A Smidgen of Time
(Dedicated to my father, James Dawson)

As you are all aware we share sailing duties at various times through the day and night. Tonight was a special moment on my shift that started from 8pm to 11pm.
The other crew went down for their rest before taking their shifts later that night and morning.

Anyone who has been on Shellette knows where the helm is. AS I sit there at my duties to watch over the night actives of sailing my father enters my mind of the great things he has taught me in my life. I THANK HIM FOR THOSE MOMENTS WITH THE MOMENT OF MINE.

Close your Eyes and picture Shellette in the largest Ocean in the world. Spinnaker flying high and wide, the main sail broadcast across the width of the boat, the winds blowing 6kts to 23 kts, her speed is ever climbing as fast as the winds will blow. She handles the pressure as a baby being laid to bed calm and touching. The sea rough and tugging, pushing and pulling, climbing in height and falling off to new lows. Shellette through all this is in calmness, in sequence with the ebb and tide, gliding across the sea in a manor she was made to do and never given the chance. I sit and watch the instruments to see what is taking place. I look over the dark horizon since no moon has appeared yet. The white cap waves crashing all around. I take a moment to sit in the cockpit at the back and look at the sky. No moon, just stars that no one can imagine. The Milky Way galaxy spread across the sky as far as one can see. Breathtaking and gratitude fill my heart. My shift ends and Gary takes over and my moment lives in my mind forever.

This was by far my best night of sailing and I hope you feel a smidgen of what I did. Bless all the fathers of today and the past and the new ones to come. They give us things we do not know until they are gone.