I first met my wife almost thirty years ago.  At the time I didn’t know that one day we would be married.  I can still remember the sixteen year old girl with the big innocent eyes.  We started dating some six years later.  Shortly there after, in 1978, we were engaged and married.  As with every marriage we have had our good times and our trying times.  On my fortieth birthday, in 1988, my wife surprised me in church.  I vowed to surprise her someday.

Well the opportunity arrived in a most fortuitous manner.   In May 1999 a tall ship named The Bark Endeavour visited Morro Bay California.  I served as a docent during the ships visit and signed up to be volunteer crew aboard her in Hawaii.  My wife and I flew to Oahu in November 1999 to have our first vacation without children.  We spent three days on the island of Oahu.  Then I put her on a flight to Kauai while I went aboard the Endeavour.  The next day we left Honolulu headed to Nawiliwili.  The voyage was everything I had hoped.  One could say it was an adventure of a life-time.  We arrived in Nawiliwili on the sixteenth my heart jumped with joy at seeing my wife on the dock waiting for me.

Unbeknown to my wife I had been communicating with the Captain of the ship and had arranged a little surprise for my wife.  On the seventeenth, the day after we arrived in Nawiliwili, we picked up to leis for our visit to the ship.  I had told my wife we were going to a reception aboard the Endeavour.  We arrived just as the sun had set.  The Captain greeted us and took my wife’s hand to give her a tour of the ship.  Just as we were preparing to go below to the great cabin my wife asked the Captain if this was some kind of initiation and if we were going to throw her overboard.  The Captain just laughed and took her hand.  She was concerned because there were just four of us there Axle, the Captain, my wife, and me.

In the great cabin I opened the box the leis were in giving my wife a white ginger lei and telling her this was her surprise.  The Captain then performed a vow renewal service for my wife and I in honor of the twenty-first anniversary of our wedding. I slipped a pearl ring in the shape of a whale’s tale we had bought on Oahu, Hawaii.   Needles to say my wife was surprised.  The Captain then brought us some Australian wine and we toasted the occasion and he said the ship is yours and he and Axel left us alone.  I guess you could say I was alone with my wife and my mistress because my wife is my passion and the sea is my mistress.  They will be forever joined in a small port called Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii.