sailcricketben

good bye maine, hello high seas!

2010-10-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

autumn in maine ++++++++++++++++++ camden from mt. megunitook

goodbye maine. i'll miss you! ++++++++++++++ the crew

cricket in matinicus island

some of the last lobster bouys of the trip +++++++++ a little k-12 school on matinicus

a lobster dinner aboard cricket!

after a bit of provisioning, gathering of our small crew, and a few more jobs and sea trials to do on cricket we were off to sea, for the long haul south west from rockland, me to our old familiar chesapeake bay. we’ve made it to nantucket island after three days and two nights of exhausting sailing

i took cricket out for my first solo run! we (cricket and i) headed across the beautiful penobscot bay, around a few of the smaller islands that surround vinalhaven island, and back to our little mooring in rockland. it felt amazing to be able to sail this boat by myself, and the weather cooperated quite well. cricket did an amazing job, and i never felt like things were out of control thanks to the great way she sails! i even was able to get her to the mooring under sail! fantastic!

while in rockland i had a rental car for a few days, so i took advantage of it by driving to some beautiful spots in the area, and taking walks to soak in maine’s beauty one last time. i even got a chance to hike 1,385 feet up mount megunitook to soak in the awsome vistas of camden harbor, and west penobscot bay. it was good to keep some semblance of being in shape.

kurt joined the crew about a week and a day ago. kurt is a good friend that we met in deltaville, and is brave enough to go this long haul with cricket and me. while we were still in rockland harbor we got to experience what the weather can do in the fall, in these parts and waited for a good blow to blow by while we were at the mooring. sad to say, cricket was rocking and rolling enough to make me terribly seasick, and i had to give up the coffee i had drunken into the sea... this wouldn’t be the last time of this trip that the ocean would receive my previously ingested food. kurt was feeling a bit queasy too. what a fine crew we were going to make! we both put on little sea-sick patches behind our ears and got ready to gut things out with the waves. the patches seem to work better for kurt than for me, but hopefully in a week or so we’ll both get our sea legs (and sea guts).

we did have a very nice shake down sail across the bay to the fox island thorofare, around to seal bay for lunch. we even got to watch a sweet seal swim right past the stern of cricket while we were anchored for lunch! nice! we were met with contrary winds on the way back, and the sun was about to set, so we prudently decided to anchor for the night in a sweet little spot called pulpit harbor. we then motored our way back to rockland to have the last little bits of work done before we set out for the big one.

we waited for what we thought was a good weather window, and set out on the first leg . we sailed 10 or so nautical miles to the south to take a mooring on a cute little island called matinicus. this is a small “working man’s” island full of lobster boats. we got to the island just as the island’s working crew were pulling their moorings out of the water. we picked up a mooring that would have been pulled out within an hour of our arrival! what a stroke of good fortune! we talked to the harbor master, josh, from the deck of cricket to the deck of his lobster boat and arranged for him to bring us a couple of live lobsters for dinner that evening.

i went ashore to explore a bit. it was fun to walk the little gravel roads and see the one small church on the island, and the tiny school house in which all the island kids attend (k-12). it’s amazing to think about what life must be in this small community. when i got back kurt had the lobsters all cooked up and we had a great feast! kurt not only is wonderful crew, but is turning out to be a genius cook as well (even though he would humbly deny the fact).

from matinicus it was the first long haul southwest to nantucket 162 nautical miles, as the crow flies, away. of course, we couldn’t go the way of the crow... mostly on account of the wind blowing... yup. you guessed it... southwest! we beat to wind for the first day and night, making very little way. it’s kind of discouraging to make only 50 of those miles in the first day and a half. but noaa promised that the winds would build, and become west, and sure enough they did! we were still beating into wind, but now we were at least beating in the general right direction! wow! the winds were heavy, blowing between 25k-32k, and the seas built themselves up to 10-15 foot waves! cricket was a trooper! she danced and pranced her way through, but her crew was a bit green around the gills. a full day, and a full overnight, and a full day was enough to tire us out. we would take 4 hour shifts over night. 6-10 was kurt’s. 10-2am was mine. 2am-6am was back to kurt, and 6am-10am was me. it’s pretty light sleeping when the boat is a rockin’ and a rollin’ in those waves. it was quite an awsome sight to see the moon shining on those 15 foot waves! very humbling. we were happy to get to the harbor in nantucket just as the sun was setting! the sea seemed to try to keep us from going into safe harbor by piping up real good while i tried to take the sails down. whew! it was a lot of work pulling the wildly whipping main and staysail in in 32 knots of wind and 8 foot seas! but we finally made it into harbor, but the wind wasn’t done with us yet! it seemed to say, “if you want some rest, you’re going to have to really work for it!” it took quite a few tries to catch a mooring in those kind of winds! but finally we had cricket safe on a mooring, and i can’t tell you how relieving it was to know we could get a solid night’s rest! and now we’re waiting for the next weather window (looks like tomorrow), and while we wait, we rest, knowing that the next leg is even longer. we’ve got our clothes out on lines drying out in these 20-30 knot winds. nantucket is a beautifully, historic island, but we’re simply watching it from cricket on a mooring, taking it easy for a day.

note: it’s been wonderful not to have to worry about our electrical system, which we had worked on by ocean pursuits in rockland maine. it’s been working flawlessly! but i must say... i totally miss the best captain there could ever be upon cricket. i miss cap’t pam!!!

ten ten ten ten

2010-10-11T08:45:00.001-07:00

one of the amazing views on the way

a covered bridge

i bought some eggs and whoopie pies from these lovely women

the iconic adirondack chair

10:10, 10/10/10

it's about 10:10pm, on october the 10th. as i sit here on thestern, my first night back to our lovely, floating cricket, i wrap my new foulweather coat around me tighter to repel the cold and gaze to the east out past rockland's round, ample harbor. i look over thebreakwater wall with it's little lighthouse rotating every four seconds or so. way off in the distance i can see three red lights flashing inunison. these i now know very well. they are the familiar lights atop the wind generators on north haven island, 10 or somiles away. i have seen them not only from this port, but also from gazing eastward from camden's port, also theybeamed outward to us one night as we sailed back and forth far south of them to avoid lobster floats until morning light(unsuccessfully). looking even farther eastward i notice three stars in a vertical row risingtogether. could those be the stars that make up orion's belt? sure enough! there are his two shoulder stars, and his left footis above the horizon now, with his right soon to rise. strange to see this constellation now. this is known as a winterconstellation! i guess it's time to head this good ol' boat southward, which is the whole reason why i'm now here.

i've been traveling from minnesota eastward for a few days to get here to rocklandmaine. it was an absolutely awesome experience to drive, wander, and camp through the allegany and adirondack mountains! theautumn colors were perhaps just past their peak time, but seeing such immense hillsides ablaze withsuch colors was beyond breathtaking! it was an amazing time to cross over and through the appalachian mountains,even though the nights were a bit cold. it felt good to cozy up to the campfire each night, turning myself around like amarshmallow on a stick to toast all of myself, all the way round.now i’ve gone and found yet another place to someday come back to and further explore!

but tonight here on the boat on the bay there can be no such fire. i’m just beginning to feel the cold northeast wind that will most likely intensify and drive me farther south to the land of warm. deep down there are feelings of apprehension, but further down, looking at the incredible sea world that i am allowed to be a part of i feel comfort. there are embers there that warm the heart. i will toast myself around those coals tonight. good night orion. time to crawl into my fluffy down sleeping bag. i’ve been sleeping on the solid terra-firma en route to here, but tonight it will be wonderfully strange to feel my bed move gently with the fluid waves. the feeling is a definite... 10!

facing sailboat mecca

2010-07-29T19:36:00.000-07:00

here we are in one of the sailing meccas of the usa. the island of martha’s vineyard. i am realizing now that we could’ve spent the whole summer visiting this area, and still wouldn’t have had enough time to get all the exploring out of the system! no doubt we will have to come back here with time to explore, and explore.

the little islands we were anchored near last night (the elizabeth islands) were mostly unpopulated. a new, refreshing sight after seeing so many houses along the waters of connecticut. it was wonderful to see rolling, grassy-rocky hills with nothing build upon them. these islands gave me the feeling i get when reading about the old times in new england, or ireland, in little fishing villages. i could picture sheep grazing on the gentle, barren slopes, and simple folks mending there nets near the rocky shores. i would have loved to stop and explore these wondrous islands, but we were dead beat by a good, long day of sailing, and were here for just the night to rest and move on... we’ve got to get going if we’re going to be able to explore maine at all!

last night was a windy, windy night at anchor in cuttyhunk. we were anchored in a spot that was well protected from the waves, but not from the wind. the land upwind was not hilly enough to block any of it’s force. after being seasick for most of the day, i was beat, so i conked out on the settee early in the evening, but when i woke it was blowing like crazy out there! i knew the winds were over 17 knots because i could hear the rigging whistling. thought i’d better check to see how cricket was sitting and went outside (pam was asleep in the bunk). whew! my bed-head hair was undone in a moment, transformed into windswept hair. i flicked on the chart-plotter to check the wind speed: 23 knots. 20 knots. 24 knots. 20 knots... never under 20. a hefty, steady blow. on the chart-plotter it looked like we’d moved a bit at anchor, but the boats around us appeared to be in the same place (hard to tell in the dark). into bed i got. got up a couple of other times to see if i could quiet those banging halyards. they like to start swaying in the wind, get going at certain frequencies, and bang against the mast and the shrouds. ting, ting, ting, ting... i can usually sleep through the noise, but i couldn’t sleep through it ‘cause i knew pam couldn’t possibly sleep through it. but after going out a couple of times i realized all the fuss was in vain. there was no quieting all the noises out there. just one of those nights...

waking, we found we HAD dragged anchor, quite a ways! we were well watched out for because not only did we drag in a relatively safe direction, but our anchor had rehooked on something solid down there and stopped us from dragging all the way to deep water, and to the open sea (or into a neighboring island). whew! thank you Lord!

it was just as windy when we got underway. as we motored out of our little bay the wind whipped up the seas into a frenzy! the waves were 7 feet tall, and at such a frequency that our dear cricket began to look smaller and smaller on these big seas. she was tossed way up to the top of a wave, and then plunged down into trough between waves. cricket was not complaining, even though it was quite a ride (roller coaster’s got nothing compared to this!). up and down. crash, splash! up and down, crash and splash! wow! salt, sea spume everywhere. on the decks. on the dodger’s windshield. on my glasses. on my face. amazing thing to experience! amazing to think how big cricket seemed when she was on the stands, out of the water, in the boatyard. how high we had to climb to get onto her deck, but now how small she seemed. small, but tough. tough and brave. she is taking very good care of us, for sure!

but poor lila! had no idea what was coming her way when we left anchor! early in the morn she was at her usual post, helping me winch up the anchor (which was stuffed full of weeds when i finally hoisted it up to the bowsprit), then lila her position on the foredeck to enjoy another day of sweet sailing... i was at the wheel, piloting through the amazing, wind tossed waves, when after a little while of these “bow up the hill, bow down valley” here came poor, wet lila stagger-running back into the cockpit. i would’ve liked to have scooped her up and hold her, but i needed to stay at the wheel. she was in a panic! her whole world was erupting into an unpredictable, uncontrollable chaos! she ran to her favorite hiding spot, under the kayak lashed to the deck. but this was no better than where she’d been before. up and down. splash, splash, splash... this spot had always worked before! back she came to the front of the dodger. i could see her meowing for help. pam waited for a moment when the waves allowed her to get little lila from the foredeck, and put het into the cockpit. she stagger-ran down into the cabin and went to her other place of refuge... a little locker by the bow bunk... even though this was drier than outside the boat, it was a far rougher ride than anywhere she’d tried yet! the bow of the boat was leaping up ten feet, and down ten feet at a time. poor lila! all her refuges where no good. she was crying out in misery. finally we pam was able to put her midships, on a settee, with pillows surrounding her to keep her from being flung around. she rode out the waves there... we’ll have to teach her that the stern of this boat is the best place in heavy seas. it is there that there is the least heaving motion. we’ll build her a little safety nest in the stern berth, and she will learn that this is a comfort zone for her in heavy seas.

once we rounded the corner, and went with the waves things settled down a little bit, and then when we got under the protective, windward shore of martha’s vineyard island, the waves settled way down, and it became a glorious morn/afternoon of sailing!

we’re now anchored in “vinehaven.” a lovely harbour, full of lovely boats, and a fullish moon giving a silver lining to the tattered clouds up there in the heavens. all is well. after some sailboat watching, a little salty swim, and a game or two of cribbage it is time to be rocked asleep by the hand of God.

tomorrow we’ll take a day to explore martha’s vineyard : )

a few days at sea brings us to nyc

2010-07-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

here's a few sunsets from our days at sea:

and one sunrise:

i know it’s been a few days, and now i’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but i can explain...

when we were out at sea for a few days the waves kept coming and coming, and being newish to this sailing thing (at least this year) my inner ears were telling my brain and tummy that all was not ok. in other words, i was a little bit seasick. not terribly seasick, but just enough that if i were to try to read, or do a blog it would have put me over an edge i was unwilling to step over. my sealegs will come to me more and more as the summer progessses.

we are right now sitting on the deck of cricket right smack dab in the middle of new york, new york! it’s great fun being here, and was great fun getting here! in spite of being a bit seasick for a couple of days, i was able to very much enjoy being out at sea! it was an amazing couple of days of awsome (i admit that it was sometimes nerve wracking) wind and waves, usually with no land in sight. the moods of the sea are an amazing thing to behold! i will expound more on the trip later...

but in the meantime, here’s a few notes i took while at sea:

we've been sailing for three days and two nights now.

been feeling on the edge of sea-sick so i haven't blogged until now

july 3rd after visiting the farmer's market we left yorktown under motor

turned off motor when we poked our nose into the atlantic sea

sailed away from the sunset

at first it's always a bit nerve wracking to start with but we couldn't seem to get the auto-pilots to work, and our ais wasn't showing up on the screen

good winds from astearn, good sized waves for beginners

God is providing us with perfect testing grounds! just on the edge of our comfort zone

it's amazing to lose sight of land on this vast, vast sea

made it through to the morning, figuring out our issues as the night progressed. by morning they all seemed solved

working out our shifts

...july 4

fireworks

bigger seas 3-6 foot waves

atlantic cities lights stayed on the port beam all night long. i wonder about all the people there. are they gambling? partying? sleeping?

ships

by morning things settled down to calm seas and almost no winds

so calm i made coffee!

a dragonfly passenger landed on my hand it's amazing that there are bugs flying this far out at sea

i sit at the wheel waiting for the breeze to decide which way it's going to blow, but in no particular hurry because we don't want to make sandy hook at night.

it's 56 miles off

now trying to calculate the best way into sandy hook by morning light

i took my first atlantic dip! amazingly clear. could see cricket's whole hull

connected our honda generator

waiting for 4 to ssb with dick & ann on chinook wind

huge norwegian cruise ship coming and pam bravely hailed them on the vhf

beautiful, calming sunset

our first sail!

