I still have that just launched--and want to just sail--feeling. I evade the,"Where we gonna go?", question and finally answer when the best sailing direction puts us, halfway there or better.

Deep off the wind in light air gives you time to relax and unwind, chat, take pictures, smell the ragosa.

Upwind can change the mood onboard. There's new noise and the boat takes on a feeling of rapid motion. Things come at you faster as the shoreline closes in ahead. Tacking takes effort, but it feels good to do it well.

But sailing for us includes tucking in some cove for the night. It's all a package right now, a moveable feast. A daysailer wouldn't do it for us, nor would a motorboat. We need the whole package of an ample, wonderful sailboat, to sail-sail-sail.

Just 24 or so hours later, I couldn't break the spell of a perfect close reach by falling off for our harbor, and held it instead all the way to Rockland to the South. Just short of the breakwater with plans to sail inside to peek at the Lobster Festival, the Southewesterly went all West and sent us on a train-track like reach on the flat water to our mooring.

Furling sails, at some point my wife said, "I like the sailing lifestyle". Maybe that's what I'm enjoying so much these days.