I was about 17 years old then, and now today sitting in Palau Micronesia, I can clearly remember a day working in my Dad's pharmacy. That day at Drug Corner Pharmacy in Toledo Ohio, my Dad's Partner and lifelong friend Derek Duckworth handed me a riddle scribbled on a piece of paper that read:
NaCL7C's.
It's funny how simple random events years ago can make such an impression or randomly have some effect on the course of your life.
NaCL is the Chemical formula for Salt or Saline - - hence the answer to the riddle was:
Sailing the Seven Seas.
This past week with a transit of the Sulu Sea under my belt and the sailing we have done over the past two years I have completed sailing all Seven of the Seas.
The memory if Derek's riddle just popped randomly into my mind today.... and I sit and marvel once again at how select events are mysteriously planted in our subconscious and some how take part in our life's journey.
In Colonial times, the Seven Seas refereed to the Clipper Ship Tea Route from China to England was the longest trade route in the world. It took sailors through seven seas near the Dutch East Indies: the Banda Sea, the Celebes Sea, theFlores Sea, the Java Sea, the South China Sea, the Sulu Sea, and the Timor Sea.