2010-07-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

yes! cricket sails!

today we had the extreme pleasure of having our good friends anna, david, jason and becca vandewettering visit us aboard cricket! after jason kayaked anna out to the boat (in his own kayak), and pam kayaked david out to the boat (becca had to go to work for a while) we went for a most loverly sail! first sail of the year! and cricket loved it, and told us so! she danced and pranced in the waves, and sailed upwind with gusto, and sailed on beam reaches like she's been waiting all winter and spring long to do just that! we were making 7 and a half knots on 15 knots of wind... beating! the sun was shining. the temperature was a perfect low 80 something. and the kids, david and anna have a great time learning to sail a big boat, each of them taking several turns at the wheel. jason (dad) also loved to sail with us, learning a few things along the way as well. jason loves being on the water, and we sailed back and forth and forth and back, up and down the york river, passing by his place of work, where he wasn't today! jason works at the coast guard station here on the river.

the kids released a couple more of mark mettler's homemade, "sailing lake calhoun" boats, and that was great fun. (watch my youtube video, "on the wing of a gull") it took anna and david a long time to pick out just the right little boat for each of them to set free into the sea. david picked one of the littlest of them all, and anna picked out the largest. both beautiful, of course. we decided to wait for a launching moment when the winds died down a little bit, so that we could watch them sail away longer. when the right moment came each went to the stern pulpit and dropped his/her boat down to the water. anna's big boat went down and sailed off like a dream. it was large enough to watch it drop astern for a little while. but when david's boat dropped down it went sail (feather) into the water and the little keel just wasn't heavy enough to right her sail side up, and the tiny boat quickly disappeared into the distance... david kept a very good attitude about the "unsuccessful" launching. we sailed and sailed a few more times up and down the river. probably a couple of hours worth, and many miles when all of a sudden david yelled out, "there's my boat!" we all looked out in disbelief that he could've spotted the tiny thing again on such a big body of water after so long, but sure enough, there it was! and not only was she there, but the little craft had righted herself, feather-mast up, nad was cheerily sailing on a perfect beam reach just like all the other mark mettler boats launched thus far on the chesapeake! huge smiles on all the cricket's faces! wow!

after a little lunch on board, some ice cream ashore, a little swimming time at the beach, and some sweet, quality time with becca (who'd gotten off work now), it was time to load jason's kayak onto there car, say our good-byes, and be off. as the vandewetterings drove away in their car, pam and i set off from the yorktown dock back to our mooring to be rocked to sleep by the Hand of He Who keeps us afloat.

we've checked the noaa forecasts, and it looks like it's off to the mouth of the cheapeake bay tomorrow, and out into the north atlantic!

i haven't forgotten the pictures i've promised. they're coming... and some movies too! ...

happy anniversary baby, got you on my mind!

2010-07-02T18:49:00.000-07:00

i'm sure pam updated you on all the details from yesterday, right? well here's a few of mine:

we had a very, very lovely 2nd anniversary! cricket was happy at her mooring, so we got to sleep in late, laze around in the morning singing,

"...We got everything

We need right here
And everything we need is enough
Just so easy
When the whole world fits inside of your arms
Don't really need to pay attention to the alarm
Wake up slow, yeah wake up slow..."

after finally rolling out of our cozy bunk we did a pile of chores on cricket to prepare us for our long sail to new york (like putting on the sails ; ) and then we hitched the next kayak to yorktown for a wonderful anniversary lunch at a cute little historic restaurant called "the carrot tree" and a wonderful walk through the bamboo forest and historic downtown. a few "business calls" while sitting in the shade, some more walking then a dessert of blackened tuna at a bar near the shore. then it was back into the kayaks, back to cricket, with lila greeting us with many meows, which meant, "where have you been! i've been worried about you! i missed you! i'm sooo glad you're back! you can feed me now! and fresh, running water if you please."

we lay down in the cockpit of the boat around 7:30 to take a short nap. i said to pam, "i race you to sleep," and then next thing i knew it was the next morning! i won!

our new craftiness

2010-06-30T19:50:00.001-07:00

ahhh, yorktown virginia! a lovely place to stop. tonight, just before writing this blog this evening the drum and fife corps played a long, wonderful set of greatest hits from the 1770’s! the music was wafted over the water from the nearby treed hills as pam, lila and i had a quiet paddle in our kayaks around cricket in the mellow orange glow of the evening sunset. there were more thrilling kayak paddles earlier today, but this evening on the water is of storybook proportions.

this morning i boarded a bobbing, jumping kayak in order to add a line to our mooring, which we thought could use a little more security in the wild wind and waves. we love how the kayaks bob like corks, and respond to our slightest finesse with the paddle to maneuver around. it’s not necessarily a dry ride, but at least it’s a fun ride without drowning. and the little water craft glide through the wind and waves without all that much effort on account of the low profile and less wind resistance. we were a little worried about getting in and out of them from cricket’s deck, but i think our vast past experience with canoes helps us with the balancing act required.

today, as mentioned, we used the kayak to add a line to our mooring ball. we also kayaked to the dockmaster’s office to pay for that mooring ball. it was somewhat of a frenzied ride, but lila came with us in pam’s kayak and did a fantastic job riding in it! last year owen hated riding in the dinghy even though he liked the shore leave at the end of the rides, but lila seems to absolutely enjoy riding with us on the water! as a matter of fact, when we reached the docks and put her ashore, she tried to jump back into the kayak! pam pulled back on her leash so she made it only halfway and soaked her stern most parts, but she was unperturbed. and you can imagine all the looks she got from the passers by on their way to their sailing tourboat ride!

our paddle back to the boat a couple hours later was much more tame. as a matter of fact, lila decided it was tame enough to ride on the small, curved deck on the bow of the kayak! more looks, comments and smiles from the shore. she hasn’t fallen in the water yet, but her day is coming. we want to help her respect the wetness and drownedability of the water in a controlled setting, so soon we’ll give her a little shove, and then a little rescue.

we tested lila this evening with our evening paddle, leaving her behind on cricket to see what she would do. she followed us around with her eyes, and walked to the part of cricket that was nearest us. she never seemed like she was about to dive in after us, but i think she was quietly meowing to us. when i returned to the boat she walked around to my kayak and jumped on it to join me for a nice last paddle of the day. we both enjoyed the ride greatly!

the breaking of a blogfast in yorktown

2010-06-29T20:00:00.000-07:00

it’s time to break the long blog fast for ben!

my excuse for not blogging for so long was that this is supposed to be a sail blog, and i wasn’t sailing... lame, yes, but true... but today my excuse is dissolving into the salty sea water under the wake of our beloved cricket. technically i could continue the blogfast, because we didn’t sail at all today, but we did leave a 35 mile long track line on our new garmin

chartplotter, but all under motor. technically i don’t have to blog, but i will.

we are now officially done at deltaville boatyard & marina after one last unexpected $500+ bill to replace our old autopilot display. argh! but now we are free! free at last! thank God almighty, we are free at last! free to wander! free to roam!

after our favorite marine electrical technician, mike, mounted our new surprise purchase that we had sent overnight from california (shows how desperate we were to get gone), after he connected the wires, after we quickly tore the lines off the moorings to go out for a short sea trial and a few tweeks, we literally did a quick touch and go on the marina dock just long enough for mike to jump off cricket. a quick u-turn and some sweet navigating out of jackson creek by our beloved captain got us into the chesapeake bay major. we bee-lined cricket south to yorktown with barely any drama. t’was a beautiful day in the wind and waves. we could tell lila was a wee bit nervous, but took her new moving, bobbing home with a good attitude, sleeping much of the day away in a few of owen’s old cricket haunts. she’s often follow me around the deck of the boat, taking comfort (perhaps false) that i knew what i was doing. lila was a very cute ship’s cat today! when it came time at the end of the day to pick up a mooring she walked to the bow of the boat with me and leaned over the gunnels with me as i reached out with the boat-hook to catch the mooring. felt like i had a little kid with me!

we’ll spend the next couple of days here preparing to go on our north atlantic voyage to new york city!

we are now pleasantly bobbing up and down at our mooring. over to our starboard stern yorktown’s revolutionary war memorial is lit up on a hill on the nearby shore. over our port stern, further away the big bridge over the york river has many, cheery lights reflecting on the rippling water. with a lovely cool breeze blowing through our hair, ready with sleeping pads in cricket’s cockpit, ready for a very satisfying night’s rest.

pictures tomorrow : ) ------------[}-

new visitors, and some old friends

2010-06-18T19:39:00.001-07:00

this cute little hitch-hiker won't get very far on our hull in the next few days, but it was fun to watch him scurry across crickets underbelly, just below the waterline.

and our old friends "the jellies" are back!

the dipping

2010-06-15T15:52:00.000-07:00

new pictures from today on facebook!

2010-06-13T17:59:00.000-07:00

sunday... a perfect day of worship and fellowship! we had a very lovely time in church, then went visiting several new found friends around the boatyard and around the town. a very lovely, and interesting time. t'was a hot day, so we went to our friend, keaton's beach and swam in the bay, enjoying the day with the various birds around.

here's a few samples:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?id=723072638&aid=174905&s=80&hash=0d97d66cc7542e0053847d083eb9a0db

pictures on the ol' facebook to appease for now ; )

2010-06-08T19:36:00.000-07:00

sorry about all the blog silence...

guess i'm sorta waiting to get in the water, and get sailing before i'm "really" blogging...

excuses, excuses!

there's some great, new pictures on my facebook of much of the stuff pam's been blogging about!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=174905&id=723072638&ref=mf

later...

getting wired

2010-06-01T19:31:00.000-07:00

today; a lot of fiddling with the electrogizmos. i think the yard is considering actually working on our boat. we even had a couple of yard workers do a few things to cricket, and to crickets mast. nice! we’re filling our minds with wires and diagrams of wires, and various ways of connecting wires. also we’re considering creative routes to run wires and all the myriads of stuff that wires can carry within their veins. but when all is dreamt up, and put into it’s proper place it will be a very pleasant thing; sailing around without often running into things!

after all these wirey matters we enjoyed a very fine evening upon the water upon our dear friends darrell and nancy's boat, makarios. they had the pleasure of launching their lovely center cockpitted boat today, and are anchored right out there in the harbor. there was no way we were going to say no to an evening of dinner and stories afloat with our good cronies darrell and nancy and kurt and michael! can't even begin to describe the warmth of friendship we experienced as the cool, torrential rain tried to drown out our conversation upon the bimini's canvas.

check out my facebook for a few more pictures (i'm finding that this blogsight doesn't do these photographs justice ; )

early to rise, early to bed

2010-05-31T18:53:00.001-07:00

if i use a large font, that is not black, and a few pictures of the day, would i then be allowed to use less words for this entry?

up early to roll on a gallon and a half of our ol' friend, bottom paint. did i mention how great it is to have such a joyful helpmate to roll along with?

the new stuff, although it is supposed to be great at keeping the little critters off our big, fat hull was a little thinner, and thus a little splatteryer than the stuff we'd been working with, so we were wearing a bit more of it when we finished "earrrliie in th' mornin'"

so we both showered and scrubbed, and scrubbed because neither one of us fears the possibility of barnacles growing on our arms as much as the thought of poisoned paint lingering on our skin membrane.

then ed and nola came!

and then we had a lovely afternoon swapping tales, showin' 'em round the town, eating seafood and ice cream, and just plain being with each other. --------------[}- : )

2010-05-30T19:59:00.001-07:00

there is something very special about biking to church! we were singing a little hymn we’d learned some time ago, to the beat of our feet turning the peddles, cranking the chain, turning the wheels... “we are biiiking in the light of God, we are biking in the light of God,” ding-ding on the little bike handlebar bell, “we are biking, biking, we are biking, biking, biking in the light of God,” ding-dinggg!

we parked our bikes outside and found the sanctuary of the phillippi church abandoned, so that they could fill the fellowship room with folks sipping coffee at long tables for the “informal" worship service.

we all started with the singing of a heart filled “what a friend we have in Jesus...” twice, because the pastor felt passionately moved by it, since we were singing it in memory of a beloved member who had passed away a couple of years back. today not only happened to be the day before memorial day, but also this “regular saint’s” birthday. we all felt passionately moved to sing it again. even the kid who handled the c.d.’s of our “virtual organist” didn’t mind switching the disk back into the c.d. player! that set the stage for a very lovely service that consisted of a sermon in which there was quite a lot of good, meaningful dialogue between the preacher and the congregation, a time of freely sharing joys and griefs among the people, more hymns and communion.

we stopped at the little coffee cafe on our way back to cricket.

we’d planned on putting another coat of bottom paint on her, but discovered some spots that were in need of more scraping, sanding and priming. these areas had been previously covered up by the stands that hold cricket upright on the hard. the stands have been intentionally moved to different locations on the hull when we were moved closer to the water in the boatyard. it was grrreat to have a partner to do this work with! so good!

it was a hot day, so when we’d finished up with the dirty, dusty work we showered to rinse off the bottom paint, and then treated ourselves to an ice cream and an iced tea from the ship’s store here at the marina. we went out to the end of the fueling dock to enjoy our treats, enjoy the sight of all the memorial day weekend fun on the water, and enjoy each other’s company. it was fun to capture some of the bay activities with the new canon camera.

after a few visitors on the boat we went out for a couple of beers with my new sailboat friend graham and his author/actress wife lydia. a very lovely time.

some of our views

2010-05-29T18:01:00.001-07:00

the view off our starboard stern

off the starboard bow

pam is crocheting bottle socks so our glass doesn't go crashing to pieces in the big swells

kurt has coffee with us in the cockpit almost every morning

meet michael

2010-05-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

yesterday we had our “trip to the bahamas” by way of a meeting with michael in the marina lounge. he’s an 80 something year old gentleman who’s been taking his little sailing catamaran, “wind in the willows,” to the bahamas every winter for the last 30 years! he is a new, huge inspiration in our lives.

michael became a widower fairly early on in his life, and has raised two fine, upstanding children as a single father. now he very much enjoys his grandchildren, and, of course, takes them sailing when he can.

we’d met him a few times since he’s been back here in the bay from his last trip down to those beautiful, tropical islands. he arrived sometime last week and has his quaint boat anchored a ways up the creek, just west the marina docks. as pam and i were kayaking past his boat a few days ago he came out and invited us aboard for a cup of tea. we gladly accepted, and enjoyed his company and a tour of his humble home on the waters. a 26 foot catamaran that’s been going to the bahamas as long as michael has been going there. wind in the willows has the look of a boat that has been well used and well loved through the decades. not luxurious by any means, but bright, comfy and the cabin is full of the reminders of all those adventures she’s been through. practical and simple. lovely!

michael is much like his boat. you can tell by the skin wrinkling around his warm smile that he’s been through all kinds of weather. by through, i mean IN all kinds of weather, not in the house with the weather going on outside, but right out there under the sky and whatever it contains. his body is crooked in every place with arthritis and he is bent over with scoliosis. no complaints. it is quite a chore to get around for michael, but get around he does! slowly, with great courage and grace he moves from his boat to his dinghy, to the docks unloading his gear, carrying it to his ford, and driving it to visit his children and grandchildren for the weekend. he graciously accepts help, but you know that without it he would still plod merrily along at his own pace and get done whatever it is he is doing.

talking with michael is pure pleasure! his gentle voice coloured with an enviable english accent is satisfying enough, but the tales of life that are carried by that voice are wonderful to hear. stories of sailing to and fro and stories of life’s triumphs and challenges. never a complaint. but michael has good ol’ ears to, large and weathered, ready to listen to the experiences you have to share.

as we met met with him his voice took us from the biscayne bay in south florida across the straights of florida to the bimini islands of the west bahamas. we sailed eastward to nassau, south to the large andros island and eastward again to great exuma island and beyond. always reminded to take our time and explore the amazing beauty of this special place. michael was always very patient to answer any questions we had for him. his fond descriptions of various achorages and reefs and cays have installed a great excitement in our hearts to experience some of what his bright eyes have seen!

after he’d finished another, younger sailor, dave (he appears to be 50 something years young) took us on another tour down the east coast from norfolk, va to the various bahama staging/launching areas in florida. a good, complete “workshop” in how to get there, complete with all the places to anchor and provision and tour. whew. after three + hours our notebook and brains were full!

(i believe pam's blog has a picture of our little meeting)

pam's here with me!

