Maquinna's Poop du Jour

Saltwater in the Blood

One of the things I miss most about home is how close I was to the ocean. I didn't have to be down at the shore everyday, but I liked knowing it was nearby, and looking out my window to see it. I could see all the way across the Strait of Juan de Fuca towards the Olympic Peninsula of Washington state. I watched freighters and cruise ships and sailboats, and sometimes nothing at all, just light spilling across the water.

I'm lucky that in my current situation, we have access to a family place on Cape Cod that is also close to the water, and we go down there as frequently as we can. It doesn't feel quite the same to me as the ocean back home. I still like it very much - it's just different, somehow. Less wild, and yet less familiar too.

For three summers I worked aboard the ferries that travel between the island and the mainland. These are very large passenger ferries, carrying 1500 or so passengers and about 350 cars, on each run, when full up - and they were usually full up in the summertime. It was good money for a university student and a fairly mindless gig, and the crews would frequently head out to the pub together after each shift. The best part, though, was just being out on the water for eight hours a day. I could step out on the deck and feel the spray, or daydream about buying one of the little houses on the shore of one of the smaller islands that the ferries wove between.

I don't think I've left it behind forever. Some part of me knows that ultimately I will end up back where I started.

posted by Maquinna @ 9:56 a.m.