pam is in the cuddly berth below and i am sitting on the deck of cricket right now. a gentle breeze is playing with my dirty, salty hair and keeping the bugs away. owen and i are just aft (towards the back of the boat from) the mast (the big stick that holds the sails way up in th' sky). right behind me is the main sail's boom (a smaller stick that holds the bottom of the sail out from the mast). it is an absolutely lovely night, with the quarter moon shining over the water, and it's sparkly reflection dancing from the shoreline all the way over to cricket's shoulder, as if asking her to dance along. cricket is more than happy to move in step with the sparkles and the wind. it is a lovely thing to be allowed to ride piggyback in the middle of this lovely dance!
cricket was in her glory today, as she carried pam and i to this beautiful place north of the little choptank river mouth. we're now well in the big choptank bay, up the tred avon river, near a sweet little historic town called oxford. there is another beautiful town nearby called cambridge. i'm no scholor, but do you think this area had any brittish influence in it's history? pam and i are very excited to take jimminy a mile or so to the city docks tomorrow and explore cambridge on foot. we have not set foot upon land for a few days now, so it will be interesting to feel the ground pitch up and down.
we're learning more and more that cricket loves a good wind, and she takes very good care of us in wind and waves, now that she's taught us how to handle her lines. she sails surprisingly well in light airs, but give her a decent blow, and she'll skip up or down the water with real purpose! we're feeling better and better about sailing blue water (open oceans) in cricket! she's truly winning our hearts the more we sail her.
after our great sail in the hot sun today, and our uneventful anchoring (yippee!), pam and i were looking forward to a possible dip in the water to cool us off. when we looked in the cool, brackish water (part salty sea water, part fresh river water), shiver me timbers! jellyfish everywhere! they are a brand of jellyfish known around here as stinging nettle jellyfish, and they live up to their name, so i hear. they are a whitish, translucent color, like little ghosts floating by. the range in size from an inch round to six or seven, with various lengths of tenticals flowing behind them. there were dozens and dozens of them visible near the boat. hundreds and hundreds out there, all flowing in with the tide. no swimming today... i managed to scoop a couple buckets of jelly free water to dump over pam's head, so she could cool off and wash her hair. then while pam stood jelly watch i climbed down our little boat ladder and dunked myself under a couple times when there was a rare break in the jelly flow. after the welcome cool off we posted ourselves facing westward on the deck and watched an incredible sunset!
o. i wanted to mention that pam discovered glowing plankton as she flushed the head (ship's toilet, which uses sea water) in the dark! if that isn't exciting enough, the next night i was out on deck in the very dark bay, and thought i noticed a little glowing in the water. so i took our wooden boathook (a longish stick with a brass hook on the end for reaching and grabbing lines out of the water, or off of posts and such) and swished it around in the dark water and... no way! the water glowed wherever i swished it around! way cool! biophosphoressence!! i hear that when we sail the sea on dark nights we'll see the wake of our boat glowing behind us. can't wait! but for now a stick in the water is plenty good enough!
o my! where'd the moon go? ah, there it is all orange on the horizon, and setting now. must be late! i think that i will lay back for a while and look up the mast towards the skyfull of brightening stars. wow. good night.
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