leaving

Shore leave expires tomorrow morning.

For the normal person, this means nothing. For us on the ship, it means everything needs to be tied down and secured, something I spent a good chunk of this morning doing. (The sore wrist and awkwardly placed cut on my hand from where a rogue sink fell on me were a little extra bonus.)

It means one last extra load of laundry, one last long, hot shower where you let the water run while you shampoo your hair, knowing full well that once we leave the dock we'll be on water restrictions for the next six months.

It means sitting on the dock, staring at the shadows of the mountains against the night sky, not knowing if you'll ever see them again and not really caring, because shore leave expiring is the anticipation of sunsets over the open ocean, dolphins at the bow and, in about a week and a half, the warm, red smell of Africa.

I'm sitting on my bed and from my porthole I can see the captain walking along the dock, making final checks of the mooring lines we'll soon be throwing off. The HoJ is playing football with friends from Canada and Australia and Italy, and over the sea wall the dark ocean stretches out like a promise.

There's talk of wind and waves, so I'm afraid my new-found love for sailing might disappear just as easily as it found me, but despite the forecast, I can't wait. It feels a little like Christmas Eve, only this time the present waiting under the tree is a whole new country to experience.

We sail for Togo tomorrow. A whole new country, filled with people living stories I haven't yet heard. We haven't left the port, and I'm already impatient to arrive.