There's Something Out There!

During our circumnavigation we were privileged to meet an American family on a home built yacht named Sunday Morning. The kids aboard were getting to the stage that the boat was too small for teenagers AND their parents, someone had to go. After all, cruising kids grow up more quickly and they do so with a broad confident view of the world. Cruising parents are proud of this.

As we heard it, one of the boys took a job with a delivery skipper sailing a large schooner from Hawaii to the USA west coast. Alone at the wheel one stormy night he heard faint cries from the foredeck ... a woman was in distress. "Help, help" she was crying. This had to be an illusion, the hallucinating effect of many tired hours at the helm since they were hundreds of miles from any shore. But again and again she cried out for help, her voice clearly distressed. Our friend called the skipper repeatedly until he was finally aroused, dressed and staggered into the cockpit. Together they strained to understand the voice and it's plaintive cry. They both heard it in it's urgency but the skipper's torchlight showed nothing but spray over the deck.

Mystified, the skipper went back to bed and as our friend continued his watch, the voice drew slowly away. At first light and the change of watch they made their way to the foredeck and to their amazement saw a life-ring caught in the pulpit. 

Do you believe that a greater spiritual dimension awaits us as human beings? It is there for those who sail the oceans ..... for that life-ring had been in the water for years, it was covered in barnacles.