Today marks an important day forward for Connecticut's waters. Oh sure, spring is right around the corner and March 1 is a day to look forward to warm winds, smooth sailing and weekends wasting away in Margaritaville. But today is also the day we begin creating Connecticut's School Ship.I say Connecticut's school ship, because that is where The Mystic located and that is where we will likely home port her when she goes into service. It is also the home waters of Connecticut Community Boating and where we have based much of our programming for the last six years.
But she really is LONG ISLAND SOUND's school ship.
The Mystic will serve a great many Connecticut families to be sure, but we also plan to sail to waters near and far including New York, Rhode Island, and farther south like Maryland, Bermuda and Jamaica. You see she will not only serve Connecticut kids, but will be open to at-risk youth from across the region. And when she is not in service as a therapeutic vessel aimed at getting kids on a course for success in life, she will be an ambassador for the Sound.
Her flags will fly from cool rocky coast of New England to the warm balmy shores of the Caribbean, always sharing her mission of ocean awareness, public access to the sea and equality, fairness and environmental justice for all regardless of income, residency and social standing.
Because that is what Community Boating really is. Oh sure sailing and swimming and fishing are fun and certainly good for the soul. But it goes much deeper than that at CCB. It's not about how fast you sail at CCB, but rather how far sailing can take you. We don't take kids sailing, but set kids on a course to command their own vessel. We're not saving the history of sailing at CCB, but preserving its future for generations to come.
Community Boating is not for boating or sailing- its for people. People are the heart of our mission not the sport. And while we enjoy a day on the water as much as the next guy, sailing is just a means to end- the end being a better quality of life for all.
Sailing and boating have been in the realm of the rich for far too long, given that wind is free and Oceans belong to all mankind. The waves always beckoned the souls of brave men to go sea, but why not women, girls, the poor, the disenfranchised? Why do you have to be rich, white and wealthy to get to the keys to the Sea?
Well at CCB, that's the way we feel anyway. And if you believe in the mission of CCB, and that Long Island Sound is our region's greatest natural resource, then you must agree that any method and any vessel dedicated to ensuring every man, woman and child gets to see, learn about and enjoy our waters is a vessel that belong in our fleet and in our State. And the Mystic, in all her glory will, like the first plane to hit the skies and the first boots to land on the moon, open the minds, hearts and souls of so many who otherwise would never get the chance to see the sun rise over a quiet horizon in one of the most historic, important and economically-vital bodies of water in the World.
What is the sea dear friend. It is everything that the land isn't. It is moving , always moving and never the same. She is calm and turbulent. She has no shape or form and is yet beautiful. She is great and heaving. He mountains and valleys are there and then gone. Her ways you can only guess and hope to gain some mastery. From her surface to her depths she is alive and brings fourth life in shapes and fassions all of which is yet to be found. Her colors and textures are many. She is never really flat and calm. You can not drink her in but, she is quenching. Her mystery is that upon her surface, steel can be bore. Wood is easy to carry upon her in any shape. But, steel must be in certain of shape lest it find quickly her depths. The Mystic is one of those certain of shapes. The Mystic has lain long on the fringes of the seas depth yet full able to move over her deepest. The Mystic longs seeing her old friend. Like two sisters far apart, separated in thier youth. They both desiere the companion of the other ; one made ready, the other always so. Let us make her ready the bonnie boat. Let her be won so that she again can be one with her dear sister.
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