Boston ? Fresh from his hospitalization for an aggressive surgery on a cancerous brain tumor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy announced it was “good to be home” at his family’s Cape Cod compound Monday and headed out for a sail.

Kennedy left the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., on Monday morning and arrived at his family’s Hyannis Port compound just before noon. With his thick white hair visible be-neath a hat, he told reporters he felt “good to be home, good to be here.”

Within hours, he went out sailing with his wife, Vicki. It was the same homecoming routine he followed last month when he was released from a Boston hospital after being diagnosed with a malignant glioma, a lethal type of brain tumor. A malignant glioma is one of the worst kinds of brain cancer, and malignant gliomas are diagnosed in about 9,000 Americans a year.

Kennedy, 76, underwent the risky, 3 1/2-hour surgery last Monday to remove as much of the tumor as possible, a procedure aimed at improving the success of chemotherapy and radiation. His surgeon at Duke, Dr. Allan Friedman, said Monday that Kennedy “is making an excellent recovery.”

Kennedy’s son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., told the Providence Journal on Sunday his father was looking forward to returning to the Senate and working with Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on universal health care legislation should the Illinois senator win the White House.

“That is what he is talking and thinking about,” Kennedy said. “It adds a great deal of poignancy to his recovery. But that’s how he sees it – he has to recover so he can get health care for the millions of people who don’t have access to the care that we do.”