Behold the next generation of sailors
Issue 5 : Mar/Apr 1999
Spring is a time to contemplate beginnings. Sailors in the higher latitudes throw off tarps and start preparations for another season. Some among them are beginning their first season. That is a special time.
We get a lot of letters at Good Old Boat. Once a day we retire to the kitchen table for “mail call.” The letters are a high point of our day. One beginning sailor sent several letters. The first announced, “I’ve taken up sailing.” It was followed by one that said, “I can go out by myself now.” Both were remarkable for the joy and sheer power that radiated from the simple lines. The power of an enthusiastic and determined beginning will not be denied. This one will be a sailor.
There will be joy, frustration, confusion, and things that never will be fully explained or understood. They will be fully accepted though with the grace that sailors display when being humbled by a sunrise or a breaking wave. This letter writer and beginning sailor will trade bits of power and enthusiasm for the knowledge of the voyage and believe it to be a favorable exchange.
A sheer rock bluff forms the southeast side of the narrow inlet to Pike’s Bay in the Slate Islands in Lake Superior. Two small trees are growing out of the side of the rock. They began from seeds in a crack. They live about a quarter of a mile from the center of the meteor impact that formed the Slates 400 million years ago. They are located where the caribou can’t reach them. They will grow.
The power of beginning is an amazing thing. All is new, nothing is commonplace, nothing is taken for granted. It is all to be studied. It is all important.
In time, our letter writer will be an old salt. The power of his beginning will be traded for knowledge, skill, and experience. Other kinds of power will be found. There is no doubt of this outcome. Just as there is no doubt that the little trees in Pike’s Bay are going to split the rock.
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