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Well it's been a long road but we finally made it. Thirty years into a five year plan might seem like a failure to some but with the launch today it's going to be worth every drop of sweat and countless nights of lost sleep. In a few short hours the "Lady Jane" will set sail westward loaded to the brim with the best Nicaragua has to offer. Thanks to the natural canal route provided by the Rio San Juan we will be taking goods from the Atlantic to the Pacific for the first time since the war started so many years ago. From what we've been able to find out luxuries like the coffee, cacao and fresh fruits that we will be delivering haven't been seen in most parts of the world for so long that folks don't even remember the pleasure of a cup of coffee in the morning.

Even after such a long time I can still recall when the world just took it for granted that these things would be there. That sure changed in a hurry though, didn't it? I started the project thinking it would be something to keep myself busy with in retirement and had no way of knowing that it would become the means of helping restore some sense of stability in the world. The concept was simple...develop a tourism route along the river that could showcase the merits of sustainable living. It wasn't until everything fell apart that we realized what we had was such a blessing. Contact with the rest of the world has been so spotty that it's hard to know how much of a market there will be for us but according to the Captains that have managed to venture the furthest afield we will be able to trade as much as we can ship.

The idea of designing a hybrid sail/electric ship began as a way to keep costs down on transporting guests along the river and up and down the littoral coasts while providing something interesting for our eco-minded target audience. Now, it's a matter of survival for all of us and soon will help bridge the east to the west once again. Of course the fleet gives us not just transport but with the comms on board we also have built a very impressive private network that has allowed us to tie it all together. Each vessel can act as a relay node with a range of 120 kilometers. Throw in the bitcoin satellite feed and we are sitting on ready to get international commerce rolling again.

And not a moment too soon either as I can't be sure how much time I have left. The project has taken on a life of it's own but as long as I'm around it will still be my baby. And now the time has come for the baby to leave the nest.

I’m going to have a litte more of my wife’s delicious pineapple jam with toast and coffee before I head to the docks to check out the comm buoys. This is something of a long shot but the idea is to drop them en route creating a digital umbilical cord back to shore. If it works as planned then we should be able to establish a link all the way across the Pacific over the course of the next six months or so. As far as I know this will be the first transoceanic link since China used their “Assassin's Mace”.

One of the most valuable things we will have on board will be the electric motors we made ourselves. It seemed kind of a far out idea at first but turned out to be not so hard once we realized we had all the raw materials we needed here. Iron sand and magnetite in abundance courtesy of our several volcanoes. I knew when the “accident” with the USS Florida in the Straits of Hormuz happened that the oil economy was finally done. Fortunately this was obvious and everyone else on the team finally agreed to let me start the motor project. By the time the Chinese got zapped trying to bring missiles through the Panama Canal it was obvious that the world was changed forever. Both of those crucial routes will reopen some day...in about 50,000 years once the half-life decay runs it’s course.

Well, Pedro just arrived with the horses so I guess I should wrap this up. Time to head down the mountain to the port. The winds are calm so it should be fair sailing. I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

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<center>Title image provided by Pixabay user:12019</center>