building" exercise. I used the time over a cocktail waiting for dinner, and over a leisurely coffee afterward, to catch up writing in my journal.

    The previous weekend we had stayed on our boat at Summit North, the first time we had been there since moving into our house, and I wrote of our reactions. We both felt such joy and relief to be once again on our boat, going to sleep in our small double bed in the aft cabin. On Saturday we took the boat out for a brief run, the first time we had moved the boat in a month. The feelings of exhilaration continued as we sat up on the bridge, carefully found our way out the shallow entrance channel of the marina and entered the swift current of the canal. We went only as far as Summit Bridge before returning, a round trip distance of only five miles, yet it was enough to bring back a flood of memories of our cruising life. On Sunday we drove the two and a half hours back to our house and jobs in Easton, but our emotional reactions to this weekend were strong and lasting. I wrote that Nancy, especially, was so happy to be once again on the boat, much happier than in her day-to-day life "at home." I wrote that we both felt that our boat was really our true home and that what we needed was to find some way to allow Nancy to retire so that we could live permanently on this wonderful boat of ours. And this was my first hint of the truly fundamental changes that were to come into our lives in the next months.