Montreal, Quebec

Two hours after the accident in which our steel hull was damaged, Northern Magic was moved to a safer spot and we were waiting for a sea cadet leader, Maryanik Legoff, to pick us up. As we waited for her, we all suddenly noticed we were incredibly tired. Our eyes were heavy; our limbs had turned to lead. When Maryanik - who had found herself exposed and vulnerable as 20 tons of Northern Magic had come crashing down beside her - arrived, she, too, was tired, experiencing the same post-adrenaline letdown. We felt a sudden closeness with her, the kind that comes from sharing a frightening experience.

Maryanik was taking us to the Sea Cadet Training Centre's end-of-camp dinner. We had been invited to spend several days there by the camp's commanding officer, Tom Turnbull of Gatineau. Commander Tom was in charge of the summer training centre's 411 live-in Sea Cadets as well as 271 staff officers and other staff, and he had welcomed us with tremendous warmth and generosity. The day before, he'd given us a tour of his wonderfully equipped summer camp for young cadets between the ages of 12 and 18 where they were learning to sail, operate larger naval training vessels, and much more.

We arrived the day the cadets themselves had gone home, but Tom and his cadet leaders had treated us like VIPs. They had included us in their camp closing-down festivities, let us use their showers, swimming pool and washing machines, they drove us around for groceries and parts, and even allowed Christopher to fulfill his dreams and have a real bath. The kids, to their delight, had been permitted to surf the Net in an internet room with 30 computers. We were surprised to see that all the screen-savers in the room featured a picture of Northern Magic. We had an excellent dinner that night, and such a warm reception that much of our stress and tension over the accident began to melt away.

The other officer waiting for us at dinner that night was Lieutenant Commander Pierre Godin. Pierre was a big, bearded, bear-like fellow with a tremendous deep voice worthy of Mufasa the Lion King. I told him instead of training young Canadian Sea Cadets, he could make a lot more money lending his voice to Hollywood. His magnificent voice rumbled like thunder. If I were under his command, I would no more think of crossing that voice than I would walk naked through the Rideau Centre. Yet our kids took to him immediately, just as they had to Commander Tom, and soon Christopher was trying to spank his bum every time his back was turned.

A week earlier, we had ordered some paint to be delivered to the camp, to Pierre's attention. The package had just arrived, and Commander Tom showed us the label on the box. "We're having a lot of fun with this one," he grinned. Instead of printing Lieutenant Commander Godin, the shipper had printed Lieutenant Commander GODD. Now everyone in the Sea Cadet camp was referring to their second-in-command as GODD. It seemed entirely appropriate; with a voice like that, he could well have caused whole forests to burst into flame.

The next day, back at the marina, the three boys ran off to explore a nature trail while Herbert and I tidied up the boat in preparation for a TV crew from the Life Channel that was arriving to film us. Half an hour later, Christopher ran back to the boat, shirtless and sobbing. "Bees are stinging me!" he was crying.

Indeed, our poor nine-year-old's body was covered with stings that were rapidly rising up into angry red welts. While running through the bushes, Jonathan had stepped on an old log that contained a wasps' nest. Christopher, running behind him, had borne the brunt of the wasps' fury. I counted 25 stings. As Herbert and I were examining him, he said nervously, "Somehow I have the feeling there are still some in my hair."

Sure enough, three wasps were still blundering around in Christopher's thatch of sandy brown hair. Christopher stayed very quiet and still as Herbert and I plucked the living wasps off of a head still swollen and tender from the nasty bang it had received in the accident the day before. "Why does everything happen to me?" Christopher moaned.

In a few minutes Michael and Jonathan also came running up. Jonathan had about a dozen bites, Michael half a dozen. They were carrying Christopher's red t-shirt, which he had torn off when wasps got inside. The next morning I unfolded it and turned it right side out, and found two live wasps still trapped within its folds.

Christopher recovered fine from his multiple stings. It was Jonathan, in fact, who had the most trouble from them. He developed an allergic reaction that caused his eyes to swell up. He wasn't too impressed to look like the gimpy-eyed-boy when the TV cameras were filming him. Michael was nonplussed when he came out in a full-fledged cold that made his voice sound very much like GODD's. He kindly shared that cold with all the rest of us. It was the first real cold we'd had in four years.

Rheumy, hoarse, wasp-bitten, our boat banged up, we began to get the feeling that Canada was among the more dangerous places we'd visited. "I just don't know what to think," Christopher kept saying. "We had so many good things happening at the Sea Cadet camp, but so many bad things are happening too."

Commander Tom and GODD both came to see us off. In a few short days we'd become very fond of them both. When we parted from them at our last visit to their camp, our boys snapped to attention and gave a crisp military salute to Commander Tom. Despite everything, our visit there had been wonderful. When it came time to say goodbye to GODD, the boys humbly bowed before him in obeisance, prostrating themselves on the floor. We joked that we had come 99 per cent of the way around the world, and finally found GODD.