2010-05-25T20:46:00.001-07:00

my best pal and wife has joined me for a little less than a week now, and sharing life here in deltaville upon cricket with her has made this stay much, much more of a joy than it already had been!

pam and i have already been working on the boat together, kayaking together, meeting and making friends together, walking together, biking together, road tripping together, farmer’s marketing together, dancing together... whew! and much more... together! it is said that joy shared is twice joy. true!

this morning when we woke up lila was just getting back from her night of carousing. she replaced us on the bow bunk and went straight to sleep as we got up and started our day. pam took a shower and headed to the office, while i made coffee, scraped a few more of our wooden blocks to prepare them for varnishing. it’s nice when the wooden block workshop and pam’s office are right across cricket’s cockpit from each other. i’d look up from my prepwork to take a sip of coffee and see pam at her laptop with a backdrop of the boats anchored in the little bay near us!

now that’s good working conditions! our friend kurt came up the ladder to join us for the last of our morning coffee in the cockpit. nice morning!

i took one of the deltaville marina bikes into town to get a few things for the boat while pam continued to work in “the office.” i may or may not have snuck an ice cream sandwich in on my way back from town.

later we both hopped on the bikes and took a lovely tour of sting ray point, the end of the peninsula we are now living on. we biked through a cute little camp ground, waded on their beach and admired some of the unusual and quaint setups for folks to live the “camper life” like the old camper with the big screened in porch attached, or the old pilot house attached to a camper with a huge screened in porch attached, or an old motorboat blocked upright with a big protective roof built over the whole thing and a big screened in porch attached. you get the idea, i think. we also stopped at a cute little rental house with a sweet beach to look around (the sign in front said to come on in to see), and while we were there the owner showed up in

her car with her two wiener dogs and greeted us with warm smiles and invited us in to check the place out. keaton gave us the tour of the place, which was very lovely, but her personality was even more lovely. she’s a retired biology teacher living a simple life on the bay. she loves her place and her grandkids, which we could already tell by the playful way the place is set up with toys and places for kids to adventure and make little discoveries around this tiny piece of heaven.

this evening we met in the marina lounge with our good friends from last year, darrell and nancy to take a virtual tour from chesipeake bay all the way up the coast to nantucket island. they’ve been this way quite a bit, and this is where we’re planning on going this summer, so it was great to hear of all the places to see, spots to anchor, currents to avoid and routes to take. with their charts spread out on the table, and our boating tour-book right next to it, and darrell and nancy telling tales of their adventures it was almost like being there... almost. oh my! there will be soooo much to explore this summer and fall! yipppeee! it was great to have already gone there tonight!

tomorrow morning at 10:00am we go to the bahamas!

less is more

2010-05-09T21:02:00.000-07:00

i made a new friend today. there’s this wonderful, little sailboat at the docks i’ve been admiring everyday as i walk down there to stare out into the watery world. she’s maybe 20-25 feet long, with sweet old fashioned lines, a simple, straight forward rig and a cabin that could be big enough for one bunk and perhaps a small galley and no more. her name is “madcap” and it’s looked like there’s been someone living aboard her. at night i see the the light on in the tiny cabin. i’ve felt a strange longing to meet the person who would own/live on this beautifully simple boat.

today i stopped as i passed madcap and had a nice conversation with skip, the owner! great little conversation. we talked much about sailing in maine, which he has done quite a bit of. someday we’ll sit together and pour over charts to hear tales of the seas and harbors of that area, which skip loves. also we discussed a lot about how nice it is to live life simply. he said he’s got a pendant from his family that he’s going to fly from the boat as he sails her. it says, “less is more.” amen to that!

the ironic thing is... he is a yacht broker who sells a brand of sailboats called island packet boats... i took a look at one docked a few boats away from his. he even let me board it to take a look around the very roomy cabin. huge! luxurious. 650+k of luxury... i said that owning that boat didn’t seem like it’d be much like simplifying. he smiled and said, “it’d really simplify your bank account.” too true. as i walked away i told him i’d rather own madcap than the island packet. he said he would too.

shaken, not stirred

2010-05-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

more work on the hull today. are you getting used to that sentence? t’was applying the real stuff though. yup. bottom paint. filled in all those spots i’ve been scraping, sanding and priming! nice to get to the final kinda stuff for that. the old can of paint i was using recommended that i take it to a hardware store and have the heck shaken out of it, so i got me a trusty (yup, you guessed it) deltaville marina bicycle, threw the heavy can of paint in the front basket, and pedaled over to the local hardware haunt. after the bumpy ride i would guess the paint was already pretty well shaken! but the guy there was more than happy to attach the can to the ol’ paint shaker machine and give it a double dose of “shaken, not stirred.” no charge! really? yup! and here’s a couple of stir sticks to boot! nice!

after i got done with all that work stuff i grabbed an iced tea from the ship’s store at the marina, and sat on the dock to watch the waves on the bay (super windy day). along came a new friend, graham. he’s got a sailboat newly put in the drink, and docked right where i was sitting, unbeknownst to me. he invited me aboard and we chatted for a while, while he worked on a few things. he’s got a lovely english accent. a very personable, friendly guy. he even invited me to his home in richmond. i declined this time, but hopefully pam and i’ll get a chance to visit.

guess what?

i’m going home next weekend! yup. and i don’t mean minnesota as “home.” nope. even though that is where i’m going. by “home” i mean i get to see my best pal and wife! that’s home! the reason i’m heading west is that my good buddy danny, ho happens to be my bother, is getting married! and i get to watch the whole thing take place! he’s marrying his good pal karen. i’ll be flying back on friday, going to the wedding in wisconsin on saturday, hopefully getting to see deanna graduate from mcad in the afternoon, savouring hanging with pam on sunday, and flying back early monday morn.

this evening lila was sitting on the ground near cricket, meowing up at me. i knew what she wanted... she wanted me to take her for a walk. something we’ve made a bit of a habit of doing in the evenings. she’s so cute. she explores all day (and often all night), and yet she loves it when i go with her on walks! we walked down to the docks, and she tentatively, but bravely joined me there. a good way to wind up a good day! i think she’ll make an excellent ship’s cat!

under the wing of a gull

2010-05-07T19:21:00.000-07:00

forgot to publish this to my blog a while back...

2010-05-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

ah, deltaville!

time has been nonexistent in this sweet place! don’t get me wrong, there’s been a-plenty to do. working on cricket’s belly, her water system, working with the boatyard on all the electronics to be done, ordering this and that… all that stuff, but there is no defined deadline. we would like to be on the water in early to mid june, but hey! we’re sailing now, and you do what you can, you don’t stress, and go with what the “wind” gives you each day ; )

this morning after i woke up, and was just about to make my morning cup of coffee i excitedly remembered that the cute, little coffee shop in town was reopening today!

so i walked over to the bike racks, grabbed a deltaville bike and peddled there! t’was fun to get coffee in a coffee shop (they’re rare in these parts... i miss my dunn bros. coffee back in the ol’ hood!) and sit for a small spell sippin’ me brew and readin’ me book! it was also nice to meet the new owners of the place, and tell them i’ve been missing them, even before i even met them!

today the wind blew in some time to epoxy up a couple of little holes I opened up on crickets cute little hull to rid ourselves of a few small blisters (kind of like little fiberglass zits that need to be popped). I discovered the perfect epoxy mixing and spreading tool! a ice cream bar stick!

also I crawled on my belly on the gravel for a few hours to put some primer paint way down on the very bottom of the keel. there was only a few inches of space between the bottom of her bottom and the ground, so it was tight brush work. i also put another coat of varnish on a few wooden blocks (pulleys). also met with mike. he’s the guy who’s gonna help with all the electronics work to be done soon!

in the evening i offered my “on the hard” neighbor, curt to go kayaking with me on the bay, and he did! fun! it was his first time in a kayak, but he said he loved it, and was thinking about possibly getting a couple for his wife and himself. it’s nice to pass some of life’s joys off to the folks around you!

last couple of days

2010-04-25T10:01:00.000-07:00

man o man, the days are flying by, just like the wind all the things air-born in it! i think i just saw lila fly by... wait a minute... that was one of the many, many osprey living around these parts. hope they don't see lila as a tasty treat. she eats enough tuna to smell like the seafood they live off of!

yesterday was rainy, rain, rain, so i spent most of the day in the cabin. i was tidying this and that, and that and this. it's amazing all the stuff we have in here we hadn't even explored yet! well... i think i found all of it now. i think. trying to put things where they'll be as accessible as is directly proportional to the frequency of there use. cricket's cabin is not a huge house to live in, but she can really "suck stuff in!" which is good, as long as you know where everything is... i suppose it's the same with any household, accept there are times when you need something you rarely use (hopefully never use!), but if you need an emergency tiller, or a flare, or a first aid kit, you need it now. don't want to be rummaging for those things, so i'm going to do what kell (our esteemed, previous owner) did and make a map of every locker on board.

also yesterday i sat down for hours (won't admit how many, but let's just say) and made a new movie! hope you enjoy it...

hey!!! visitors! becca and jason vanderwettering!!! fun! more later (plus the movie)...

scrape, scrape, scrape...

2010-04-22T17:09:00.000-07:00

that pretty much describes the day today...

the bottom half of cricket, when she's truly, happily at home, exists entirely under the water. oh the things her bottom must see! (as if bottoms can see) schools of fishes, skaters (a type of sea ray) flying by, an occasional dolphin, seaweed growing fathoms high, and of course, jellyfish. all this abundance of life under the sea, and under our boat, is an amazing thing to think about, but what's even more amazing is that all this life is dependent on all kinds of other life you can't even really see! and there is a lot of it! i mean aaaaa lot! i just read something that said that there is 300 billion tons of phytoplankton, basically microscopic, underwater plants, in our sea! that's twice as much as all the plants above the water! also there is zooplankton. teeny-tiny little critters that swim around eating phytoplankton, and dead stuff, and some of it growing into bigger critters we can see... and that brings me to the point...

these little critters, of which there are very many, love to attach themselves to all kinds of stuff that are under the water... remember what i said about cricket's bottom half? yup! under the water! now, i'm all for supporting all that life under the sea {one more quick fact... i can't resist, it's so interesting... in the ocean's food chain it takes 10 tons of phytoplankton to produce about 2 pounds of fish we can eat! wow! see why i couldn't resist that one?}... i'm all for supporting that life, but not on my boat! not only can all that life growing on the bottom of cricket slow her down considerably, but it can eventually sink her by eating away at the hull, making those upon cricket part of the seas food chain! now by all this talk you might be thinking that i'm scrape, scrape, scraping that living stuff off of her, and while we did have to power wash and scrape much of it off (namely barnacles. more on them on another blog), the stuff i'm scraping is this awful stuff called "bottom paint." bottom paint is not your regular, run of the mill coating you put on the side of your outhouse. nope. it's special stuff that's supposed to keep the sea-life from growing down under. basically it does this by having pesticide and herbicide built right into it. yuck! it's supposed to be ok in the water, cause all that icky stuff mostly stays in the paint, but take the boat out of the water, and start scraping the paint that's getting loose (just like a flakey barn) and... let me just say you've got to wear a face mask and goggles and such. and catch as much of the chip n flakes as you can. the work itself is not that fun, 'specially if you don't really feel like you know what you're doin', but if you take it one little scrape at a time, keep looking around at all the beauty in deltaville when you can, feeling the sun and the breeze, keep dreaming about when this is all going in the water, and try not to think too much about how much you miss your best pal and wife, it's tolerable. : )

and one more thing. it's about feeling my lack of confidence in how i'm going about this task i've never done before... i found out that if you just get brave enough to go talk to the folks who do know something about the subject, a guy named jim will personally come out to your boat and comfort you that you are doing it right (or close enough), give you more options and advice, and will tell you he'll come by and check on you tomorrow! thanks jim!

getting to deltaville video

2010-04-21T18:44:00.000-07:00

today i had an early visit from shawn, one of deltaville boatyard's "comeandtalkideasoverandseehowmuchmoneyit'sallgoingtotake" guys. he brought coffee, so i kind of trust him : )

estimate to follow...

aye-yuy-yuy.

today was a drizzly one. cricket kept lila and i warm and dry in her beautiful, wood-rich cabin while i read "how to" books, and made...

the first movie i've ever put together!

it's on youtube. and here 'tis

enjoy!

oh... p.s. the song is called "alleghany" and is by one of america's folk-music jewels, bill stains. we drove thru these lovely mountains on the pennsylvania turnpike (my first time in the daylight!) wow! beauty abounds! the words of this song spoke to us as we drove all starry eyed.

lila and i are on cricket, on the hard, in deltaville!

2010-04-20T18:36:00.000-07:00

this

last week went flying by, like a vee of geese in the sky, heading south, honking by! last wednesday evening my good friend mike thorud and lila (the cat) and i stuffed a pile of stuff into the little honda fit, tied a kayak on the top and left the city of lakes in the rear view mirror, heading for virginia! after the long, lovely journey eastward we finally arrived at cricket's winter hibernation spot on the hard, and began the process of gently waking her up! there are many, many things to report. and so i shall as this week goes by, but for now i will let a few pictures speak a thousand words each:

20090810: 100 degrees, humidity 85 percent, motivation factor to pull cricket out of the water 0.01

2009-08-10T18:07:00.000-07:00

hot day! lots of meetings with the folks at deltaville boatyard for workorders and "winterizing." a weird combination, this weather and talk of antifreeze good to 50 degrees below zero!
too hot for details!...
a car ride to:
- the hardware store
- west marine store
- the coffee shop
pulling anchor to go 1/2 block to:
- the pump out dock
- the fuel dock
- to meet with boat experts
back to anchor
a ride to an amazing restaurant (toby's) from an interesting iraq war vet.
hot and windless on cricket
too hot to blog much
a 9:30 dip on the water (forthcoming.... bye ; )

20090809: "decommissioning" is a sad word. making the best of it!

2009-08-09T19:09:00.000-07:00

decommissioning is what the deltaville marina calls a haul-out on their work order. sounds so permanent, doesn't it? it seems so early in the season to pull cricket out of the water, but pull her out we must! tomorrow. but it is not permanent. only until next june... that's only... ummm, 9-10 months away... wait a minute! that IS forever! it will seem like forever, anyways.

pam woke me gently this morning, and then it was time to plan the day. but who can properly plan without a nice cup of coffee first? so it was dinghy to the marina's dock, borrow a couple of bikes, and head to the town coffee shop... oh yeah, did i mention with owen? yup! owen rode on the bike with me! many of the marina's bikes have baskets, so we stuffed a couple of towels into my bike's basket, stuffed owen on top of them, and pedaled on down the country road. owen exactly didn't love it, but he was a good sport. whenever a car came whizzing by he'd bury his head into the basket. so cute! and a far better reaction than trying to hop out! he did seem to begin to get used to it by the end of the ride. after some coffee and some breakfast (mine was apple pie and ice cream : ), it was time to bike back and get to work.

cricket needs to have all sails off her before the marina will haul her out, so it was decided that that needed to be done first. it was a very hot day (hottest yet), so it went something like: swim. take down a sail. swim. take down a sail. swim. take down another sail. swim. dinghy the sails to shore. swim. fold the sails on shore. swim (this time in the marina pool). bring the folded, bagged sails back to cricket. swim. eat supper. lay around with the fans blowing on us...

this evening we took jiminny on a little ride up and down jackson creek. there was no breeze at all on cricket's decks, so we decided to make our own breeze tooling around on jiminny. we explored a sandy spit that stuck way out from the shore. jiminny's outboard grounded on the sandy bottom, so i hauled up the motor and waded in with pam in the dinghy. fun! the seagulls were not very happy about us disturbing their evening peace on the sand, but we told them they could have it right back in a short while. they were all right back as we left their watery, sand bar so it was all cool. we headed up the creek, slowly motoring past beautiful houses, and docks, and trees, and little marinas. we went until the shores got quite close together, and the houses stopped, and it was quite dark, then turned around and went down the creek, back to cricket. it was very fun to just "lounge" on jiminny, slowly circle him around when there was something of interest to look at, and enjoy the sweet companionship of my best friend, pam!

20090808: back to deltaville

2009-08-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

when i finished my night shift at 3am, the winds had picked up considerably, and cricket was doing a good 4 knots on a near run. we had made it all the way to the green marker that signals a port turn towards deltaville, va. from here deltaville marina was only 6 nautical miles away, and on a beam reach we'de be making 5-7 knots, which would blow us there in less than an hour! i kind of knew that pam would not want to try to navigate into the harbour at night, since it is very shallow, and very tricky on the way in. i know i wouldn't've wanted to try. so when she took over her shift it was no surprise that she headed her bow to starboard (east), and on out to sea (or bay). cricket kicked up her heels and danced up and down the waves at a very spritely pace! fun! while i was falling asleep in the bunk, pam and cricket were having a grand time sailing back and forth for four hours in a very fine wind! the wind and cricket had saved some of the best sailing on the bay for our last morning on the big water!
when morning light arrived pam woke me from my dreams of bouncing up and down on the trampoline to a very beautiful, cool, windy morning. it was time to go to our last anchorage : ( right out from the deltaville marina. pam did an excellent job of piloting us through to our stopping spot, and kept cricket from dragging her feet to her haul out spot. we were tired when we anchored, and tried to nap, but somehow couldn't. so we got into jiminny, dinghied over to the marina (a very short ride), paid the $35 a week to use their facilities, and showered to our heart's, and dirty hair's content! we then took the cute little deltaville marina's bicycles into town to the cocomo restaurant for tuna bites, a crab cake sandwich, a caesar salad with a tuna steak, a corona and a pina colada. all very good. all went down very easily!
biked back. dinghied back, and had "movie night' aboard cricket. while a windy and rainy storm was a-stormin' out side, we watched "the hunt for red october" on the laptop with great pleasure, nice and dry inside. we went out on deck afterwards to enjoy the cool night air and the moon coming out from the shreds of clouds for a wee bit, and then turned in. big day tomorrow... time to begin getting cricket ready for the haulout.

