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several days at sea were magical. I had never experienced anything like it. And on my honeymoon, no less.
    We were alone on the yacht. Alasdair knew every inch of her, knew what to do, and was as skilled a captain as I could have hoped for. When darkness came each night we weighed anchor and put the Gwendolyn to sleep for the night. Captain Travis flew on ahead to Lisbon, where he met us. After that he took command.
    Alasdair was a little quiet when we passed the place off Spain where Gwendolyn had taken ill. But the next afternoon, with Gibraltar looming like a sentinel of history over us, we passed into the Mediterranean and the magic, if anything, increased. We put to shore at Morocco, Barcelona, and Marseilles, then set a course for Sicily and Malta.
    Alasdair got sick as we sailed down the west coast of Italy. Remembering what had happened to Gwendolyn, I was concerned. I wondered if we should put in somewhere, or even return home. But Alasdair wouldn’t hear of it.
    “I have never been seasick a day in my life,” he said. “It’s just a flu bug, or food poisoning from that fish market in Marseilles. I’ll be fine in a day or two.”
    He was right. He recovered, though it took three days and I confess I was more than a little worried. I didn’t like the pale look on his face. I was glad Captain Travis was at the helm with Alasdair free to rest. By the time we reached Crete, he was himself again.
    The Greek Islands were fabulous. It was so warm, the water so clear and blue, the coastline and rocks so white—completely unlike Scotland. We swam off the Gwendolyn almost daily, and put in at dozens of little towns and villages, where we walked the streets and marketplaces and hiked in the hills and toured old ruins and churches and monasteries and obscure family wineries. I must have taken five thousand pictures! Everything was lovely, different, old, historic, picturesque. Europeans have no idea what it is like for an American, whether from the US or Canada, to find oneself in the midst of such antiquity. If Britain’s sites are old, some of the places we saw in Greece and Rome were thousands of years old. It was more than I could comprehend.
     
    We rounded Buchan Ness and Rattray Head in early July, then passed Fraserburgh and headed again into the dolphin-filled Moray Firth for home. We had been gone almost two months—seven weeks, to be exact. You’d think such a long time at sea would be tiring. But the trip was so leisurely, and the yacht so roomy and cozy and with every comfort imaginable, that it was positively relaxing and restful. Not only did I see more historic sites than I ever dreamed I would see, I read a half-dozen books besides.
    Home!
    I can still hardly believe I was calling a village in northeast Scotland my home.
    Both Alasdair and I were quiet most of the day, reflecting on the voyage and what lay ahead for us. As I stood on the bow of the Gwendolyn , drinking in the tangy warm salt air, a delicious occasional light spray reaching my face, Iain’s words from my first visit to Port Scarnose returned to me:
    “ I view God in the way that Jesus spoke of him ,” I could hear his voice saying like it was yesterday, “ as a good Father waiting with open arms to receive us back home .”
    “Thank you, Lord,” I whispered quietly, “that you are indeed a God to call Father, and that you are helping me grow as your daughter.”
    I heard Alasdair’s steps behind me. He came up and stood beside me.
    “I can tell even from behind that you are lost in thought,” he said.
    “The ocean is like that,” I said. “From the first day I came to Port Scarnose, the sea got inside me.”
    “And now?”
    “I was thinking of something Iain once said, about the goodness of God’s Fatherhood. That’s what the sea always makes me think of now—the vastness of God’s love waiting to fill all men.”
    “ Waiting…?  ” repeated Alasdair with a questioning expression. “Waiting for what?”
    “For