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This morning broke clear and cool, a beautiful sunny day with no trace of the ever-present gray clouds we?d carried with us since leaving Bermuda. All hands was called early, before 7, and breakfast was unusually quiet, even for breakfast onboard the Picton Castle, which is never a riotous affair. I guess we were all lost in our thoughts, excited, nervous, jubilant, a little afraid. Would everybody be different? Would they notice how different we were? Would they still like us? Would we still like them?
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 For the past week now everything we?ve done has been amended with "for the last time": today I did galley for the last time, today I took a noon sight for the last time, today we had our last Rules of the Road class. First Mate Michael started the call for "Hands to the windlass!", and we rinsed our dishes for the last time and headed up to the windlass to heave up the anchor. For the last time. It didn?t seem quite real that this would be the last time we?d have to fight with this old-fashioned hunk of steel and our 2,500 pound anchor. There was some cheering for that notion, though!
Soon after we heaved up and set sail, the Canada Customs officials came out to meet us. Three months of planning all came together as Blaire McDonald and his team of agents boarded the ship and fanned out to do their different jobs. Two were checking passports, a few were spot-checking people?s bunks. People from Agriculture Canada were inspecting our food stores and the hold for insects and anything suspect. And one person was inspecting a very non-plussed Chibley. The idea for Customs boarding early was so they could clear us in before we reached the dock, allowing us to be with our families immediately instead of waiting for painful hours on the dock unable to hug them or anything. And it worked! We all passed muster and sat back to enjoy the rest of the sail in.
After customs cleared us, dory-maker and former Picton Castle First Mate Kim came out in his boat and brought Lauren, who?d left us in Cape Town, and Sven, who?d had to leave in Grenada to sail in with us. As soon as we saw the lighthouse at Battery Point and the red and blue buildings of Lunenburg, most of us burst into tears, laughter and a mass of hugging. Faintly in the distance we could hear the cheer from the hundreds of people on the dock as we rounded Battery Point, and then we could see them. Hundreds of people crowded the docks in Lunenburg Harbor. Our moms and dads! Our brothers and sisters! Our grandparents! Our friends! And even a family dog or two! Captain Dan had warned us that we needed to stay focused and listen to orders. Yeah, right! There was just too much going on!
We did manage to get the sails in speedily and safely and even to maneuver the ship alongside in spite of all the hoopla and the noise from all our beside-themselves families, although we neglected the important act of actually throwing lines ashore. Later I told Captain Dan he needn?t have worried ? our Moms would have grabbed on to the rail and held the ship fast for us!
 The Mate called for a final "Up and stow!" and the resounding repeat of the order by our adrenaline-rushed crew echoed off the surrounding buildings. "UP AND STOW!!!!" And then, as quickly as it began with a letting go of lines in November of 2000, it ended when the Captain called a final muster. With all of us gathered together, he turned to his Chief Mate and said, "Mr. Mate, that?ll do the watches." Then, as none of us moved, he turned to us and with a shrug of his shoulders said, "That?s it!"
And I guess that is it for now. Twenty months, 56 ports, almost 37,000 miles. Because of the generous donations from people, schools and organizations across the U.S. and Canada, more than 10,000 children in over 50 schools in the Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Bali and Cape Town have books to read and maps to look at.
And we have had one heck of an adventure!
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