I love sailing. For me, it offers the ultimate sense of freedom. It is full of possibility, free of boundaries, offering limitless horizons.

At times it can also be deeply uncomfortable, wet, cold and, frankly, miserable but it is worth it for the feeling of adventure, for golden ocean sunsets and for escape from life’s sometimes stifling confinements.

Let’s sail away, let’s cast astray

Until the moonshine’s ghostly ray

Steals the shadows from the day

And lights its spell on ocean’s spray.

–

We’ll know not where, we’ll know not when,

We’ll aim alone for space and fen

And ride the silk breeze like the wren,

Singing to tides’ mystic pen.

–

We’ll rule the world with sails unfurled

Unto us their secrets hurled,

Then whipped into a thousand pearls

And back to sea’s dark heart encurled.

–

We’ll grab a rope, we’ll grab a smoke,

We’ll leave behind the rules that choke

And nurse the dreams that life has broke

With fair winds’ whisk and seas that soak.

–

Cradled in her green embrace,

Her proud waves dance with modest grace

Beneath their veils of bubbling lace

Then leap to kiss us on the face.

–

We’re free at last to sit and gasp

As ocean’s inky fingers grasp

Our lives, bound tightly to the mast

Swaying strong against the past.

–

And each fair breeze we try to seize

Lures us with flirtatious ease

To where the gleeful currents wheeze

Ready to extract their fees.

–

To bear us helpless towards the shore,

So once again we pitch and moor,

And hoist our sea dreams back before

We’re reeled and netted at life’s door.