At sea ...

In all my aspirations to go off sailing, I never realized just how dark and empty the ocean can be at night. Lat night, standing on the bridge like Leonardo DiCaprio, I gazed into the dark, silent ocean - it was mostly cloudy and windy, and the wake of the ship is all you could see. I then decided it would be a little unnerving to do this on a little sailboat with only 1/2" of fiberglass between you and the deep.

We're "sailing" (I don't know why we use the term - there's no sailing involved), off the coast of Cuba, a respectful distance from their territorial waters, heading east. Once we round the island, we'll turn south towards our first port of call - Cartagena, Columbia.

I would have photos attached to these blog posts, but for now I'll just post text. Internet access from the ship is $0.75 a minute, so about all I can do is sync my email - nevermind uploading photos (will post here when I get home).  So far, I've run across no free access to WiFi in the USA, but at the hotel and two airports in Canada it was free for the taking. I wonder if that says something about the economies of the two countries - one finds itself relatively rich (so giving stuff that costs almost nothing for free makes sense), and the other is scrambling to make a buck any and everywhere it can.