Amigo Net and a Magic Ring

As evening apporaches on our second night at sea, Jon successfully tunes in on a station with our SSB. We are forty miles offshore and have seen nothing but ocean for 36 hours. We listen through brutal static but manage to hear the net moderator welcoming everyone to "Amigo Net". He asks if there are any reports of emergency, medical or otherwise and then begins cruisers check-in. The voices are garbled, the broadcasts are from much farther south, mainland Mexico and the inside of the sea of Cortez . We listen for awhile, only able to decipher about every third word. I hear a woman's voic in the buzzing and crackling and the name "Hotspur". I tug at Jon's sleeve. " I know them!" I squeal. I don't actually KNOW them, exactly, but i feel like i do,because in the months leading up to our adventure I had read several excellent blogs written by cruiser's who were doing just we we were planning to. Now here I was, in the middle of the ocean, far enough South to actually hear the voice of one of these people! I cannot express how exciting it was. It was this feeling of suddenly realizing we are actually DOING this thing. This PLAN that dominated our thoughts and minds, every day from morning to night, if Jon wasn't prepping an audition or working on set and I wasn't writing, this is what we did. Pretty much ALL we did. It took TWO years of ass-busting, frustrating, overwhelming and sometimes, seemingly, insurmountable work but this Thing, this DREAM was now actually happening.
" this is Hotspur, we're here... "
I can't hear where she is but she sounds really NICE!
Hotspur and the moderator chat like old pals for awhile. Jon and I listen, grinning at each other.
"any other cruisers out there want to check in?" asks the moderator.
Jon picks up the mic.
" this is SV, Pura Vida, Whiskey, Delta, Gulf, two, five, seven, four..."
We wait. The radio crackles and hisses.
The moderator comes on.
" I'm getting something, bad signal, they must be on the outside, I can't pick them up. Any one can relay?"
Jon and I look at each other. We totally don't even know what that means.
Then another voice comes over the radio waves.
"Copy that. I got him. Pura Vida, Pura Vida, come in, I copy you. Hey, there, this is 'Jacaranda' what's your position? Over."
More grinning. Jon picks up. He tells them this is our first time south and gives them our Lat/Long. Our outbound and inbound. Our speed and heading.
"how many you got on board?" asks Jacaranda.
We say we are four. Skippers name, a wife and two kids.
" kid boat! Alright!" says Jacaranda. " how old r your kids?"
We tell them we have a girl, seven and a boy looking to turn ten in Mag bay.
" that's just great!" says Jacaranda. " been a dirth of kid boats comin' down lately but there are a bunch of them down here already. You keep heading south and you'll meet up with a whole lot of them."
Hunter jumps up and down when she hears that.
Jacaranda offers to send us an email over saildocs with some good weather stations for the Baja. We thank him and listen to the rest of the cruiser check in. Everyone sounds amazingly cool. Jon and I can't stop smiling. At the end of the session, Jacaranda welcomes us again. Jon picks up the mic.
"thanks so much. I've just fallen in love with the human race all over again"!
" I caught that" says the moderator.
" and you're right. It's a real special group of folks out here. You and your family have a safe trip down and I look forward to meeting you some day for a coffee if you're ever in PV."

Dinner is almost ready and the sun is setting.
" maybe we'll see the green flash" I say.
I make us a couple of screwdrivers and we sit up on deck, watching. It's blowing sixteen knots and we are running comfortable on a six foot following sea, we're doing 6 knots. Life couldn't be better. Hunter comes on deck. She has found an old leather bound book.
"what's this?" She asks me. Her face is already brown and freckled, her blond hair tangled in terrible dreads I will have to brush-someday.
I take the book.
"this is the Magic Ring" I turn the book over in my hands. My throat tightens.
" it was grandpa Kaiser's?" she asks, snuggling next to me.
" I'm sorry, mommy." she says.
Kai comes on deck to see the sunset.
"what's it about?" he asks. He's standing on the cockpit edge, hanging on to the dodger, looking out at the indigo sea rolling by us. I can't believe he'll be ten in a week. In this light I see flickers of the man he will grow into one day, playing on his features.
I tell the kids it is a book of poems but it is also a game, played at a summer camp that grandpa and his brothers and sisters all went to.
" Mommy and and all her cousins went there too" I say.
I open the book. I see my father's handwriting in the jacket and try not to cry.
" how do you play?" asks Hunter.
" whenever you are gathered with friends and the setting is just right, so right that you know it is something special, someone says a poem, or a line from a poem or one they made up. If every person in the circle adds one, it makes a 'magic ring'. This book is a collection of favorite poems that were said by all the campers".
" grandpa liked poetry". says Kai.
"yes, he did."
I look out at the darkening sea and the crimson sunset. I open the book and read one to them.

"He who walks with beauty has no need of fear;
The sun and moon and stars keep pace with him.
Invisible hands restore the ruined year,
And time, itself, grows beautifully dim.
One hill will keep the footprints of the moon,
That came and went a hushed and secret hour;
One star at dusk will yield the lasting boon:
Remembered beauty's white immortal flower.

Who takes of beauty's wine and daily bread,
Will know no lack when bitter years are lean;
The brimming cup is by, the feast is spread;
The sun and moon and stars his eyes have seen,
Are for his hunger and the thirst he slakes:
The wine of beauty and the bread he breaks".

Hunter reached for the book and found a poem about a house that she liked and Kai had a go and read a beautiful one about humility that was appropriate out here in the vast blue and Jon finished us off with this bit of artistry:

"As I sat with the Dutchess at tea,
She asked, "do you fart when you pee?",
I said, with some wit, " do you belch, when you shit?"
And I felt it was one up for me!"

A magic ring was had and we all watched, as the sun dipped below the horizon. There was no "green flash" yet.

Maybe further South...