A Pirate Looks at...35

This post is a bit of a departure from previous ones. I thought I might offer a bit of self-reflection. Times...they are a changin

At this point in most 30-something men's life- chaos, flux, movement, growth and retraction seem to rule the day.

Like the sand that chases the receeding surf from beneath your feet, I find it difficult to still myself enough to take a personal inventory. What it is that I am missing, I cannot readily identify. Oh sure, everyone needs more money, more fun, more time, more more more, myself included, but that's not quite it.

But I think I'm feeling something else, its here, been here the whole time, a missing piece in my own stock.

It's a recent personal revelation..shared with my one's of readers, but I've discovered that I miss her, my sea.

I grew up on her, with her. So I thought I'd list out a few things I've done with her and try to figure out how to expand this list several times over!

1. I sailed straight thru the Gulf of Mexico, Texas Coast to Key West, several times
2. I've fished her waters in 4 different countries
3. I've come close to my earthly demise no less than 5 times around her
4. I've been pulled by her currents helplessly out to sea
5. I've SCUBA'd
6. alone
7. at night
8. I've fished just off of her banks in Nicaragua, only a stones throw from enormous alligators who would try and steal my catch before I could boat it
9. I've spearfished
10. I've come face to face, alone, in the open water with a shark bigger than I
11. I've surfed in 3 different countries
12. I've raced sailboats
13. I've come in last place more times than first
14. I've been in seas so rough that I had to strap myself into a bunk to sleep to keep from being thrown out
15. I've seen hurricanes
16. I've shared the water with water spouts
17. I've never been sea sick
18. I've flown underwater
19. I've boated a 1,100 lb. Marlin, it took 8 hours
20. I've never had sex, with another person, in saltwater
21. I've spent days in caves who's access was hidden underwater
22. I've been alone on an island populated with thousands of iguanas
23. I've seen countless colors of her and beneath her


There is very little to this brief list that was done in the last 10 years. I mean to address that.

-Gringo