20090807: going back north, but not hurridly

2009-08-07T23:42:00.000-07:00

20090807

today there can be no more foot dragging (or anchor dragging, whatever the case may be). it is time to head north to deltaville, cricket's home for the coming fall and winter. nope, no foot dragging, so up out of bed we rose, hopped into jiminny, and headed to the town coffee shop... you learn when sailing that many times the shortest distance between two points is not usually relevant, so a short tack to a cup of coffee and a muffin will get you there better.
but as one of our favorite sailing songs goes: " mercy, mercy, i do declare that half the fun of going is getting there. but mercy percy, you better start rowing 'cause the other half of getting there is going!" so back to the boat, hoist anchor, and get going.
it's been a lovely, easy sail in light winds, but that seems completely ok with is today. perhaps cricket is dragging her feet too. we decided to go all night, not because we're in a hurry so much as that now we've realized what a joy night sailing can be. and a joy it is tonight! a beautiful sunset without having to anchor. little lights along the shore. the green and red lighted bouys going by. ships passing by at a nice, safe distance. the full moon reflecting on the water, lighting up the white sails. a sweet, following breeze. the gurgle of the water under the hull. i even got to pass right by the dark figure of the wolf trap lighthouse, with it's light circling on top! it's all very fine! my 23:00-03:00 shift is almost over and it is time to wake pam and let her experience some of the joy. it'll be hard to leave this beautiful setting, but the bunk will be warm and cozy and rocking, while i put my trust in pam as pilot, cricket as the floating cradle, and God as the giant who carries us all.

20090806: a happy, rainy day

2009-08-06T18:17:00.000-07:00

20090806

the winds told us to stay here today. we took some time to go over lists of things to do for cricket before we leave her for the winter : (
pam dutifully wrote them out so we wouldn't forget (i truly appreciate her gift of organization!). we also dreamt together of improvements to be made for cricket... hard to beleive this ol' boat has any room for improvement, but sure enough we're finding a few things that would make her even more of a joy to sail and live aboard! : )

we also took owen for a dinghy ride in the rain on jiminny, and a nice long walk through the beautiful buildings of the hampton's v.a., and the university of hampton. beautiful place! we stopped downtown for lunch, and got totally poured upon. we were glad to have our rain gear and our umbrellas! owen was particularly glad to have umbrellas! he also learned how to ride in the little canvas duluth pack on my back. he was quite a cute sight to see, with his head poked out the top, and his curious eyes looking at this and that, all the while under the protection of our big blue and white umbrella! his eyes slowly went to half mast, then he cuddled down for a little snooze on his walking human's back. i wished i were him, but was glad to be me! (wouldn't be great to have friendly giants!?) i loved walking in the rain under an umbrella as a little kid, and i still do!

it's nice now to be dry inside cricket, with the oil lamp burning warmly, enya playing softly, and a warm cup of irish coffee in front of me.

20090805: ways to cool off

2009-08-05T18:33:00.001-07:00

20090805

after our first night out at sea it felt good to sleep in. very good! when we were both finally awake sometime between ten and eleven (i won't say who was up last) we had no definite plans for the day, so it was time to examine our options. while looking into and thinking about a few options (1: start north up the bay, 2: go north a wee bit to downtown norfolk 3: stay here in old point comfort bay) i realized that i was too pleasantly groggy to decide without a good cup of coffee, and last time we had been here we had seen a nice coffee shop a short dinghy ride and a short walk away. so it was decided. stay it is. pam was happy to do just that, even though she wasn't as happily groggy as i (happy, yes. groggy, no). good decision.
we had a lovely rest of the short morning and long afternoon sitting in the air conditioned comfort of the pheobus coffee shop. it was one of the hottest and muggiest days yet, so sitting sipping hot coffee in a cold shop was just fine by us! we arranged to have cricket hauled out in deltaville : ( while we were there. afterwards we visited a cute little antique shop that was a bit disheveled, but had many fun old toys and things like tonka trucks and gi joes and old fisher price cash registers and plastic garden gnomes and lionel train sets and transistor radios and... you get the idea. they were also air conditioned.
when we got back to cricket it was hotter n blazes. hot enough for pam to sweat drops and drops! so naturally we thought for mealtime it would be good to enjoy some corn beef hash and eggs hot of the stovetop! just to match the temp... it was absolutely delicious! i wonder if that was the extra flavor could've been from pam's sweat dripping onto the frypan? i know a lot of love was dripping in there, for sure!
i tryed to move our ship's gps receiver to no avail.
this evening we saw dark, dark clouds coming from the west. when the grey, bubbly clouds arrived they brought with them some pretty terrific lightning and thunder, a pile of pelting rain, and some mighty winds to drive it all! we realised we could probably use a little more scope (length) to our anchor chain, and i went forward to let some out. as the chain was running through the winch a great gust of wind caught cricket and pushed her back hard. the chain began to fly out of the chain locker over the winch. there was nothing i could do but watch it fly out. you don't want to grab flying chain with your bare hands! lesson one: wear boots when you're playing with anchor chain in a gale. before i knew it all 100 feet of chain had gone out, and 100 feet of line (rope) attached to it was flying out as well! i knew i didn't want to reach the bitter end of the line (it is attached to a cleat down below, but at the rate it was coming out, i was afraid it would tear it right off the boat). i let it run through my hands. lesson two: wear gloves when you're playing with anchor line in a gale. i tried to get a wrap around one end the sampson post (a very strong block of wood at the ship's bow, with a very strong iron rod going through it to secure the anchor to), but it was coming out too fast to get a loop. then it occurred to me that there are two ends of the sampson post, and if i could get the line under one end, and feed it over to the other end i would hopefully have enough friction to stop it going through. whew! that worked, so i tied it all off in the pouring rain, and let the wind help me back to the cockpit and to the hatch. the storm raged, but the anchor and line held so that we could all enjoy the storm passing by. even owen seems to enjoy a good storm. he likes to lay under the dodger and watch while he stays mostly (but not completely) dry.
it's still drizzling. pam is enjoying a book, owen is out watching the rain, and i have finished watching the twins get their butts kicked by the indians on the iphone (technology... what can i say?).
tomorrow it's northward.

20090804:

2009-08-05T18:32:00.001-07:00

20090804

sunrise
coming back
storm aversion
dolphin play
back to hampton

20090803:

2009-08-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

20090803

out to the sea!
over the cars
big ships
shifts
blue water
night shift
moon on sails

20090802:

2009-08-02T18:57:00.000-07:00

20090802

severe weather watch
moved down to hampton
navy vessels
radar class / watching rain
pam up the mast
radar reflector
a wild evening ride to town

20090801: south pam goes, and i tag along for the ride

2009-08-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

20090801

leaving anchor was much quicker than usual today, because we didn't have to wash off all that silty, gooey chesapeake muck from the chain because all we had to do was take a line off the mooring, and off we go! fun!
we motored over to the city dock and pumped out the holding tank. pam did another fantastic job at docking our ol' cricket. of course it didn't hurt that the dockmaster was there for us to do some line handling. colin. nice guy. he reccomended that we check out yorktown's saturday farmer's market, so we picked up a few peaches and a cucumber, and while we were at it we got cups of coffee, and some ice cream for breakfast (mine was oatmeal raisin, so it was a good breakfast, eh?). the coffee shop and ben & jerry's is one in the same there.
then it was off up the york river, and on south toward the james river and the sea! good winds for most of the day, even if they were somewhat contrary. a bit of tacking was neccessary to move on down. pam, again, did a fantastic job of captaining and piloting. she pretty much soloed all day! single handedly did most of the steering and tacking (including pulling on the sheets and such!). i lazily hung out down below, admiring her sailing skills. we're trying to allow eachother some time to singlehand to that we know we can do it if neccessary.
we ended up anchoring along the west side of the bay, right out there out from the coastline, in the open. we're just south of the huge navy docks in norfolk, va, just east of newport news. lots of condos and houses and beaches all along the shore. the waves have plenty chance to build up before they visit cricket's hull, and are making us rock and roll, but the anchor seems to be holding well. the biggest worry of the night are all the power boats going to and fro. i hope they all see our little anchor light... we also added another little light on the stern, just to be sure we're more visible.
way off in the east, towards the sea, right at the horizon we can see a long, long string of lights right near the water. this is the chesapeake bay bridge and underwater tunnel system. the bridge is very near the water level, but goes underwater (and underground) to allow the huge ships to come and go. it's kind of pretty to look at at night!

20090731: last day in yorktown

2009-08-01T17:23:00.000-07:00

20090731

this morning we woke up to heat, humidity, and not a lot of wind. it took a little while for me to get moving. pam did a fantastic job of getting up and cleaning up after the "party" we had last night. i'm so pleased to have such a good ship's mate! owen joined me in the bunk, and it amazes me how much "cat gravity" he can have without even laying on top of me. he's very cute and affectionate. finally i rolled out of bed, and we caught the first dinghy ride we could to yorktown docks. yeah jiminny! there we payed for one more night of mooring (the weather called for lots of wind and rain and thunder today). then showers, and then to the coffee shop... ah, yes. i began to wake up proper!
twice we watched the double swinging bridge swing out to allow a couple of big naval vessels go through and on out to the chesapeake. impressive to watch. it was "cute" to see the little (only little compaired with the navy ships) tug boats helping the ships find their way, bumping up on them on either side. while we were watching from the city docks t was fun to see some little pencil fish hunting for some even littler fish, while some birds were hunting them. "the circle of life."
we stopped in a wool shop and Pam got a drop spindle to spin yarn out of wool. it was fun to get spinning lessons from the proprieter of the shop.
then we drove the vanderwettering car (marvin the martian) back to becca's house, and stopped to visit a bit, and to practice our newly found spinning skills. becca drove us back to yorktown, and we got hugs and kisses goodbye from the kids. david and anna were sad to say goodbye, which in all honesty, feels good to be loved that much. still sad to say goodbye. once again, thanks becca and jason for joyfully sharing your family with us!
back to cricket to check on owen (he's fine), get our computers and head back to yorktown for pizza, wifi and coffee while it blows and rains on the festivities of the town outside.
tomorrow we head towards the mighty sea!

20090730: visitors!

2009-07-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

20090730

can tomorrow really be the last day of july? no way! it all goes by way too fast.
but it's like the frog says, "time's fun when you're having flys!"

today we were blessed to have such good friends as jason and becca vandewettering! they loaned us their car for the day (thank you guys so much!), and this morning we went to gloucester for our final food shopping trip. our larder is now full enough for the last couple weeks on cricket.
cricket's decks were filled with the joy and laughter of david and anna this afternoon and evening, as we went out for a short sail with becca and jason's family. it was great fun to have them all on board with us! little jiminny did a fantastic job toting six people from the yorktown city dock out to cricket. he was perhaps slightly beyond capacity (perhaps), but jiminny kept us all afloat, and mostly dry.
all of the vanderwetterings got a chance at different sailing tasks, and did a fine job! all plied a hand at the wheel, jason raised and lowered sail, and worked the lines when tacking (becca and jason tacked a few times together, becca at the wheel, and jason at the sails) and were a crack crew! david was an excellent watchman, looking out for other craft, bouys, and helped navigate us back to our mooring. anna helped with the piloting, and many other jobs aboard. she boosted the moral of the crew many times over with her bubbly, joyful outlook.
we had a lovely sail! the winds where light, but where there enough to push us along to get the idea of sailing. we were excited to see a few bottlenose around us, and a few pelicans diving headfirst into the sea for fish. we also sailed near the coast guard's pier, where jason works.
when we were back safely at our mooring, we had a fine ship's meal together on the stern of cricket. grilled brats, beans, fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, cherries, grapes, chips and iced tea (w/o the ice) were perfect as the sun set, and the city and bridge lights began shining on the york river's surface. a great day!
jiminny took us all back to the city dock, and after hugs goodbye with jason and becca and anna and david, pam and i got an iced latte, walked the historic streets for a bit, and headed back to cricket, tired but smiling! warm friends on a hot day is cool!

20090729:

2009-07-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

owen to shore
coffee
wait for becca
a ride in the country
ice cream
jason and becca's
games
pizza
pictures
borrowed car / parking under the bridge

20090728:

2009-07-29T21:05:00.001-07:00

shower
coffee
bus to jamestown
jamestown historic
jamestown settlment
square riggers
fort
indian village
yorktown victory center
pub

20090727:

2009-07-29T21:04:00.001-07:00

20080727

fantastic day for a birthdate! thank you all for all the thoughtful birthday greetings! warms a guy's heart, that's for sure!
this morning we navigated cricket out of sarah creek, and crossed the york river to the yorktown dock moorings. to our starboard side was the large, double swing bridge that spans the river. moorings are big, red and white balls floating on the water off from the shore a little ways with a very strong (hopefully) tether going to the bottom of the water attached to a very strong (hopefully) and heavy hunk of concrete to keep it there. you tie your very heavy boat to it and it works like a super-anchor, only you don't have to worry about it holding, even in the hugest winds AND you don't have to clean the mud of the chain when it's time to leave! sweet! typically you pay a small fee to use moorings. so we set off to pay the dockmaster, and explore the shores.
jiminny took us to the city dock, located past a park on the river, the victory monument (revolutionary war victory), and a bunch of public beaches filled with summer bathers. we saw a largish, grey navel vessel go by, and the bridge open for her, and a three masted schooner tooling about the dock and river. a wonderously strange mixture of new and old.
dockmaster
back to cricket
helping our neighbors
trolly and driver
walking main
carrot tree
antique store
storm under the bridge
owen as captain
lovely evening
biggest birthday candle

20090726: quite a storm

2009-07-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

20090726
we had a wonderful, shortish sail today, from our anchorage in mobjack bay to the historic york river (we barely got to know the place, because we got there after dark yesterday, and are off this morning).
we took a shortcut through a very narrow channel through some very shallow waters. it's amazing out here in the chesapeake how far out from land you are, and how shallow it can be! pam did an excellent job of navigating us through the channel. there were moments when we were very close to grounding (6 feet), but we never did ground cricket. the little channel saved us at least 6 miles.
on our way up the york river to yorktown we got some mighty winds which helped us to break some cricket speed records! we had a steady 6-7 knots, and at one time hit 7.8! flying! although it was plenty windy, it was plenty hot to boot. felt lie standing in front of one of those turbo hand dryers for prolonged periods.
when we arrived in sarah creek, just across the river from yorktown, we had quite a time navigating the little creek. lots of shallows. we may have run aground one little time. we arrived at a spot where it seemed like it was anchorable, but the first try put us too close to a 5 foot area, and what seemed like right in the middle of the channel. pulled anchor. second try seemed a little better, but right then...
wham! a huge thunderstorm caught us before we could even try to set the anchor. lots and lots of lightning strikes all around us, the a deluge of rain, then it got colder, then came the hail, then the huge winds! we dragged our anchor right into a shallow area (luckly not into someone elses dock or something). the wind was so strong that it nearly put us on our side! oh my! fortunately we'de made it into a harbour, and had just enough time to batten down the hatches. huge winds blowing us through the shallow mud, rain coming down in sheeets, lightning striking all around us. quite a time... two waves of that. then we pulled anchor again (it took some doing, as the anchor was set in a shallow area we didn't want to get further into. dropped anchor again (all the time watching another wave of the storm getting nearer and nearer). we tried to set the anchor again, but she dragged again! argh! pulled it up once again (our anchor is brought up by a manual winch and our own strength). this particular part of sarah creek just wasn't working out, so it was navigate once again through the shallows, and find a new place. we did, al the while with another wave of the storm coming. we found another likely place, dropped the hook, and then came another wave of the storm. seemed to hold for a while, but then dragged for a bit. i ran to the controls and motored for a little to allow the anchor to settle a bit. it seemed to, and we watched lots and lots of rain for a good long time. thankfully, the wind didn't seem to blow nearly as strongly this time. whew! that was a lot of work! but it is amazing how well we were taken care of through it all! God is good!
weird having a day when you feel like you're in a convection oven, and then are shivering from the cold rain! weird, but good when you sit down to some warm tomato soup, and think about how much grace was in the day!

