Congratulations Annie! Today is your day.
You fly to Key West on a plane. Up and away.
Your gallant Niagara awaits. She’s ecstatic for you to see
Jeweled-toned waters, lush shores, a million adventures to windward and lee.
Oh the spellbinding places you’ll go. You she will carry.
And she’ll show you, the helm is really not that scary.
You have gumption in your soul and salt in your veins,
Courage to follow your path, this way or that, even change lanes.
And lucky you, lucky you. Lucky heart, lucky brain
Because you’ve got a partner who you know will remain
Beside you, to help guide you when you’re choked in a fog.
When you’re slumped in a funk, a real bump on a log.
He’ll hold your hand, sopping wet, through the pain
When clouds sometimes find you, because they will, and it just has to rain.
Lucky you! Lucky you! You’ve got air in your lungs!
Your dreams are all achievable if you just climb the rungs.
Grateful you can, climb you must. Soar you will!
Because you’ve decided to spend time, only time, and chase what is real.
Your life is your own, because you’ve made it so
And only you can decide which way you want to go.
Turn right. Turn left. Turn three-quarters and ninety degrees.
The great thing is it doesn’t matter, because wherever you go, there you will be.
You, lucky you, the open ocean ahead.
No fear, no regrets, no sense of dread.
In your future you see, challenges and victories,
Big belly laughs in the amount of 4,003.
Today is your day. Launch your new adventure.
No GoPro. No mic. No video indenture.
Words, pure words, and the simplicity of pictures.
You, lucky YOU, just wait and see.
What lies ahead with this boat
This man and the wild, open sea.
This was mine and Phillip’s first photo together underway, bringing our Niagara home across the Gulf for the first time in April, 2013. Here’s to many more firsts my love.
Let’s go. I’m in.