The marina office in La Vila Joiosa wanted a bank statement proving that an insurance premium had, in fact, been paid, which is not a request I have any patience for. I have watched harbors get built out of nothing more than a good beach and a rumor of shelter. I have watched them outlive the men who built them. Not one of those harbors ever asked to see paperwork first. Progress, apparently, means a form for everything, even the wind.

It came right eventually, as these things do, and the reward for sitting through it was better than the aggravation deserved: Stephan, from the very same sailing club back in Berlin as Tobi and Anna, drove down out of the mountains to meet us, exactly as arranged days in advance over whatever device it is the crew keeps whispering into at all hours. Not a fellow sailor pulling in on a matching flag. Just a friend with a car and a vacation house who kept his word.

I’ll admit that isn’t the kind of reunion I’m built for. A ship’s spirit expects his old acquaintances to arrive by water, and there is something faintly undignified about one turning up smelling of a rental car and mountain air instead of salt. Still, a friend who drives an hour down out of the hills to sit on a pontoon with you is worth something, wherever he keeps his boat. Which, it turns out, is Berlin. Landlocked loyalty. I didn’t expect to respect it quite as much as I do.