We sail and sail beyond all the world known to us… --–Sarah, blind sailor.   Serenity; Webster defines it as: The absence of mental stress or anxiety. I define it as: Night watch aboard the schooner Inland Seas. Twenty-four folks from Camp T also experienced this during our July 2007 Adventure Sailing Trip on Lake Michigan. A week of hard work, exercise, and careful planning made us all anxious. Our anxieties turned to joy the moment that Captain Tom Kelly cried out “cast off lines.” Three days of bliss was ahead. Inland Seas slowly slipped away from the dock and began transporting us to a place somewhere between reality, dreams, and expectations. For those who do not really know me, I am blind, tall, and passionate, someone who will persevere and believe that the more experiences you have in life, the richer your character will be and the more interesting you will be to others. I grew up in Traverse City and spent many enjoyable days sailing and playing on Grand Traverse Bay. I am determined to make sure that Camp T creates opportunities that will expand every blind or sighted person’s perception of what one can achieve in the world. You cannot know what you love until you have experienced it. We set out on an adventure to instill a love of the outdoors, science, and sailing; an experience that would stimulate the young minds and souls of the Camp T campers, staff and the crew of the Inland Seas. Our home for the next three days was a ship; 77 ft from stem to stern with a beam of 17 ft, which carried 22 tons of ballast, and had 2 masts with a sail area of over 1,700 square ft. It would supply our every need. (It also had a little John Deere 6 cylinder diesel engine just in case.) How do you navigate a sailing ship? How do you know how slimy a round goby fish is until you hold one? Is the bottom of Lake Michigan, 400 feet down, sandy or satiny smooth when you run a sample between your fingers? If you filter 1,000 gallons of bay water, how many zooplankton will you get? How fast is the boat going if 5 knots on the chip log line pass through your fingers in 28 seconds? How many midge flies must be flying at once for you to think you are hearing alien space ships? These are just a few of the science questions that we found the answers to while on our voyage. Was it serenity or nirvana? We took turns each night on deck, anchored off-shore of Power Island, in the middle of Grand Traverse Bay. Our job was to take note of wind direction and speed, whether the anchor is secure, check water depth, wave height, whether there was water in the bilge, check the battery status, and make sure all things ship shape, and then enter the findings into the ships log book. Then the time was ours to contemplate the Heavens, listen to the waves rolling on shore, the rigging creaking in the wind, the occasional surfacing of a fish feeding on bugs, and to let the gentle lull of the boat massage your brain, stimulating dreams and desires. Anything is possible; you could be a movie star, a marine biologist, a teacher, a computer programmer, a doctor, an astronaut, a wife, a husband. The possibilities seem endless, the same way it has been for mariners for thousands of years. In our hustle-bustle world there is always an underlying cacophony of ambient noise. At our anchorage, we were just far enough from the fray of normal life so that the only sounds were of our ship and the sounds of nature. Morning brought a slow but perceptible change from night sounds to day, the low din of crickets and insects on the island giving way to song birds and the first cry of sea gulls winging to flight, the change of dense night air transitioning to the lighter feel of day, the sun warming the side of your face, the ship coming to life with smells of fresh coffee and baking muffins, a new day, like no other, had begun. We would experience things that would shape our hearts, spirits and open our minds to unfathomable possibilities. Happy sailing whatever ship you are on! George Wurtzel, Executive Director Opportunities Unlimited For the Blind www.campt.org.  Learn about the Inland Seas Education Association at www.schoolship.org