20090725: distance record

2009-07-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

deltaville to mobjack
dolphins
strong winds
reefing on the fly
47.8 miles!

20090724: the best $20 ever spent and... play ball!

2009-07-24T19:19:00.000-07:00

the winds decided for us today. ah yes! we intended to go south, and the winds are blowing from the south, so instead of beating it today it was pay $10 each at the deltaville marina and get:

> use of their dinghy dock.

> use of their toilets.

> use of their bicycles to go into town in the morning for a wonderful cup of coffee at coffee creations and, bonus! an amazing slice of apple pie for breakfast! and the people watching wasn't bad either. we even got to gossip with the gossip ladies at the table outside on the porch. one of the women was looking through her binoculars from her porch on the creek and saw a boat heading out of the creek this morning with a woman who was wearing a tee shirt, but when she bent over there was nothing on under her tee shirt ("naked as a jay, under her tee shirt," the woman said). we were also offered a ride to the drug store from the woman as well.

> use of their lounge, and wifi. pam got a pile of work done.

> use of their laundry room, for a few well needed loads (whew!).

> use of their car to go 6-7 miles to the drug store.

> use of their boatyard grounds to meet all kinds of good folks! one of which is another hans christian owner, and a couple who own a baba (a similar kind of boat).

> use of their bikes again, to go to the town baseball game between the deltaville deltas, and the ??? pirates. fun! they play in a wwii vintage stadium. they lost tonight, but it was a good, nail biter game. pam is the best "fan in the stands" you could ever want! i love that girl! here's more info on the team and park: http://www.deltavilledeltas.com/

> and finally, use of their showers before we go to bed!

what a deal, eh!

20090723:

2009-07-24T19:17:00.001-07:00

motored from little bay to jackson creek.
deltaville marina / pumped out bilge
visited with derral and nancy
life's stories

20090722: the true porpose of this trip

2009-07-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

a day of recovery of health after our little adventure up the antipoison creek (of which pam filled you in on the details yesterday)... (did she mention her health need, our long dinghy ride, tying up on another's property, the long walk, the drug store, the take out ribs place, jimmy carter, the jag offer, dinner at the picnic table, the long dinghy ride back, the amazing sunset, and ben sleeping outside, under the stars, on the deck of cricket? if not, let me know and i'll fill you in on the details).
this morning i was awakened by pam yelling something from the deck (by this time i had moved inside the
cabin to finish off my sleep, because the wind had died this morning, and the mosquitoes were taking over the great out of doors). i woke to her yelling, very excitedly, "dolphins! dolphins!" i bounced outside (as much as i can "bounce" first thing in the morning, which isn't much), and there they were. dolphins! probably a half a dozen or more! it was so much fun to watch there fins and tails and blowholes surface and go back down! i can't wait to go sailing with them. we must be truly in the southern end of the chesapeake now.
today was watching the crabbers, watching the locals, swimming, jumping off the bowsprit, reading, napping, eating and ended with a sweet sunset walk on the nearby sandy beach with a very happy owen, who gets to run free on this secluded beach, and chase little crabs into their sand holes. pam's feeling way better! t'was a good day. we're all very happy!

sailing tomorrow!

20090721: noises

2009-07-21T18:48:00.000-07:00

i am inspired to do a series on "things that go bump in the night." it is funny how on a boat such as cricket, not all that big, say, compared to your house, that there can be so many noises that are very dificult to figure out where they are coming from! especially when all is "quiet" at night time while you're laying cozy in your bunk. many times the wind will cause a hailyard (a line used to raise the sails) to bump against the mast and make a sound to keep even the heaviest of sleepers from dozing too heavily. when you are moored in a slip (a spot for a single boat on a dock), and there are hundreds of other boats in slips all around you, and the wind picks up it is amazing how loud all the haiiyards banging away on all those boats can be! it sounds like a bell choir gone crazy! it is common courtesy to keep this from happening on your boat, especcially around other boats, but it's amazing how many people allow their boats to clang away. when kell (the previous owner of cricket) was with us, he would get up and go over to some of the worst hailyard banger offenders, board their boats and fix the ringing of the bells himself! i admit, i did do this once myself... so that pam could sleep better, of course. anyway, when there is a strange noise coming from somewhere on the boat, lines are one of the first things to check, but those strange noises aren't always so easily traced...
last night while pam and i were playing a rousing game of backgammon in the cabin we heard what sounded like rain outside. i went to go close some hatches, but no rain falling. hummm. went outside. no rain. there were even a pile of stars shining above. i looked all around the deck of the boat to see if i could find the source of the noise. i could find no clues. couldn't even hear the sound at all. i went back below and there was that sound again. strange, but oh well. we went to sleep to the sound of the ghost rainfall.
this morning when we woke, it was still "raining." the sun was shining hotter n blazes. hardly a cloud in the sky. i poked my head into the head, into the galley, into the stern berth, and the noise seemed equally loud in each area. i started putting my ear against this and that and did find that it sounded loudest against the hull of the boat.
later today met a guy, whose name happens to be jimmy carter. nice guy. a fellow sailor. he'd been sailing the bay and the bahamas for many years. he gave us a ride (you may read the interesting details of this saga from pam's blog today). while we were riding along i told him about this peculiar sound. he laughed, and said that many a sailboat owner had heard that sound, and layed awake worrying that some electrical wires were frying beneith the surface of where they could not reach. he said the answer is much simpler and less worrysome than that. the noise is produced by little sea critters, such as shrimp, eating away at the vegetation growing on the underside of the boat! sweet! i don't want vegetation growing on the hull of cricket, so i welcome those shrimpies to dine away! now that sound will be as welcome as rain on the roof while i'm sleeping!

20090720: today's news in a letter to my dear ol' dad

2009-07-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

greetings from virginia! yes! we made it to a new state today! we'll miss maryland. s'been very good to us!
i'm going to cheat a bit today and copy an e-mail i sent to my father. it's still got the news o th' day, so it's cheating just a wee little bit...:

hey there papa!
nice to hear from you. hope things are going as well as can be!
getting things right the first time is way overrated! and the power of understanding is often way underrated! doing things right the second or third or hundreth time is just fine. i'm pretty sure Jesus would agree. amazing grace is an awfully good thing!
even though the picnic is 1995 years later than previously announced, pam and i still won't be able to attend as it is 6 days or so before we return from our first journey on cricket.

things are going very well out here on the chesapeake! today we broke our daily sailing milage record with 35+ miles (honestly, it was for 19-20 miles as the crow flies, but we had to do a huge tack to get out of the rather large potomac river mouth. such is the nature of sailing). however today we also got to experiance some of the best winds yet, even though they were contrary. we sailed much of the day at a speedy 5-6 knots. cricket lept and pounced through the 4-6 foot waves. quite a wild ride! not for those with the seasick gene, and fortunately for me the dna angels passed over my doorposts!
we went right by a lighthouse ( the smith point lighthouse) that is owned by a couple from winona, mn.

here's a good article about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/24/AR2005122400836.html

and here's an interesting blog page about the lighthouse:

http://lighthousestars.com/2007/10/08/smith-point-lighthouse-extreme-makeover/

it's a cute, old, round, concrete building thrusting right out of the bashing waves a few miles out from the potomac. it was not a good day to visit, however. the wind and waves would have either cut the visit way short, or worse, extended it indefinately! anyways, it didn't look like anyone was home.
we are anchored tonight in a nice spot up the big wicomoco river, off of sandy point. over to starboard there's a line of cabins, much like the lake cabins on minnesota's 10,000 lakes, with little sandy beaches and boat docks.
we were briefly visited by a pair of women on kayaks. they admired owen and cricket, and we admired their kayaks. we would like to get a pair of them aboard someday to explore shallow areas. our dinghy, jiminny, does a wonderful job of dinghying, but his outboard is a bit loud and smelly to sneak up on local widlife.
there is the sound of crickets, or frogs, or something coming from the shore. the wind is blowing relatively gently over our bows (of course... we're anchored). the breeze sometimes brings with it scents of a nearby seafood packing plant in the true workingman's town of reedsville. maybe not the best smell in the world, but it does help remind us of this place of the sea, of which we are blessed to be part of today.
owen, the cat is happy to be done with the pounding up and down of the day! he spent the day on the floor of the cabin, trying to find a place where he wouldn't slide downhill everytime we tacked. he's a good sport, though. never complained once! he is now cheerily prancing about the deck of the boat, batting at this line and that line, looking over the edge at the calm harbour waters. every once in a while he checks in on my lap, purring and nudging my face with his cool, whiskery nose.

i love you, papa! pam sends you her love too. please deliver loving hugs and kisses to mom for us too!

On Jul 20, 2009, at 2:24 PM, "WELLUMSON HOWARD" wrote:

Greetings again ...

I try to do things right the first time, but I find as I get older, IT'S Harder.

The date for the picnic is August 9, 2009, NOT August 9th 14th.

Any other corrections will be appreciated.

Howard

20090719: gettin to smith creek

2009-07-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

we made it to the potomac river, and a few miles up it to smith creek. on the way we saw a huge sailboat race that was huge, a nifty old lighthouse in the middle of some pretty expansive water that was looking rather old, and a half sunken world war one or two (not sure which) ship that was half out of the water. we saw another lighthouse called "point lookout" right at the mouth of the potomac. a couple of boy's camps lined the shore on our way up the very wide river.
the winds were quite light most of the day, so we ended up motoring a good while.
smith creek is a lovely little inlet, lined with pines and hardwoods. from where we are we can see one big ol' farm house a ways away, some lights from a marina a little further away, and trees, trees and trees. we like this sort of anchorage!

20090718: little choptank river to patuxent river

2009-07-18T18:16:00.000-07:00

today was one of those good-n-simple sailing days. not a lot to report, which must mean that we're getting a-hang of this sailing stuff! it was a sunny day sailing from the delmarva penninsula (del-aware, mar-yland, v-irgini-a) on the east side of the chesapeak across to the west side, and farther on down south. souther than we have been yet! winds varried from lightish to light, ussually on our tail, which was nice for a change. our plan is to keep heading south, river by river until we get to the mouth of the bay, and then if we have time and wind (oh boy oh boy) we will venture out into the big atlantic ocean! the next river down is the famous potomak. you know, the one with george washington crossing in that little boat, and the one that washington dc is on. then the rappahannock river is the next river south. we hear there's some beautiful places there, and a good marina we may winter cricket over at. then famous york and james rivers. the "birthplaces" of the usa. historic sites, such as yorktown, jamestown (ahhh, thus the names of the rivers!) and colonial williamsburg. looking forward to seeing a few of those places, and having becca (used to be steinmeier) and jason and anna and david vandewettering visit the boat down there!
today we are in a town called solomons landing. we are anchored in a tiny offshoot of the river in what feels very much like the backyards of some residents of the town. we dinghied jiminny over to a spot to get... yup, you guessed it, ice cream. it's a bit of a funny thing because when we were on the hard we were constantly driving on a long, well used road called "solomons island road," and now here we are. we went around this tiny-tiny little, scrubby, uninhabited island held together on all sides by timbers. the only island around, so we figure it's got to be solomons island. very underwhelming! there must be more to the story than we know.
i hear crickets chirping for the first time on this trip. nice!

20090717: a new rope ladder of old line

2009-07-17T17:36:00.001-07:00

today is a day of rest! woa! can we ever rest! yes, pam too. she can be taught! for me resting comes easily, and is often a good quality... sometimes it can wander into the "lazy zone," but can very often linger in the "patient zone," which is where it's at today. the wind was deader than dead this a.m., so rather than sit in the middle of the cheapeake bay, we're sitting in our cozy little cove off the mouth of the little choptank river. a thin peninsula is to our east, lined with pine trees and sand. a lovely veiw! it is a beautiful thing to live by God's weather!
funny, pam mentioned how it was a bit difficult to sleep last night on account of it being so still! now there's a change! we're getting to be true sailors, eh!?
we read, napped, read and worked on a cute little ship's ladder made of rope. the aluminum ladder we've been using works great, except that it is super hard to fold out, and fold back in. so we decided to try to make a ladder from the instructions given in a book we have aboard called, "the marlinspike sailor." it's a very fun, salty book about how to make all sorts of nautical items mostly out of rope (line) like turk's heads and monkey's fists and such. pam is amazing at figuring out knots and such! she has quite a knack for that good, practical stuff. she's got a lot of what folks call "c.s.," (common sense, which is not at all so common, far as i can tell!) and i truly appreciate those gifts! it was fun making the ladder, and it looks excellent! we feel all the saltier for putting it together, and will feel saltier yet when we get proficient at using it. we tried it out, risking jellyfish stings, and found that it will take some practice to use well, but it is a great addition to cricket's supplies. read pam's blog to hear a great story of her and the jellyfish today (i'm not qualified to tell it as it is too "personal."
a small storm blew by this afternoon, consisting of a good blow and a little rain. no anchor dragging. no other drama.
i'm going to see if i can get Pam to play a game of cribbage or two in this evening. we're driven below by the evening mosquitos, it is a bit stuffy in here because the wind is dead calm again. the oil lamp burns with a sweet glow, maybe warming things up even more down here, but it's sweet glow is worth the tenth of a degree!

20090716: sailing in the morning, sailing in the afternoon, sailing in the evening

2009-07-16T19:39:00.000-07:00

i've decided that on the days i'm either too lazy or too busy to post i will simply put my little list of notes to fill in later (i've been saving them, but not publishing them) i can edit them later...

20090716
windy night
fueled
sailed
sailed
sunset
anchor

20090715: touring the academy

2009-07-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

20090715: yet more pictures

2009-07-15T10:55:00.000-07:00

cute, condemned house with the bugs

pam and jiminny on tighlman island

cricket in a happy little bay (typical of our anchorages : )

