When I love it is forever

     I met this man.  Dave Laurie.  He allowed me to sail with him.  On Guinivere!
Sixty feet, from bowsprit to bumpkin!  Forty tons, three quarter keel of solid steel. Farro cement. Built in Bluff.
God, she went to weather! Ten degrees off the point!   Working hard to thirty degrees off the wind.  With a
sea that matched but never supported the heading we were making!  Never.....ever..
    He did though.  He buried me as we were entering Latoka, Fiji.  I had just untied our 175 lb, CQR when a very large rogue wave covered me and shifted the anchor so that the fluke tore a hole in my foot.  A very large hole!  I'm bleeding all over the deck and am afraid to look because I didn't want to know how badly I was injured.  I walked aft after dropping the pick and said, "  Dave!  Did you see that wave"?  He answered,"  Yea, are you alright "?  I said,"  I don't know"? And went below.
     I went below not realizing how much blood was leaking out of my body!  Blood everywhere!  I asked Jeff, a jewler friend and shipmate if he would sew my foot back together?  He vomited and said what a mess!  He did, however curve an upulstry needle for me.  I ran double twisted stranded dentil floss through the eye of the needle and with a bottle of rum proceeded to sew my foot back together.  Thank God I was a yogi or I couldn't have done it!  It is hard to see the bottom of your foot and even harder to stich it up.  I also am fortunate to have surgical experience.  It was harder to sew my eyebrow damage while looking in a mirror than to fix my foot.That is another story about my face marrying a post hole digger!  I was digging the hole!
      I joined with Dave in Apia, Samoa.  He was born in South Africa and brought to New Zealand when he was 14.  He has passed and was way to young.  Heart attack.  The world is a sorrier place for him not being here.  I loved sailing with him and just hanging out.  He is my friend and I his. You will hear more of him down the line. Love you Dave, with all my heart.........Aloha  
    
  

Sister Lovers, Water Brothers

SO TODAY, I thought
                      Might be gargantuan!  It wasn't.
                      It is small.......Why/
Let me think!  Problems.  Whose?  Mine?
                      Know yours.
Should we start at the beginning?
Or just lie down and die?  Mistakes?
                      Continually or
            lie down and die.......
I think Knot.  Remember this morning
and your intent. You Keep notes
lest you forget!  Your purpose,
a poem, a lively regret, not you but
the other and another cigerette!  And
Then another leads to another deck. a
bottom dealer with no self-respect!  So
lose becomes the order of the day and
all of a sudden the ship sails away!  Leaving
you on a lee shore with much to ask for but
nothing to show, for all that you gave, to the
knave that seemed pure, you wave good-bye
and feel secure. For the first time in awhile,
your face breaks out in a big smile!  Who
was the dealer and who dealt the deck, that
everyone plays, wins and loses and wrecks,
families.friends, purposes and things.  Only you!
Because in love we all forget!  Who is resposible?
And who can know?  How do you spell forgetfull?
I think it's spelled, " LOVE"  But then, I'm just an old sailor.