I woke up during the gloaming before dawn to check the anchor and battery levels as I often do and stumbled up into the cockpit. As the haze cleared in my brain I panned our surroundings and remembered that we had somehow sailed Madame Geneva to the middle of a vast desert that had been flooded with sea water. The rock strata here go in all directions. Vertically, in large swooping arcs, occasionally disappearing beneath rubble and shrubs. The lines of the strata are intermittently interrupted by ancient rock walls or terraces. Who scratched out a life, and when or why, in this salty desert it is hard for me to imagine.
I looked off the transom through the aqua blue water with patches of seaweed in the sand 25 feet below and confirmed our holding was good. The batteries were a bit low but the sun would be up soon and our solar panels would pump them back to life. As I turned to go below and maybe sleep a bit longer a sheep bleated at top volume just 25 yards from our transom. If I had been wearing shoes I would’ve jumped out of them. The sheep and I nodded at one another and I went back to grab an extra hour of sleep while she did whatever a sheep living on the moon does.
Kelly and I enjoyed a pot of coffee in the cockpit and while the kids slept in we looked through the charts to see what was next in store for us here. Telascica park is a mere 19 miles up the chain. Sea cliffs, hiking trails, rugged lunar landscapes, sheep. We’re not traveling far today. We’ll choose an anchorage and swim. I promised to make bacon and eggs for lunch. Then we’ll launch the dinghy and set out on foot to see what it’s like hiking in the desert by the sea. Stay tuned. Stay healthy. Much love.