chesapeake bay veiw

horseshoe crab

owen happily on dry land

20090715: some more random pictures worth 1000 words

2009-07-15T10:44:00.000-07:00

city dock in annapolis

papa jerr bear joins us on the hard in june

our "true sailor's" bimini

20090714: walking a lot, and a little riding too

2009-07-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

once again i woke to the early morning callithump of naval callisthenics, and owen scratching on this and that. he's got us trained now for the morning. he knows how we love our lovely woodwork so he'll start scratching on one of the locker doors (wood), and then typically pam will yell, "hey! owwwen!," and he'll know she'll be awake enough to jump up on the bunk and cuddle into one of our faces, purr, and begin nibbling on an earlobe or loose neck skin. this morning when i heard him beginning his morning attention system coinciding with the calls of the navy ranks i decided to try to relieve pam of her morning bawl and get up to take owen outside on the deck. so owen and i collected a few blankets, a pillow and my down sleeping bag and headed out into the early morning sunrise, closing the hatch behind us... i ended up getting warm, cozy and snoozy enough to forsake the important task of watching the cadets working their tails off and dropped off to sleep while they were running their "company run," and dreamt of giant centipedes.
after pam finally woke me up from the stern of cricket we took jiminny to city dock. we disposed of our ship's garbage, finally found a place to bring our ship's recycling, and then we took a long walk to an annapolis fire station. we wanted to properly dispose of our old fire extinguishers. the fireman at the firehouse door didn't sound like they typically did this, but kindly took them from us when he'd heard that we walked a ways to do the right thing.
our walked continued, and after a brief stop at a coffee shop we passed a humane society with a sign announcing kittens... who could resist looking at cute kittens, even knowing that you have a slight tendency towards shedding tears in such places?! up the driveway we went, and saw many, many cats and kittens waiting for someone to sweep them off to a loving home. amazingly, that someone was not us. not at this time. i don't know how we kept from completely melting from the warmth of those pleading eyes, but somehow made it out of there without a kitten. (could you please do me a favor and go adopt an orphan kitty today? it would help me feel better. thanks! : ) i said we didn't melt from the cat's eyes, but i didn't say anything about the dogs... when my eyes started to water over looking at the pups, i knew it was time to move on. (could you please do me another favor?) it took a while of walking to dry the ol' lids.
our walk continued. always away from jiminny at the city dock. we finally made it to our destination... west marine store. as captain of jiminny i was tired of dumping gasoline all over him, and into the bay everytime we needed to fill his petite tank, so we decided it would be good to install an external tank. you know, the kind with the long rubber hose with the little hollow rubber ball to squeeze the gasoline to the motor? anyways, we found just the guy (giff) to help us because of two reasons:
1. he'd just gotten back from circumnavigating the world (our ultimate goal in cricket). did we ply him with questions and distract him from his job? you bet we did! and we've got his websight and contact info too.
2. when we didn't know which fitting to buy he gladly drove us to the city dock after he got off work! wow! we tried to pry as much information out of him as we could while we rode on the bench seat of his old pickup truck.
i am pleased to think that jiminny, the sea, and my body will be smelling much less of fossil fuel!
when we'd been deposited once again at the city dock we walked across the street to have a couple pieces of pizza and a couple bottles of ibc root beer. when we were almost finished eating glen (the guy from yesterday) walked by, and we hailed him fully knowing this could be a while. it was. he apologised about the dirty shirt he'd been wearing yesterday. the shirt he was wearing looked ever so slightly cleaner. we told him that was ok (we haven't showered for a couple of weeks now). glen went on to say that he'd been thinking and we probably didn't have to listen to his favorite preacher on the radio anymore because he didn't believe a lot of what he said, and that he would just take the parts he knew were true in his heart, and not worry about the parts he knew weren't. he said he decided not to be stuck on any certain date that Jesus would return. way to go glen! the talk then changed to how cold the winters were in annapolis, and how very, very cold they were in minneapolis (glen will NOT be moving there). he talked about how his old oil burning furnace was a crap shoot as far as it's working this winter. we mentioned to him that we'd been thinking of him while we were visiting the humane society that morning, and that we thought he might have a good time volunteering there giving attention to those cats n kittens. he sounded interested, and asked a few questions about it. well... he said he didn't want to interrupt our dinner, and turned around and walked off down the street. God bless glen!
we then walked to the naval academy, and had a lovely time looking around the grounds at the beautiful historic old buildings, monuments, and trees. we stopped to watch the evening formations. salutes, swords, orders being yelled loudly, marching, drum beats, about faces... all very formal and impressive! paul, you would love it! we sure did.
from there we walked back to jiminny and took him up spa creek, under a draw bridge, past lots of sweet historic houses and boats on docks and moorings and little parks and church steeples, and more houses and boats farther up the creek to a little party on a sailboat. we'd been invited to join them earlier by an employee of the local marine supply store (fawcetts). it was great fun to sit in community with 8-9 folks in the cockpit of a sailboat on a city creek talking about sailing the world and living in this world. good folks. the owner of the boat works for the dock master here, and gave pam and i a couple of tokens for showers here at citydock (a little hint? things were a little tight in that boat). after a little 3 day homemade sauce and spaghetti it was goodbye and back to jiminny.
back up the creek in the faint evening glow, past the house's lit windows, past the drawbridge's green and red lights, past the big boats and fancy restaurants, across the waves and back to cricket's welcoming decks, with owen standing on them, glad to see us return (purr, purr, purr), and back to our warm bunk in the bow.

20090713: glen

2009-07-13T20:56:00.000-07:00

well, i should be covered for the blogging for the day because of the pictures i posted previously. you know, a picture paints a thousand words and all that, but i know i can't get off that easy.

this morning pam was up with the naval acadimy cadets around 0615, but although i heard them begin their hour of p.t., i continued counting sheep and sawing logs in and out of the cadence counting. when i got up at 0715 they were cheerily marching off the feild to their breakfasts.

pam and i headed jiminny towards the city dock and over to citydock coffee house, complete with wifi. it was sure nuff pleasent to sit at a coffee house through a redeye (coffee with espresso) to wake up, a couple shots of espresso straight up to keep going, and an iced coffee for lunch. i like coffee shops.

back at cricket we got a few "no pressure" chores done. pam swabbed th' sole (cabin floor), and i put up the tarp and replaced 3 fire extinguishers. we hailed the holding tank pumper boat on channel 17, and got the poop pumped out for only 5 bucks! i pulled the hose off the boat a little prematurely and had to wash shit out of the scuppers. phew. but hey... i'm a true sailor now!

we went back into town this evening so that pam could wifi-iron some aslis work stuff out. we brought owen along since he hadn't been off the boat in well over a week. he doesn't love being handed over the rail and into the dory, but all in all he enjoyed bring on land, once it stopped pitching for him. he and i walked to the maryland capitol building (which was once our nation's capitol building for a short while) and sat on a bench beneath a frowning forefather statue. owen enjoyed chasing a few fireflies as evening came. he gets lots of comments and attention when you walk down the streets with him on your shoulders or walking at the end of his leash!

after pam met us, and hung out at our little happy spot for a while, we walked into the citydock business area for ice cream. enter glen. he's a thin man sitting on a bench in rags and peppered whiskers. he said in a very raspy voice (ever heard of tom waits?), "i've never seen a cat go walkin' round here." we stopped. he told us through his bad teeth (one of them sticking straight out) about the old days in the 70s when his ma n pa had a dozen or more cats, and they didn't have any mice problems and the cats could sleep in the basement in the winter, and they'd cover the davenport, but now ma n pa n the cats is gone and he's got lots of mice runnin around th' place, and he thinks they get in thru a certain spot and his friend steve is coming soon to help him hook up a tv, if glen won't chicken out and blow him off this time, and, and... i think he needed someone to listen for a while, so we did. for over an hour. off he went about this guy he listens to on the radio who used to say the world would end in may of 1993, and when it didn't he sort of dissappeared, but is back now preaching that Jesus'll come back in the summer of 2011. he wasn't sure whether to believe him this time, but couldn't help listening to him, and pondering the things he says. i know from what i'm saying that glen doesn't sound very bright, but he was bright in spirit! (and he actually made some very intellegent metaphores through his ramblings). i like glen. he said if we really knew that Jesus was to return in 2011 it'd be reason to rejoice, because then we could get our ducks in a row. i said it's ok if we don't have our ducks in a row because God loves us with crooked ducks, and gives us grace. i don't know if he heard me, but i know i heard him, and will rejoice because we're given time to realize who the Great Duck Arranger is! no matter who we are, and how confused we feel about who's right! glen had to quick use the public restroom before it closed, and we had to get our ice cream before they closed. glen said no thank you for the ice cream, but if we wanted to listen to this preacher man, he'd be on the radio about now, as far to the right as the radio dial could go.

20090713: just another sunset?

2009-07-13T09:44:00.000-07:00

from papa jerr bear's visit. it's a lovely thing to sit on the deck in the evening! breezes, waves, fishes and crack (irish for conversation).

20090713: picture?... picture!

2009-07-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

photos on our blog!
a coffee shop in annapolis, wifi, and viola!

20090712: back to the old city

2009-07-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

not a lot to report today.

we woke this morning in our beautiful boat in a beautiful little cove. there were a few things we could do in annapolis so we were thinking that was a possibility, but when we discovered our holding tank (where all the poop goes while near land) was most likely full, going to annapolis became a sure thing.
so we up anchored. this morning reveiled the muckiest anchor chain yet! the gooey stuff just stuck to the chain like thick tar. i ended up actually diving into the water to brush the mud off the chain at the waterline, while pam winched it in from above. typically i hoist a sea bucket on a rope up to the deck to wash the chain, but today it would have taken dozens of buckets, and i'd rather have the lower impact workout of swimming rather than the "gold's gym" upper body calisthenics.

the sail today was nice, with some motoring necessary late in the afternoon. some decent winds in the morning, but nothing like the blow we got yesterday. a nice break from all the excitement.

we spent a lovely evening walking the town, eating out and sitting with alex haley at the end of the city docks.

looking forward to waking with the navy!

good night.

20090711: goodbye j&a, hello lots of water

2009-07-11T20:38:00.000-07:00

this morning we (pam and i, not annie or jason) were awakened by what i thought was a nearby anchored boat with it's uhf radio blasting way, way too loud. turned out that it was a guy on a megaphone calling out orders to hundreds of naval cadets on the field of the u.s. naval acadamy. we were anchored right off from there. we groggly woke up and sat comfortably on the stern of cricket and watched them do there early morning workout, complete with every calethstenic known to man, a 1.5 mile run, and lots of loud chanting.
soon afterwards jason and annie woke, and we dinghied them to the annapolis city dock to drop them off to wait for us as we sailed back to the little bay a little ways down the big bay. annie's tummy could not take any more sailing, so pam and i arranged to leave them there, anchor the boat near the car, and bring it back to them in annapolis. it was a very good thing that annie's tummy didn't come along! it was a fantastic morning if great sailing in good winds! we felt bad that jason couldn't've been there with us, but it was very kind of him to keep annie company for the rather long wait!
the sailing taught us more again. we were beating, mostly (sailing against the wind), through some pretty heavy traffic, with some pretty heavy winds. some of the traffic consisted of biggish, grey, navy vessels, a couple of giant cargo ships, and lots of sail and motor boats. whew! pam did a fantastic job of piloting and navigating! we may have been carrying too much sail... but cricket is a fine boat, and very forgiving. there was one moment when i was piloting, and the wind gusted, and i came fairly close to laying her on her side! exciting! not a great big deal, because cricket's heavy keel will bring her right back up, but still a little disconcerting with a boat this size. well, wouldn't have been as much of a deal if i'd've remembered to close her portholes! water came gushing into the cabin, soaking of settee (seat) cushions, and waterlogging a good number of good books on our bookshelf. they will all dry, but the books will be thicker than they once were : (
we eventually made it back to our anchorage near the car, took jiminny to the car, picked up a&j, took us back to jiminny, and said our goodbyes. it is sad to see the kids go. we'll miss them. t'was great to have them be part of our summer adventures!
it's nice, however, to be back to the original crew. pam, owen, cricket, jiminny and i are looking forward to whatever adventures the second bit of the summer has in store for us!

20090710: breaking radio silence

2009-07-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

allright... time to break radio silence. sorry about the lack of bloggation the last couple of days. with annie and jason here it's been a little socially busier than usual, and i haven't figured out the socio-journio balance just yet.
even tonight it's a bit late for me to spend too much time on this, so allow me to give a breif outline, of which i shall fill in the details once we send our sweet guests on their way tomorrow. there really hasn't been much in the way of seafairin' tales the last couple days, unless you call dinghying in jiminny "sea fairin'." we've been trying to avoid them with annie's propensity toward heaving sea-n-gut syndrome.

today:
> motoring to annapolis, with sail drills but no wind
> annie's bout with the face of green, then red
> anchoring in the big city / bad timing fir engine troubles
> a day to the city with jiminny, fawcetts, restaurants, cabs, theaters and jiminny.

yeterday:
> a day going to visit becca, david, anna, and jason in gloucester, and yorktown.

day before yeterday:
> a fun day in dc

hopefully there'll time tomorrow! good night.

20090707: our youngest visitors

2009-07-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

annie and jason arrived this morning! it's so fun having the younger ones aboard! i love seeing this boat through their wonderous eyes! we had a great time in annapolis, then a wonderful, jellyfish free swim, then back to annapolis. we found it more adventurous than we thought trying to find a place ashore to park the car for a couple of days. we ended up with the "i'd rather ask for forgiveness than ask ask for permission" principle.
jason and i did some bowsprit jumping! fun! poor annie's equalibrium is not behaving itself, thus making it neccessary to find cures for the common motion sickness. ginger cookies, ginger candy, ginger pills, and extra ginger ginger beer... plus the usual dramamine. and this is only at anchor.

it's off to do some obama spotting tomorrow!

20090706: here they come!

2009-07-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

today we are staging ourselves for an exciting antisipation of annie and jason coming out to visit! they were somewhere near chicago when we called this afternoon. we are crossing the water of the bay to get somewhere closer to annapolis, so that when they come it will be easier for them to meet us. we tried to sail it today. according to noaa (national oceanographic and atmospheric administration, the weather dudes) we were supposed to have north north west winds from 10-15mph, shifting to the east as the day progressed. ha! the wind pretty much took the day off. we made something like 8 miles in so many hours. mind you, we don't mind sitting still on the water, but if we were to sail around the world at today's speeds it would take us at least 20 years of continuous sailing. we had to motor quite a bit at the end. all in all it was 12 hours of sailing and motoring today for 29 miles. i hope jase and annie are moving a bit faster, in spite of chicago traffic ; )
now we're tucked away in a spot with sweet little, forested islands around us. we have several sailboat neighbors. we think some folks took the week off for the fourth of july.
snug. sun drenched. tired.
good night.

oh yeah! we had a skater gliding right beside us today while under sail! beautiful! look up skaters on chesapeake bay in wikipedia. they're a form of a sea ray.

20090705: sunday

2009-07-05T19:57:00.000-07:00

sunday... day of rest. and rest we did.

we did manage to take jimminy into a nearby town. about two miles away or so. owen stayed to guard cricket while we were gone.
the town of tilghman is very much a working boatman's town. lots of crab, and oyster, and fishing boats. tilghman is set on a long peninsula where there is a narrow cannal (nap's narrows) for boats with a shallow draft to cut through (saving them 6-7 miles). a nice town with a cool bridge that swivals up to allow taller boats through. it was fun to explore. we even explored an interesting old, abandoned house, inside and out. the doors were open. who could ressist?when we were snooping in the upstairs we felt something tickling our ankles. when we looked down our feet were covered, and i mean covered with tiny little black bugs, making their way up our legs! thousands of the little buggers! we got out of there double quick, and quickly brushed the things off. weird! i'm glad the ground around here isn't like that.
we ate out at a little tiki style restaurant on the canal.
owen greeted us when we returned. so nice to have the little rascal with us!

20090704: a joyful depend-dance day

2009-07-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

tis july the fourth. a day for us to remember He who gives us true freedom from the burdens of this world! to give thanks for the wonderful gifts we have been given, including this amazing place to live. and a good day to reflect on the reality that we are wholy dependant upon the love and grace that freely flows from The Creator!
"america, america, God shed His grace on thee,
and crown Thy good with sisterhood (and botherhood)
from sea to shining sea!!!"

ah, yes! the sea!
we had an amazing day upon the sea! we left our sweet little harbour this morning, waving goodbye to our new friends as we pulled anchor and headed for the narrow channel. darrell and nancy gave as a happy little toot on their airhorn as we embarked on the day's journey.
the plan was to head northeast from latrappe creek to dun cove in harris creek 9 miles away, as the crow flies (with no prevailing winds). the forecast called for northeast winds, so this was going to be a day of tacking and tacking (something we haven't been the greatest in, in the past). however, that is in the past! tacking is going back and forth at angles into the wind. it has to be done on a sailboat, as a sailboat can not sail directly into the wind. generally speaking, you have to sail at least 30 degrees from head on winds. obviously this means you have to go much farther to get from point a to point b.
but it is much fun, once you (we) get (got) the hang of it! it is wonderful to look at our course lines on the gps plotter. our tacks were not only nearly perfectly executed, but they were all very well timed! i'm not bragging, i'm just feeling mighty fine that we've come a long way in learning the craft of sail. cricket and Somebody has taught us well, and has been taking very good care of us, in spite of ourselves. one word... grace!

we are now anchored in the snuggest little cove we could imagine! in our view there is a pretty farm, and pine trees lining the shore. not a lot of wiggle room in here, but our anchor seems set quite well, and there is plenty of protection from both wind and waves.

earlier, as were finding our way into this little bit of paradise, a motor boat hailed us to say their batteries had died, and they couldn't get their boat started. we were in a very narrow channel, and couldn't stop to help at the moment, but as soon as we were securely anchored, we dinghied over on jimminy to see if we could assist. they appreciated the offer, but said someone else could help. so we thought, "why dinghy straight back to cricket, when we could let jimminy help us explore this sweet cove?" turned out to be a great idea, because we found an amazing camp/picnic sight just up the cove from us. so we headed back to cricket, pam packed a wonderful picnic dinner, we took a quick dip to cool off, we grabbed owen and took off for our shore lunch/supper. the spot had beautiful huge oaks, pines and even some holly trees (prickly leaves on the ground!). there were two picnic tables, a swing, horseshoe pits, a little grill, a lovely wooden swing hanging from the oak's high branches, and even a little tree fort! we had a great walk across a couple of young corn feilds, and over to the main part of harris creek bay. owen loved the place! he loved feeling dry ground under his paws, and walked a long ways with us on his leash. we even took a little nap together up in the little tree fort.
back on cricket now, i hear distant fireworks popping off, see the nearly full moon rising to the east, and have a grateful heart for all the blessings of the day!

oh yeah... and i got some pretty cool footage of jellyfish swimming around this evening! i'll try'n figure a way to post 'em in a week or so.

oh, oh yeah... pam and i played backgammon this evening too. i won't say who won more games. that would be bragging.

