On this shortest day of the year, this message will also be our shortest of the year: Call of the Sea, its vessels and crew, are hunkered down during the darkest hours of the pandemic, discouraged, but determined to sail again.

We take comfort in hopeful words of others who have experienced darkness in centuries past and present. Some may be familiar to you:

“It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.”
Thomas Fuller, A Pisgah Sight Of Palestine (1650)

“Sometimes in our darkest hour we can feel so hopeless, … but imagine when dawn eventually arrived, how we could shine!!“
Lynette Ferreira, Would You Remember Me? (2011)

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
Victor Hugo, Les Miserables (1862)

“It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”
Anon, proverb often quoted in teachings, sermons, eulogies

“In the Midst of Winter, I finally found there was within me an invincible summer.”      Albert Camus, Return to Tipasa (1954)

“For the first time in her life, she felt her own soul as an incandescent light within her, sustaining her, an eternal light that could not be affected by the urgencies of existence.”
Isabel Allende, In the Midst of Winter (2017)

Looking forward to brighter days ahead,  Steven Woodside, Executive Director