AN AMAZING LITTLE LADY .

My little wife is going to kill me when she reads this post , but l cannot tell you just how proud l am of her for having just completed this ocean crossing .
One night sitting through the graveyard watch contemplating life , it suddenly dawned on me that here she was fast asleep down below in the pilot berth , thousands of miles from civilization in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean .

Now you might say , what's the big deal . Some of us , myself included , really enjoy being at sea and relish the thought of an ocean crossing . For someone with a deep rooted fear of water , this would be the last place that they would want to find themselves . In fact not too long ago if she had been given two choices , cross an ocean on a yacht or a jail term , l have no doubt that she would have opted for prison life . For as far back as l can remember l have lain in bed at night and dreamt of sailing my boat across an ocean whereas in her case this dream would constitute a nightmare .

To put this statement into context , when we first met some 36 years ago she was terrified of the deep end of a swimming pool . When we built our pool many years ago , l made sure that even in the deepest part of the pool she would be able to keep her head out of the water while standing on her toes .
For all the years that l spent building the boat and the thousands of hours that she has had to listen to me rambling on about far off lands and going cruising , she must have agonized over and over about how she was going to deal with her phobia of water . 

THE AMAZING LITTLE LADY .

How many times have you heard a wife explaining to her husband that a Boeing points much higher into the wind than his boat does and that if he  thinks that she is going to cross an ocean with him on his pokey little boat then he must be crazy . Fortunately that hasn't been the case with us and the fact that she had the courage and was brave enough to step off the dock and join me and share my dream , for that l will be eternally grateful .
My kids and l can count our lucky stars that in this lifetime we can refer to this amazing little lady as our mom and wife .

I am not finished just yet . This is the bonus part for me .
We have all heard about the X chromosome and the Y chromosome . Well there is a third called the C chromosome and you guessed it , C stands for cruising . Well my DNA is overloaded with them but fortunately it seems that l have been able to pass some of them onto her . Since we have arrived in Brazil she has slotted right into the cruising lifestyle and apparently here in Baia da Ilha Grande , there are 365 islands and 2000 beaches and she is itching to go and explore these cruising grounds .
How wonderful life is .