20090703: owen's adventure on jimminy

2009-07-03T19:15:00.000-07:00

owen had his first adventure on the dinghy today. he wasn't too thrilled with being passed over the railing and into jimminy. so much so that he lept up high out of the dinghy, and onto cricket's deck four feet above. i helped him back into jimminy, and into pam's arms for comfort. we motored over to a nearby sandy, shelly shore to explore. owen did what his mother, allie did when confronted with a completely new terrain. he found the nearest ""cave" (in this case some dense bushes) and holed up until he could observe his surroundings for a while, and then slowly venture out from there. he didn't naturally want to come too near the wavy shoreline, but was happy to explore the grass and bushes and sand a few yards back from it. he enjoyed watching pam and i explore the shoreline for nice rocks and shells and driftwood. he found a perfect sandy spot to dig and pee. his first time peeing outdoors this trip. i figured, as a guy, this must have been very enjoyable to him. he covered his business up and i thought, "yeah! he does know how to do this. he just needed a primative setting to trigger his instincts (see the earlier blog on pooping). then he continued to dig, and dug up what he had just done, and i thought, "o well. never mind." once, when pam went around a corner, and i stayed behind with him he started to try to follow pam and meowed in great worry, just like my old dog henry would have done, which warmed our hearts completely (only henry whined instead of meowed, of course). we had owen on a leash, so he couldn't go far, so i went through grass and under bushes so he could find his beloved mother in an adjacent beach. i found an old glass pepsicola bottle! i love old bottles! treasaarrre! pam found a good small pile of polished white and dark stones with which to play backgammon with. i also found a nice twisty piece of driftwood that looks like a snake. we brought all our booty back to the boat. owen was very happy to upon his beloved cricket once more, and immediately went below to hunker himself into a cozy nap.

also today we had little baths from the side of cricket, between the jellyfish. this evening we went over to our neighbors boat and enjoyed some good conversation in thier cockpit. there was another boat who was having great trouble anchoring, so we went over to help them. wow! i've learned enough now to help somebody else!

tonight is the 3rd of july, and i could hear a nearby town's fireworks, and see a very little bit of them over the shores treeline. i am going to sleep out under the stars tonight, on cricket's deck! yeah! pam is in our berth just below me, so it's like bunk beds again!

20090702: boat healer, ice cream, and cards

2009-07-02T19:41:00.000-07:00

today i am very pleased and proud to announce that pam and i successfully docked cricket with no pressure, no mishaps, no bad feelings! the dock we docked upon was into a fairly narrow opening, into a cute little river that extends up into the town of oxford. it is lined on both sides with boat docks. lots of pretty boats. lots of not so pretty boats. sail boats, motor boats, pleasure boats, work boats. plenty of reason here to feel the pressure, but we took plenty of deep breaths beforehand, and drove in, and docked her. it took two passes at the dock, but we both knew we'd finallize the docking procedures when we were good and ready to do so! yeah for us!
the reason for docking the boat today, instead of simply finding another easy anchorage was not simply for the practice, or to make us feel better about such manoeuvres. nope. we really wanted to figure out our electrical issues once and for all! we pulled up to the dock, walked to the oxford marina buildings, found the offices (more challanging than it sounds. everybody there says, "it's in that blue building over there," but all of the buildings are blue! and the office doesn't say "office" anywhere on it). anyway, when we entered we were greeted by a great big rottweiler dog, with a long string of drewl hanging down his starboard jowl. a very nice greeting, as far as we were concearned. we found out later that this dog's nickname was nettles, after the long stringy nettles jellyfish all over the bay. we were directed into a room with a couple of chairs, a desk and a man behind the desk. as soon as he spoke, we knew we were in the right place! not only was he friendly, and interested in hearing our whole boring story about our electrics, but he also had the best english accent. could listen to it all day, and we did get to hear quite a lot of it, because he took plenty of time with us to explain in patient words we could understand all about how our electric system works. wonderful! he also tested this and that, and fixed a few things that have been annoying us, and causing us to be very electrically "shy." at one point he had his head buried in one of the spots with batteries, voltage regulators and the like, and we saw him pull out his wire cutters and heard "snip." pam and i both gasped, and he said in a very cheery voice, "don't worry! i'm a professional. this won't hurt a bit!" he was right. our battery, the one that didn't start our engine in a crucial time of need was soon charging up like it should have been. it was great to find a competant, friendly, wholistic boat healer.

we celebrated with a pint of homemade ice cream each, and motored our way to nearby latrap river. that is where we are now, anchored in a pretty little "lagoon." there are three other sailboats sharing this harbor with us with their anchor lights shining on the tops of their masts, reflecting on the water.

earlier this evening we had a lovely visit from our news friends, the urban couple, who are also anchored in this bay. we laughed, told stories, and they taught us how to play cannasta. such amazing community on these waters! we are blessed!

20090701:

2009-07-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

anniversary

paul a martin

cemetary

oxford, ice cream, author

jelly pictures

storm

20090630:

2009-06-30T18:10:00.000-07:00

who knew when we woke up with the breeze blowing through our little bow cabin that the wind would waft us to such lovely encounters with the kindness of God's good folks! you never know what gifts are in store for you each day. and a good thing too. i love surprises.

the adventures of jimminy:
a proposal was made some time ago, and was overwhelmingly agreed upon by all hands of the ship's crew that pam should, at all times, be the captain upon cricket (until further review, discussion and agreement). the reasons for this decision are many, but they mostly have to do with things such as safety, sound judgement, common sense, etc... it was recently agreed upon that, in fairness, i shall be the full time captain upon jimminy, our dinghy (aka: tender, dory, zodiak). jimminy is a little foldable, inflatable boat made of rubber, with a little outboard motor (a tohatsu 4 stroke), and two oars with aluminum shafts and plastic blades (unbeknownst to me, totally useless as oars). she... ooops, i mean HE has been happily tetherred to cricket, and bobs along behind us as we make way here and there. cricket draws nearly six feet of water (her heavy keel is six feet under the water), which hopefully most often, keeps us from visiting about 1/4th of the chesapeake, on account of 1/4 of it being shallower than six feet. enter jimminy. he draws less than 1.5 feet. he will take us into much of the 1/4 of the bay that cricket shouldn't, such as some town docks, little irresistable bays, streams, and rivers, etc. so being his captain is no small responsibility!
this morning we employed jimminy's skills to take us into the town of oxford. we began heading around a point of land towards town. as soon as we rounded the point, and were in sight of the docks and such sputter, sputter, putt, putt, cough, silence... oops! i was kind of thinking before we left that i should have checked the gas tank, but i forgot. oh well. we still have the oars. and how romantic for me to oar my love into town.

marina/rascal ii

paul a martin

daryl and nancy

20090629: wonders and miracles

2009-06-29T20:22:00.000-07:00

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.

20090628: day of rest

2009-06-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

such a nice setting for such a lazy day. a little bay with other little bays sticking in here and there. penninsulas with pine trees growing up on them. a few houses dotted sparsely along the shores. a few jellyfish drifting by. waterfoul flying by us.
sunday today. a day to rest and see God's bountiful creativity. a day to bob at anchor, read some bible verses together, pray together, and sing together on the stern of cricket. a great day! spending it "in the southland of the heart, where the saints go lazily." bruce cockburn

ps: i finished yesterday's blog

20090627: sailing, sailing, then a bit of drama

2009-06-27T20:41:00.000-07:00

it's getting to be a bad habit of mine to be too tired to blog at day's end... i did finish yesterday's blog tonight, so refere back to that for now. but i'm too stinking tired to write about today. it's a grand tale, which i shall set about the telling of tomorrow...
i'm sure you've heard a bit about it from pam's blog tonight, but you'll get my take tomorrow.

after pouring over the charts (sea maps), and pouring over the good advice we recieved from our good friends that know this bay, we decided to head out on our wonderful gunkholing adventure for good! we decided to head east south east to the little choptank river. this spot is all the way across the bay (you can't see one side from the other at this point of the bay), and a little north. the winds were blowing pretty well when it was time to leave in the morning, so we decided to try for the first time to leave anchor without the use of the diesel (real sailor like!). if you would have been on board you might have had quite the amusing time at the little comody of errors going on while i tried to hoist the anchor, and get the sail up at the same time! we are true sailors, but inexperianced true sailors as of yet. this time we were working with just two crew, so i didn't have time to wash the anchor chain as it came up. sounds a bit silly, but it isn't just a matter of persnicketty "ship shape and bristol fashion." the chain comes up all mucky gooey from the bottom of this bay, and if you don't wash the lion's share of it off it goes right down to the chain locker, which is one little cabinet door away from where we sleep. if too much gets in there it can begin to get a bit smelly, like sleeping in a swampy swamp. but today there was no one to wash the chain as she came up (papa jerr bear had been helping with this before) , and my hands were getting muddy from handling the chain. there is a manual winch to heave the anchor and chain up with, but inevitably one must help it with the hands. but now i need to use these same hands to handle the halyards (the lines [ropes] that pull up the sails. you don't want to handle these lines with muddy hands because it gets into these expensive lines and prematurely wears them down. so i had to throw our little sea bucket on a rope into the water, and hoist up water to rinse my hands. all the while the boat is pitching, and as soon as the anchor is off the ground, cricket is begining to move i think that's enough explaining so you get the idea. i'm sure you're wondering at this time where pam is in all this mess? well, she's at the wheel trying to keep us from going too far astray into shallow water, or into another boat, or into someone's crab pot buoys, etc. she's got her hands full too, especially when we don't have steerageway ( the boat's not going fast enough to steer her)...

anyway... after we'd finally gotten off, and tacked (zig zagged) here and there to dance around a lot (and i mean a lot!) of saturday boat traffic (i think Pam counted at least 100+ boats behind us when we were clear of them all), and tacked to avoid shallows, and got heading in the ultimate right direction we had a wonderful, smooth, slow sail. the winds died down for quite a while, but we were in no hurry. there was usually just enough wind to go in our intended direction. sometimes we sat there bobbing like a cork waiting for the wind to pick up, and today it always did. it was so nice to be out there trimming sail, navigating and just being! there was a good long time that i sat on the bowsprit, in the shadow of the jib reading the last of "kon-tiki." fantastic!

long about 6:00 we were just about to turn the engine on because we were at our "drop dead" time to make 5-6 knots, or anchor in the dark, when a beautiful wind swept up and pushed us along at a great speed! for the last leg into the choptank river we were making 6-8 knots, and cricket was cruising along very cheerily! it is so fun to be sailing like that! healed over, moving like the wind!

we rounded the corner, sailed up the river, picked out where we wanted to spend the night, and got to where we needed to start our engine in order to safely make it to anchorage. it turned the key and the starter twirled once and quit... oh no! dead battery! i tried again... nope. o boy. now what do we do? turn off all electronics ( including the nav instruments [yes, this will come into play soon]), so thatcthe batteries can hopefully recoup soon. guess we'll have to do it the old fashioned way and sail all the way to anchorage. things were going fairly well at this, when all of a sudden our bow swung around for no apperent reason. she had run into some mud on the bottom, and was now grounding herself up in some shallows! without words we both said short prayers, i doused the sails, and we decided to try the engine... she started! i tried to back her out. no go. tried to push her forward and around to get out of the mud. she came around a bit, but we couldn't get her off. the wind was pushing us in further and further. right then we heard a man calling from the channel. we looked over, and there was another sailboat with a man and a woman aboard. he called, "how much do you draw?" i called back, "5' 11" " he said we'd better do something to get us out quick, and suggested that we bring him a line in our dinghy. like lightning Pam began to tie a bunch of our docklines together, and i hopped in jimminy to get him untied and started. by the time i did pam had the lines ready, so she handed them to me and i motored to the channel. it was quite a chore to drive the bobbing dinghy, controling her outboard with one hand, and trying to keep our wet docklines in the other hand, and try to get to the other boat! the lines didn't seem long enough, but after he'd made a couple of passes i was finally able to grab his dinghy, and pull myself up to his boat boat. he took the line and made it fast on a cleat, and started to pull. his little sailboat pulled and pulled until finally cricket began to suck out of the mud, and was pulled free into the channel!

we both anchored near each other, and pam and i went over to their boat ,spellbound to thank them again. pete and pam are their names. they were so gracious! they invited us aboard, gave us some good wine, and we had a wonderful conversation! he made a few suggestions that i'm sure we'll follow. a few places to see, and a few things to consider for cricket. when we headed back in jimminy it was dark, so we had our headlights on (flashlights you wear on your head). it was very cute to see two little yellow eyes shining back at us from cricket's deck. owen had come out to greet us!

20090626: lazy day in the bay

2009-06-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

what a nice, mellow day! pam and i decided that today could be a day of rest, even though it is not sunday. we've been doing this and that and going here and there every day since we've arrived. it was time for a rest...

this mornng we were awakened to the anchor alarm going off again, we sprang up to find papa jerry sitting in the stern of the boat soaking in his last moments aboard. we didn't appear to be dragging anchor, but that got us going for the day. we made ready, pulled anchor, and headed for the docks one last time; this time just long enough to drop jerr bear off at his car, and bid him fare well. he'll be visiting a few friends around here for the next couple days, and then fly back to his home in florida on sunday. pulling up to the dock went off without much excitement (a very good thing). only little bit of excitement was that owen waited to be near the dock and then bounded off the boat, which was very brave of him. he got to the dock and didn't really know where to go from there, so it was easy to "catch" him again. he walked with us on his little kitty leash. we said goodbyes at the car, and then in good midwestern style, said goodbyes a second time at the boat (he'd forgotton a few things, and came running up the dock before we left). thank you papa jerr bear for your help and your company these last 12 days!

now it is "me and you and a dog named boo," exept it's not a dog, it's a cat, and his name isn't boo, it's owen. when we left the dock the wind had died down to near zero, so we decided to take it super easy and simply motor out to the bay around the corner, where we'd been last night. it was nice yesterday, it'll be nice today! so it was down with the anchor, and soak in the surrounding seas.

[going to bed... i'll finish this post in the morning... good night]

we had a lovely, easy afternoon and evening. t'was a rather warm one, so we swam twice, and i figured out how to attach our little tarp (kell called it a bimini, but i don't see how to use it as one... yet). however, as a camper i have learned to absolutely love the invention of the tarp! there have been many hours of pleasure in the boundary waters canoe area when i've put up the ol' tarp, taking lots of time to adjust this rope and that rope, on this tree and that tree to get it perfectly over the fire grate, so that we could sit there in the pouring rain, with a warm fire burning with narry a drop to wet us as we cheerily chatted the storms (or when i'm alone to read and dream the rain away). so it was pure joy for me to figure out how this here piece of white canvas would fit on cricket. i fiddled with this and that line to my heart's content. it was blissful to realize i had all the "trees" one could want to tie the lines to in the form of stays ( the wire lines that hold the mast in place). in a couple of hours we had a sweet little tarp hovering over us, not to keep us out of the rain, but rather to shield us from the sun's intense rays. we didn't have a campfire under it since it was too hot already ; ). the tarp will work very well for shade on hot days when we're anchored, but not while we're under sail. we're finding that the sails themselves work well enough for that. most boats have a bimini over the cockpit to shade those under it. our good friend john of the "seawing" told us that we'd soon be real sailors, and real sailors don't use biminis. we're finding that when you're sailing on this boat you can get the sail trim just right, put on the auto helm, and keep watch anywhere on the boat, thus being able to sit under the shade of a sail (as long as there aren't too many other boats around to run into). sweet huh! anyway... back to the subject of the tarp... we sat under our new discovery and had a lovely dinner Pam had prepared while i played with the thing, and read, and talked, and didn't get a severe sunburn.

in the evening dark clouds moved in, the sky turned stormy purple and pink colors, lighting bolted around us, and the winds began to blow up. cricket made a 180 turn around her anchor, and we watched as we dragged anchor and chain here and there until the wind decided which direction to blow in, and then the anchor set itself in the mud once again. we weren't too concearned because we had given her plenty of sea room in all directions. then came the rain. it was nice to have the rain fall once again, as we haven't had any for well over a week. we welcomed the little storm. i took down my little tarp, because i'm not sure how much wind it can take (or how much wind we would get), so pam and i sat in the stern with our new umbrellas (which we bought to shade us from the sun... but still no bimini, so we're still "real sailors!") as long as we could in the rain. as we watched to storm move to the east into the darkness of night, we watched the boat lights move across the bay, and listened to them talk on the marine band radio. the clouds began to break, and stars began to appear. another great day. even though the day was fairly lazy, we felt plenty tired enough.

