I’ve been struggling with this post for almost two weeks, investing hours in several drafts and discarding them. Why should it be so hard for me to come up with something other than, “…where the heart is”? I’ve thrown out the summary of my family life, the usual connection for a home. That had metastitisized to include recounting of the many places I’ve been with Mabrouka and the things I’ve done in her company. That’s all more elaborately included in past posts anyway and would have bored you to death.

No, I think it’s closer to the tone that clamors to find its way out just to say that home is the echo of the memories that reverberate within Mabrouka’s bulkheads, the visions that reflect off the many horizons that have been seen from Mabrouka’s decks. I witnessed my children coming of age aboard Mabrouka, not only on the many cruises we shared along the Southern California coast and among the bays and channels of the San Juan Islands, but along the coast of Mexico and across the Pacific. My brothers and dearest friends shared old memories and made new ones in Mabrouka’s cockpit, anticipating new anchorages and, indeed, entire new countries ahead. New friendships were forged in those anchorages from ingots of fine steel that are shared within a cruising community that spans the world.

If I’d purchased Mabrouka twenty-six years ago just to spend my fortune on her and set off to sea, I don’t think she’d have been much more than a thing to me, easier to abandon to eventual dereliction in this remote Pacific isle. As trusted a craft as she might have been, she wouldn’t have become as invested with memory and heart as she has. Mabrouka is not just a yacht, she IS my home.

[Administrative note: Some of you have been so kind as to have commented on these posts. Please do me the additional favor of using the comment option at the very bottom of the actual blog page for that. It pulls all your thoughts to a single place where I can better browse through them when I build later posts. Even more useful to me would be that you use the block at the bottom of the right hand margin of these posts to sign up for future posts for which you’ll get email notice. At present I’m trying to broaden the blog’s reach by posting in as many social media platforms as I can, but that is becoming more and more scattered of a method as Facebook loses followers. Thanks all, Roy]