alas, still in:  Glades Boat Storage yard, Moore Haven, FL

What a surprise! Under the dirt and mildew of the past two years, it's still our old familiar Windom. And as our boat gradually emerged, so did our memories.

This boat was our home for three and a half years - and when you live in a place for a while, you get used to it. You put certain things in certain places. You remember to duck your head when you go through the doorway that's just an inch too short. You know where to reach for the light switch even if you can't see it in the dark. It's home, right?

So we found ourselves saying things to each other such as, "Can you put this in the junk drawer?" and, "I think it's in the coffin." (The "junk drawer" is not a drawer at all, but an odd-shaped space behind the forwardmost cushion of the starboard-side settee, and the "coffin" is the storage area under our bed, large enough for us to easily stash a body or two.) We only knocked our heads a few times getting in and out of the nav station, and our bodies knew where to find latches and switches even when our brains hadn't thought about them for ages. We found the clothes we'd left aboard, and the books. Little things would trigger memories of times we hadn't thought about in ages; I was cleaning the companionway steps, for example, and suddenly I remembered the windy day at Buena Vista Cay in the Jumentos islands of the Bahamas when I stripped and refinished them while Britt was off fishing.

Our boat's not the only thing bringing back memories. Tom and Cindy, who we met in the Caribbean, are preparing their boat Feather to go back in the water, too. We all went out to dinner in LaBelle, and reminisced about going out in St. Martin.

It's all familiar, and yet at the same time unfamilar. Yes, this was our home - but we've been living in a different home now for several years, and our old patterns are tempered with the new ones we've developed. It's still the same boat, but two years of hard living have made some changes. I guess that somewhere in the back of my mind was the idea that we'd just step instantly into the old world we had, as though we'd never been away, but realistically I know that's not possible. As the saying goes, you can't step in the same river twice. Heck, you can't step in the same river once. Things change, people change, the world changes. The river goes by, fast, and it doesn't stop.

But change is okay. After all, if we didn't feel we could cope with the unfamiliar, we would never have gone cruising in the first place. We may have to practice a bit, at first, but we'll figure out our boat again. Many of our friends have quit cruising, or have gone on to other oceans, but we'll meet new ones. I'm sure the Bahamas is no longer what we remember (if it ever was!) but I'm also sure it will still be great to get there. So it may not be the same river, but we're anxious to get wet again!