Sometimes the preparation for sea seems to drag on interminably. There are a thousand details to attend to…sometimes the work slows to a crawl for lack of a part or a nut and bolt. Everything conspires to hold you back…it is as if the very earth exerts some mysterious gravitational attraction that seems to sense and resist the boat’s impulse to escape to sea. Once free of this gravitational pull the boat is like a tiny, self contained satellite in a vast, liquid limbo of constant change. Finally there comes the moment when everything is ready…Then the hardest task comes…to break the sweet bonds of love and friendship that bind you to the land. Today is Father’s Day….it marks for me the 25th anniversary of my Dad’s death. I am wearing the belt with the big brass buckle he gave me when I was a little boy…my good luck charm. Farewell for now gentle reader ….there is no email in my little corner of the Bering Sea….