last night?, Max asked. Yeah, I said, it was the same hose we bought in Guadeloupe a year ago at that hardware store. Some French fisherman is going to be pissed off today. Yeah, but maybe he will light his gear next time. We returned again and again to our question of Bermuda versus New York. Could this be our last passage? Could it be over in 14 days? Were we ready to be home? Would we not enjoy the break in Bermuda or would it just be another stop where we had to set up the dingy, move water and fuel, check into immigration, spend hundreds on all of the above, just to see a harbor where we have already seen and visit beaches when we really would prefer to be in NYC surrounded by friends and family, celebrating the greatest achievement of our lives, with little more work to do. Again, we postponed our decision, settled into a comfortable broad reach and let the miles reduce. After a dinner of chow mein noodles with peanut sauce on our seventh night we sat on the bowsprit and watched the sun sink, an event that was happening later and later, reminding us that we were headed for the New York summer. Talk of Bermuda had been fading naturally, overtaken by anticipations of home. Too many sentences started with I can't wait or I am so excited to... We exhausted ourselves on talk of home and then banished talk of home. We tried to focus on what we would miss about this life. We looked back at our boat sailing along vigorously in the breeze, sails full, slightly heeled, on a perfect course. I thought about the number of miles Tortuga had managed in such elegant balance while we were lost in our daydreams. I wondered if I had taken it for granted. I questioned whether I had cherished every moment or if that was even possible. On day nine I took down the empty fruit hammocks. This time they would not be refilled. It was time to start saying goodbye to our life at sea. We no longer spoke of Bermuda. The idea faded out and the thought of stopping even became ridiculous. Remember when we wanted to go to Bermuda? and we would laugh. Each day I slowed down to appreciate a moment, a practice, a tactic for negotiating life at sea. It was time to process the end. Everything we did we did with an understanding that life would soon be very different. Instead of helping each other bathe by dumping buckets of sea water over each other's head, we would disappear into our hot showers separately. Instead of strapping ourselves into the kitchen for dinner preparations, having already assembled the necessary ingredients, we would be casually cooking in a flat room, glass of wine on a flat counter, gravity once more our ally. We would go back to
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