Crossing the English Channel ,U.K.-The White Cliffs of Dover
Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
Log · Day 001–110 · 49 Ports · San Pedro → Dover
World Cruise Journey
110 Days, Countless Memories, 49 Incredible Ports
The ship left San Pedro on a grey afternoon. No band. The tugs pushed her out, the pilot went over the side, and then it was just the sea and us and the long way around.
One hundred and ten days. Forty-nine ports. You do not count them at the start. You count them later, when they are behind you and you know what each one cost and what it gave.
The ocean does not care that you are aboard. That is the first thing you learn. The second is that you do not mind.
London's Calling — Our Final Destination
From the Log · Selected Entries
Day 09 · Bora Bora
The water is the color they warn you it is. You do not believe the postcards until you are in it. Then you stop taking pictures. That is how you know.
Day 61 · Komodo
The dragons are real and they are not in a hurry. Neither is anything else on the island. You learn more from a slow animal than a fast one.
Day 84 · Cape Town
We swam with sharks because the guide said it was safe. The guide was right. Being right and feeling right are two different seas.
Day 103 · Dakar
The last coast before the run north. You can smell home from here if you have been gone long enough. You have.
Our Ports of Call
Forty-nine names. Some are just names until you go. Then they are places you carry. The ones marked LOG have a full report — open them and read what happened ashore.
You come up the Channel in the last light. The cliffs are white the way they said they would be. You have seen better cliffs. You have not seen these ones from this boat after this long. That is the difference.
London was calling the whole time. You just could not hear it until Dover.
Then the lines go over, the engines go quiet, and the long way around is behind you. You step off. The ground does not move and you miss it already.
