At last, the north-east wind decided to give something a little more decisive than its usual fickle and timid self (I much prefer a good westerly), but it was better than nothing. It was going to be delicate between the calmness of the morning and two imperatives in the evening – freshening wind going up to 20 knots and my Mass in Dieppe for my two ladies.
The wind was just right for a broad reach all the way to Saint Valéry en Caux, which is the furthest headland you see in the photo with the port wall to the west. In the foreground is Veules les Roses, where I keep my boat at the sailing club. The distance is four miles and I made it in twenty minutes, so my speed was 12 mph or a little over 10 knots, not bad for my little dinghy. The wind must have already been touching the 13-14 knot mark and a little more in the gusts. My boat fears waves on the beach, not wind at sea, at least under about 18 knots in protected waters. Here, it is the English Channel and open sea. I returned under a close-hauled beat on a kind of “saw-tooth” tacking pattern, gradually approaching the beach and tacking out to sea to avoid beaching before my arrival at Veules.
One day, I will invest in a waterproof camera to take photos on board. The cliffs of the Côte d’Albâtre are always awe-inspiring. As I said in a recent comment, life with God is like sailing this very small boat on a very big sea. The tiny part of the sea we can see from a boat seems big enough, but the part that lies over the horizon is so much greater. There is a difference, the sea of the earth’s oceans is finite, but God is infinite.
And he cared enough for each of us to send his Son.
I wish all my readers a prayerful Holy Week…
The Blue Flower 
677. April 1, 2012. Fr. Chadwick blogged about sailing. I don’t sail, but I love the sea, and so …
Ah, The Sea!
Ah, the sea!
The deep wide sea,
that fills the depths that lie upon the earth,
that, one and boundless, frames the lands of men,
and washes all their sands and rocky shores,
and catches all the waters flowing from the hills.
and running ever downward in the river beds,
and, selfless, offers them to Brother Sun
to drink the mists and pour them on the hills again,
that they may run and in their running pour out life,
and, cycle after cycle, keep the earth alive.
Ah, the sea!
Dividing every land from every other land,
and isolating man from man and tribe from tribe,
and yet,
ever forming highways for the spread of populations,
ever calling out to men that they must sail away,
to know the lands that they have never known,
to trade the things that they have known so well,
for exotic goods to bless the body and the soul.
Ah, the sea!
The unpredicted moods that come upon the sea,
sometimes peaceful, glasslike, lying very still,
sometimes rolling gently, breaking softly on the beach,
sometimes roaring howling crashing with a passion,
crushing and destroying all that contests its path,
the sea, becalmed or gentle or fierce and strong,
that never loses any of its beauty,
whose voice will never cease to speak to men.
Ah, the sea!
Blessed those who go to sail upon it,
those who know its awesome touch,
and blessed too those land-bound souls like me,
who cannot venture forth but yet can stand and watch,
and see and hear and smell the wonders of the sea,
and know in hearing there the voice of many waters,
that the God that made the sea is near.
———-ed pacht