You wouldn’t know it from this blog site, but I’ve been in a wonderful rhythm of writing. At long last I’ve been able to wrangle my scrambled thoughts and bring them to bear on a new draft of my novel-in-progress. I have mild concerns that this routine will prove fleeting once I’m back more regularly on the road, so to speak. Still, my recent efforts have me optimistic about finishing a substantial rewrite before the end of the year.

One of the gratifying elements of re-immersing myself in this work is to be reminded just how much (thought, time spent writing, reading and re-reading, take your pick) has already gone into it. One of the more unheralded curses of having a poor memory is that my mind tends to gloss over large swaths of my past, especially if I have no concrete souvenirs (for example, let’s say randomly, a published book or perhaps a note from a psychiatrist saying, “You’re cured! Thanks for hanging in there while we spun the pharmacological roulette wheel all those times.”) to hang my hat on. I reflect back and wonder how it is already near the close of 2019 and question what the hell I’ve been doing for the past good number of years. Although those feelings still do loom large, I am immensely heartened to re-introduce myself to this would-be novel and trace just how far it has come. Granted, I accept that it may never be an even passably good literary work, but the writing is unmistakably my own and the ruminations expressed within still resonate deeply with me.

So, it has taken me two paragraphs to say, I’ve been writing. What else have I been doing to whittle away the last of the summer hours? I’m in the water on a nearly daily basis. What a pleasure to live just a short stroll from myriad surf breaks. I’ve been paddle boarding–sometimes with Momo, to her pointed chagrin. We take very long walks and pretend that we are a part of the vibrant morass. Some repairs on the boat have been enacted, although the project to-do list overall has grown not shrank. I read (various books, although William Finnegan’s magical Barbarian Days deserves its own post. It looms large in my just-barely-larger cranium).

So. Time at last to move on. Not without a tug of sadness at leaving behind a place that has a little piece of my heart, but a general southward timetable to keep notwithstanding, the last week has featured in earnest that familiar restless chant from within: you’re getting too comfortable. While I resent that dour summary of the matter–I do freely admit that my little slice of the Santa Cruz/Capitola of life has been a delight–it is undeniable that to stay longer would be to succumb to trepidation about the challenges of my voyages ahead. Presumably there are other delights in wait for me, but they must first be earned.

My itinerary for the coming week looks something like this:

• Capitola to Monterey. A lovely few hours. I’ll anchor off the public beach for a night.
• Monterey to San Simeon. Cautiously expected duration 16-18 hours. I’ll leave at about 2am to arrive in the light and avoid (perhaps?) confused conditions around Point Sur
• San Simeon to Morro Bay. Maybe 4 hours door to door.
• I don’t expect to linger in Morro Bay for more than a couple days before moving south again (rounding Point Conception, anchoring at Cojo, and then coming through the Santa Barbara channel towards Ventura, which should provide a great jumping off point for the Channel Islands.)