With the TV crew from the Life Channel on board, we continued from Trois Rivieres on to Sorel. We were looking forward to one of the most important milestones of our trip: the official end of our circumnavigation. When we had left Ottawa in September of 1997, we had motored down the Ottawa River and then the St. Lawrence as far as Sorel, Quebec. There we had turned south into the Richelieu River, which had taken us to Lake Champlain and finally the Hudson River. On our way back, we had come the whole way up the St. Lawrence. Only now, at Sorel, we would be crossing our outward-going path. The fact that the accident in Trois Rivieres might have ended our circumnavigation only 35 miles short, made the crossing of our path all the more poignant.

As we approached the spot where the Richelieu River branched off the St. Lawrence, a great welling of emotion began filling my throat. Quite a bit of that emotion overflowed and ended up spilling out of my eyes. This was it: even if it was not the end of our trip, this was the end of our circumnavigation.

We had always intended to circle the globe. Somehow, we had always had faith that no matter what, we'd achieve it. And here it was, a simple river branching off another -- but for us, the culmination of a dream Herbert had first articulated 25 years ago. As Herbert led a countdown to the moment when we would cross our path, I couldn't help but think back over the crazy year of preparation in which we had cast aside our land life and begun turning ourselves into sailors, with no experience, nothing but a grand vision to sustain us. I thought of the storms in the Pacific, the waterspout in Indonesia, and the mechanical failures, of 21 days of fearful sailing through pirate-filled waters off Somalia, of the misery of dysentery suffered in Sudan, of fighting our way across the North Atlantic. I thought of the endless days at sea we've spent over the past four years, pushing, pushing, pushing always westward. We've had far more wonderful experiences on our trip than we have had bad ones - but at that moment, with the collision and the and wasp attack still fresh and painful in my mind, all I could think of was the struggles we'd overcome to reach this milestone.

Here, just ahead, just 100 metres away -- no, just 50 metres -- now just a stone's throw ahead, was our reward. We had done it! No matter what ever happened to us in future, this achievement could never be taken away. We were circumnavigators.

We anchored Northern Magic in the Richelieu River and began hauling out all our flags. One by one all the courtesy flags we had flown on the trip (when you enter another country's waters, you fly its flag from the starboard spreader) were hoisted up, until the entire boat was aflutter. Many of those flags I had sewed myself. Every one of those flags we had worked hard for. 34 countries, 22 languages, one by one we had sailed through the world's time zones until now we were back at the same one. We could now state with certainty that the world was, indeed, round.

Northern Magic proudly displays her circumnavigation flags.

The next day we continued on to Montreal, with all our flags waving proudly from our masts. Every time a giant ship passed us, someone in the pilothouse would scrutinize us with binoculars. Then, invariably, a small uniformed figure would appear on the upper deck and wave down at us. Obviously the captains of these mighty ships understood exactly what those flags meant. Rarely had our insignificant presence been acknowledged by one of these floating behemoths, but now our own captain stood proudly at the helm as passing ships saluted his achievement.

Two days later, after going through two locks, we arrived in Montreal on a grim and windy day. We docked at the Royal St. Lawrence Yacht Club. A sailboat from Hull, Catch the Sun, with Bob, Judy and their dog, Lady - who jumped on board Northern Magic, to the delight of our boys - was there to greet us. Soon they were joined by several other boat owners. The Commodore of the venerable old yacht club arrived in a spiffy navy and white uniform. Instantly we had a dozen new friends.

For the next two days Herbert worked hard to dismantle our masts. With masts up, we wouldn't be able to fit into the coming locks, nor the bridge over Hawkesbury. So no sooner had we hoisted our proud collection of colourful flags, than they came right back down. The boys and I winched Herbert to the top of each mast, taking down antennas, wind instruments, disconnecting wiring, removing rigging. Then, using an electric crane, and with the help our boys, the crew of Catch the Sun and another boat from Hull, Episode, as well, we carefully removed both masts and laid them down on a special wooden cradle Herbert had built. The walkways were now filled with wooden booms, displaced bicycles, and other clutter. Two large aluminium masts and all the associated tangle of rigging now bisected our cockpit, making it very difficult to move or see.

As we worked, both Herbert and I got lumps in our throat. The dismantling of our proud and beautiful Northern Magic made it only too obvious that the real end of our trip was just around the corner. Even Michael, who's the most eager by far to get home, was saddened. "I hate Northern Magic this way," he complained. "She doesn't look right at all."

As excited as we are about returning home, a growing feeling of sadness, of nostalgia about the ending of our grand adventure together, began to permeate our crowded, cluttered, emasculated boat. More than once did the thought cross our minds that maybe we should just put those masts back where they belonged and turn ourselves around.

Note from your web hosts
You can see some photos of Northern Magic's stay in Trois Rivieres at the end of our Quebec city slide show.