Despite being on the water for four frustrating days, our time in Duluth was short and to the point.  As a result of the extended time on the water, we had less time to turn around and deliver the boat back to Thunder Bay, and so we needed to keep celebrations short, resupply quickly, and get back on the water.

But our first priority was getting ashore; we were thoroughly annoyed with being on the water, and no one hesitated to help dock the boat and tidy up.  We celebrated (on shore) for a short bit with our complimentary bottle of rum, but most of the crew quickly disappeared with sorely-missed significant others, leaving Terry and I alone to digest what was left of our four-day agony.  We did this with a couple of other sailors – two solo racers who could relate to our pain, one of them being last edition’s winner and this edition’s organizer.  We didn’t sleep that night, but rather sat together under a muted but shared sense of satisfaction, growing content with the hand dealt to us.

Breakfast, some work, reprovisioning, and then back on the water mid-afternoon, facing a 30-hour delivery north-east to Thunder Bay.

Here is where the sum of my experiences began to condense.  After we cleared the Duluth lift-bridge, I set the boat up for a spinnaker-hoist.  Wind was medium strength out of the south – perfect.  I set the pole, hoisted, and trimmed – all while driving.  I was solo sailing a 33-foot race boat, doing it comfortably, and well.

I hadn’t solo sailed since I was 19, and that was on my Dad’s C&C 29 – it had a furling jib, a tiny main, and didn’t have a spinnaker that I can recall.  An X 3/4-ton is a completely – entirely – different sort of creature; and enormous main, certainly no furling gear, a chute, and no autopilot.  But while the details are different, more complicated, the principles remain the same.

So, for what ended up being a generally unpleasant (not to mention a gluttonous use of time, and a burden on my wife and family), I had matured as a person in ways that I did not expect. It’s not what I expected, but I should not be surprised. Time at anything makes you better, and not just better at that thing but usually a better person.

Am I suggesting that ‘doing things’ makes you more moral? It’s not what I intended to say, but Aristotle (for one) would agree with it. Part of being ethical is knowing what choices to make in a given situation for the best possible outcome. To do so requires a wisdom that can only be developed by experience of the world and, by extension, experience of yourself. Do things, and you will learn about yourself as well as how the world works. Making the right choice is simply a matter of bringing that experience and knowledge to bear on the problem at hand.

That was an aside, but I think still speaks to what I got out of the trip; it was difficult, often dangerous, lacking in glory or even happy memory, and yet I gained more from it than any previous trip.