I could not send this blog on the way to Bermuda because I feared what folks on shore might suspect. But now it can be shared. I’ll explain that part later.

There are stowaways aboard Robin. I see them out of the corner of my eye. I hear them, particularly when I’m on deck. Of course, they are not real. But it is as if a master illusionist had visited Robin before I left Newport.

The visions come from things that are hung inside the cabin. A bulging black backpack becomes a hunched figure. A curtain separating the saloon from the forward cabin is someone stepping out from behind a corner. A red, pear-shaped laundry bag hung from a hook in the forward cabin becomes someone leaving the head. All that is needed for these visions to appear is for the boat to rock. It does that without halt, some times more expressively than others. Then all three of these pendulantic prowlers appear.

The voices can  be heard on deck. Several of them hold regular conversations on the forward deck when I’m in the cockpit. I haven’t been able to trace their source, but I have determined that the sound of a New Englander making terse comments comes when the prop lifts out of the water on a big swell. And the yodeling in an exotic tongue comes from the scuppers when they lift free of the waves.

I guess you find company where you can.

And now I have company, so I can send this blog without sullying my reputation alone.

“I had to stand up and look over the weather cloth because I swore there was a boat with a woman on it right beside us,” says Monica. “And then I heard a guy behind the boat and there was nothing there.”