20090625: skating away on the bay

2009-06-25T19:40:00.000-07:00

we do love that annapolis, don't we!?
it was back there once again this morning for a few things at target (they've got a escalator for shopping carts there!), and to the grocery store for provisions for the next couple weeks. yes, couple weeks! yippee! that's cause pam and owen and i are going gunkholing until annie and jason come to gunkhole with us some more. i think they'll be here july 6th or so! we will be dropping papa jerr bear off on the hard in the morning, and then will go where the wind takes us. it's nice to have guests, but we are both very much looking forward to having some time alone!

after our successful shopping trip we went to the old city dock and had sweet iced cream. t'was a rather hottish day, so the iced cream had no problem finding it's way into our mouths and on down to our innards.

when we'd stowed all our new gear and provisions onto cricket we slipped our slip at herrington harbour (not without a little windy, launchy drama... almost taking the gps reciever off her stern). headed over to pump the gunk out of our holding tank (did you know that you can actually see your little turds pump through the sucker device? pretty cool!). then it was out to the bay (herring bay), just around the corner. just 4 miles or so down the shore, and down the anchor. beautiful spot! we'd gotten the idea to stay here when we'd seen others doing the same when we came back to herrington last time. great spot with an expansive view of the bay on one side, and lovely views of the shores trees and cliffs and houses on the other. we all three had a cool swim around the boat (cricket looks so happy and beautiful from the water!). owen came out from the cabin, and was checking out the surroundings, even to the point of poking his head over the ladder! perhaps he wanted to have a little swim too? i doubt it, but he sure didn't seem to hold any grudges from being thrust into the water last time. he's been an amazing ship's cat!
we've been watching "skates" swim all around us this evening. skates are a form of a sea ray. they swim near the surface sometimes, and when they do they stick the ends of their two wing like fins up out of the water, and it looks like a couple of dancing sharks going by. very fun! the golden sunset behind the shore was so serene, with the silver sliver moon following close behind. amazing! as the stars were poking out we went below for one last game of cutthroat cribbage with jerr bear.
and now, to the sound of water gurgling around cricket's hull, i will go outside and gaze at the lights on the shore, and the lack of lights on the big water of the bay, and the twinkling lights of the heavens and breath some thankful breaths.

20090624: today's adventures

2009-06-24T19:07:00.000-07:00

pam and i are a bit red faced being here, back at herrington harbour. it seems a bit like, "here we go on our big adventure..." "here we are, back to the comforts of luxury." i know the true adventurers are thinking, "aha! they can't hack the real stuff! look at 'em crawling back with their tail tucked between their legs, just two days after they left! whimps!"

well, let me just say to you true adventurers, "you are wrong! we ARE true adventurers, just like you (however, less judgemental)! we came back for the sake of OTHERS! we came back for the sake of jerr bear, and his friends, joe and fran. we came back, so that papa jerry could get some ice and vodka. we came back so that we could take joe and fran out on the bay, so they could have their own little adventure on cricket. and besides, even though we came back, we still adventured plenty good. yeah! for instance, when we were out in the middle of the bay, and the wind died down, we swam with the jellies! yes, risking getting stung, and all of the oogly feelings associated with swimming with slimey, underwater things. and we've got 3 witnesses. and if that weren't enough adventure to prove our brave adventuring spirits, we took owen the cat, claws and all, into the water with us! so now HE's as much an adventurer as the rest of us true adventurers, huh!? AND, now that owen is one of us, he's adventuring himself right off the boat, down the long dock, and to the grassy shores. so not only are we true adventurers, but our true adventure aura is rubbing off on our cat!
and finally, our tails are not tucked between our legs. they are wagging, happily as ever."

so now that we've established that, let me just say we enjoyed a hot tub, a swim in the cool pool, and a nice shower... laundry tomorrow.

20090623: time ain't money. time is time, sweet time!

2009-06-23T19:00:00.000-07:00

cricket has this cool little device as part of her electronic gizmo colection called "anchor watch." this nifty little feature allows you to sleep better because it will set off an alarm when your boat starts to drift when it's supposed to be anchored to whatever stuff makes up the bottom of the sea under your boat. around here the bottom under our boat is most often slick, silty mud. this is bad and good. not so good to hold a heavy boat that really wants to drift in the wind, but good because if you do go aground, it's softer than a babies butt, however, harder to get off of (i'm not 100% sure this is true, since i've never been stuck on a babies butt, but i have seen some stuff come from them that looks alot like the stuff that drips off our chain and anchor when we heave it up!). anyway... last night around 3am our anchor watch alarm woke pam and i up. we popped out of bed and got out on deck in a flash, expecting to find cricket drifting across the little inlet on a collision course with the most expensive boat she could find. we found no such thing. all we saw were the stars shining sweetly upon a shore that was staying right there where it was supposed to be. standing out there reminded me of the fire drills we'd have every now and then at school. like you'd be out there saying, "there's mr. ben's class, and there's mrs. pam's class, but where's mr jerry's class?" guess he knew it was just a drill, and had more important things to do in his classroom. mrs. pam and i went back to our classroom and did more important things too.

we had another wonderful sail today. we headed back to herrington harbor because we're meeting with some friends of papa jerry's tomorrow, and that is where p.j.'s borrowed car is located. we started out tacking here and there to avoid this and that, and did all this tacking like regular sailors! pretty soon we won't have to season our own finger food, we're getting so salty! we had a long time when the wind died to a dead calm, and we sat out there in the middle of the bay for hours waiting for a breeze. i loved that! i'd sit in the shade of a sail and read, or blog, or daydream, bird and boat watch, or look up at the clouds. there was no hurry. nowhere we had to be. and it's hard to run into anything when you're not moving! wonderful!

...we eventually motored to the marina, and (yippee!) pam did a fantastic job of docking the boat! great way to end a great day!

o. and a shower too.

20090622: why be crabby?

2009-06-23T05:10:00.000-07:00

we woke to a lovely, cool breeze blowing over the waters and into the hatch of our little bow cabin. the anchor chain runs out from the bowsprit (the pointy thing stickin' out in the front of the boat), so when you are at anchor your bow is always pointed into the wind (i'm sure you can work that one out in your noggin ; )... so, since our cute little hatch (that's the openy thing on the roof of our cabin) is pointed forward, we get a nice breeze throught it! nice, huh!? anyways, when i went up on deck it was an amazing view of the water (there you go, nola, i'm talking about the water ; ) of the bay with a jelly our two lazily drifting by. over to shore there were a few cozy cottages surrounded by green lawns and billowy green trees. i think it is very kind of folks to allow us to camp out in their beautiful, watery backyards. kind of reminds me of canoeing down the minnehaha creek with erick and anders last spring. over the stern (back of the boat) and across the water a ways there was a wildlife refuge with inlets and penninsulas(sp?) all along the unpopulated shore. best of both worlds! our Creator's nature and people's God given creative abilities.

we decided to head over to st. micheal's to check out that quant, historic port, and eat some crabs from "the crab claw" restaurant, which some friends from herrington harbor suggested. they said you really haven't toured the chesapeake until you've had a pile of crabs dumped on your table by the waitresses there. however, we had to wait for favorable tides to go there, so while we waited we took care of a few chores around the boat, one of which took me to the top of the mast. that was great fun! papa jerr bear and cap'n pam took turns hoisting me up there by way of the main halyard (that's the line (rope) that you hoist the mainsail up with). quite an unusual and fun veiw of cricket. i'll post some pictures on facebook, if i can find a way.

in the afternoon we left our anchorage and headed south to st. micheals. i'm not ashamed to say that we "ran aground" in the good, goopy chesapeake mud on our way to more open waters. there's a saying amoung sailors (especially chesapeake bay sailors) that goes something like, "there are two kinds of sailors. those who have run aground, and those that lie and say they've never run aground." we proudly joined that first group today, and had a fairly easy time getting off the bottom. we had a perfect tail wind and were able to sail "wing on wing." mainsail off to the port side (left, facing forward), and our big jib (sail in the front of the boat) sticking out on the staboard (right side of the boat facing forward). cricket did wonderfully, once again! it's amazing to me when you simply adjust this and that, and the wind and water's Masters and cricket do the rest! what a deal! we even learned a few new tricks that'll come in handy when pam and i make the big sailing trip.

we eventually found another cozy anchorage, and took jimminy (cricket's little dinghy) to town, observed how sweetly cozy the streets in town were (very), and got our fingers and faces full of crab goop. we even managed to get a little crab meat into out mouths. we'll definately be going back to that port to check out the town when we've got more time. we dinghyed back to cricket in the dark of night, and only bottomed the outboard out a couple times in the mud. exciting times.

when we got back to cricket we found three things. one: our anchor light doesn't work (that's a light on the top of the mast to let other boats know you're there in the dark of night). we'll have to look into that later. two: the boat had swung 180 degrees while we were gone. no big deal. just interesting... sort of. and three: and best of all, dear owen came out to greet us when we pulled the dinghy up to the side of the boat. couldn't have had a better welcome home!

20090621: smooth sailing and gunkholing

2009-06-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

supremely happy! all 4 of us.
what a grand day of sailing. you know how completely happy stories make for the most boring tales? if i were to tell you all about all the details of the day today you would sit there pretending to be interested, while all the while yawning your brains out within. so let me just say two things. one; check out the new pictures on my facebook. two; cricket and her crew (including owen) did a job to be very proud of! today was true sailing into some fairly good winds, and we got the sail configuration just right, the trim just right, and The Lord and sweet cricket did all the rest! sailing up the bay, with the bow cheerily splashing up the bigger waves every so often. wow! wish you coulda been here with us today! and one of the best parts is that at the end of the day... no docking!! just slip into a quaint little bay, anchor up, and enjoy the evening! a little swim ( with just a slight sting of a jellyfish tentical), a little reading in the sunlit breeze, bbq in the stern, a pipe, trying to catch a crab, light conversation, beautiful sunset, and now the stars are coming out! you're bored now, aren't you? bored, and perhaps a little jealous, huh? someday come and join us! life is good! God is good!

o yeah. i haven't forgotton. i'll get to the less boring story of a couple of days ago soon. on a day that requires less soaking in.

20090620: a little about yesterday and today, a lot about turds

2009-06-20T19:20:00.000-07:00

alright... as promised, i'd better address yesterday's happenings before i completely forget them (gettin' old!)... darn. too late!

just kidding.

as i said, we did go for a bit of a sail yesterday, and there was quite a lot of joy in being out on the water (finally! pinch me!), however, there were some moments of frustration, and one moment of sheer terror. let me just say this now, and all you sailors will totally be able to relate i'm sure; it's too bad that a perfectly lovely day of sailing has to end in docking procedures! it's too bad you can't dock at the beginning of the day to get it over with, and then end it with a big fat smile upon your contented face, sailing in the roomy, wide open spaces of the sea. but, no. until we are in heaven, every voyage must end with trying to squeeze your big, fat, expensive, slow to respond boat in between two other boats (usually more expensive than yours) and a few unyielding pylons. but i'm pumping a head before i crap here (a little nautical humor. hee, hee ; ) let me back up...

actually... it's late again, so please allow me to continue this story tomorrow.

but for now i will briefly recall today's news and hit the bunk:
we did a great job of keeping owen awake yesterday, so we actually got a great night's sleep. now if we could only figure out a way to keep his poops from being so stinky our dreams would have a better chance of being sweeter! our ship's head (fancy nautical term for toilet) is basically a part of our sleeping quarters, and we keep the kitty litter box in there, so our rapid eye movements can be disturbed whenever our noses perceive owen's not so rapid bowel movements. that poor kitty has been having a wee bout with diarrhea. it's not his fault. all i can say is thank God for ziplock bags and little breezes from overhead hatches!

i hate to harp on a subject, and i don't want to bore you, but i need to pump this out of my mind's bilge, so if your done hearing about owen and his litterbox skip down to the next paragraph.
owen has been a fantastic ship's cat. we could find no better. he's patient. he doesn't freak out with the many, many changes he's gone through on this trip. he doesn't hold any of his life's inconveniences and discomforts against us, though we are primarily responsible for them all. he is very fun to watch exploring the boat and his surrounding. he's friendly and very affectionate. and he's smart too. very smart! figures out tough cat puzzles all the time. but he's not so smart in one little area of his feline life... the little guy just can't figure out how to bury his stuff under the litter! maybe he's missing the poop-n-pee burying gene. maybe his mother allie (bless her heart) didn't get a chance to show him the skill before she disappeared. but for whatever reason he just doesn't have what it takes to do this seemingly simple task! and it's not from lack of trying. oh no! he claws and paws and scrapes and scratches in his litterbox for long periods of time (while we're trying to sleep in the same tiny room). but we'll hear him stop for a brief moment to smell if the job's done, realize it is not done, and continue to paw and paw and paw the walls around his kitty box. yes, the walls! he has no idea that must paw the litter. keeps right on with the walls as if that was the main idea. i've tried to help him, short of crapping in the box myself. i've even taken his paws and helped him bury his dodo, but he just doesn't get it. finally, from the bed i can hear him give the walls one last burst of pure frustration, and in one motion scrape and leap out of the box, then jump upon the bed and look at us with his cute yellow eyes as if to say, "i'm sorry. i just don't get it... oh, and sorry about those little bits of litter i just got on your bed" typically i will lay there for a bit in pure wonder of owen's disability. then i try to tell myself that i can sleep with the scent lingering heavily in the air, and finally get up, and with the scoop cover owen's poop myself... does this make me an enabler?

wow. that took a bit of telling.

anyways, as i was saying... we got a good night's sleep, and woke up to the offer of papa jerry buying us breakfast. who'd refuse that? not us. so we jumped in his borrowed caddy and went to a local cafe. very nice to fill up on pancakes, eggs, potatoes, and sausage. pam had "shit on a shingle," as jerr bear called it. oh, and coffee too, of course.

then we sat in the ship's cabin and scratched our heads for a long time as to why the tachometer for our engine won't work. it still doesn't work. then we drove to annapolis for boat stuff, groceries, weatherstripping, and ice cream.

showers for all tonight because who knows when our next one will be because... we're off gunkholing tomorrow! yippeeee!!!

20090619: cricket sails!

2009-06-19T19:51:00.000-07:00

we had a wonderful little sail on the bay today!
we are all a little redder of face and wiser of mind.
lots of sun, lots of lessons.
i hope you don't mind if i fill in the details tomorrow.
tired.

20090618: moving on the water

2009-06-18T18:49:00.000-07:00

this evening we were cruising upon the water! finally! we went up and down our little inlet of the bay. we went into some water that was 4 feet deep, and cricket has a 6 foot draft! then we went under a bridge that had a clearance of 25 feet, and cricket has a mast that is almost 60 feet off the waterline! good thing for us we were not in cricket, but rather or little dory, which actually floats! it was fun to cram the three of us into little jimminy and move about the water.

earlier today jerr bear and i ran bunches of errands, while captain, cook, boatswain, cockswain, and purser pam did bunches and bunches of necessary bookwork down in the belly of the ship.
we (ben and jerry) went:
-to the dinghy on the hard to repair the mouse hole
-to the hardware store for this, that and the other thing (actually, they didn't have the other thing)
-to the liquor store for some ship's grog
-to the gas station for gas for jimminy
-to the grocery store for the other thing
-to the marine store for some line (a fancy boating term for rope... there is no rope on a boat, just lines)
-to the bathroom for... wait. i guess i don't have to go into every detail...

we all went and had a lovely visit with our friends upon the sea-wing, john and vern. they have a big motor boat that has a real living room with couches, floor lamps and big pictures in frames on the wall, and a 747ish cockpit and another cockpit and a 90+ year old sleeping down below. wonderful conversation. lots of learning about life on the chesapeake. the walsh's are very fine, giving folks! papa jerry shared his pickled fish recipe with them, and they fishing tips with us.

then we went to put the dinghy together, launched her four feet down from the sea wall, watched in nervous support as papa jerry mounted the outboard, checked the oil in her, filled the fuel tank (and a little of the bay) with gas, and pulled and pulled on the chord to try to start her, all on a tiny, unstable, inflatable rubber boat. oh my. he really wanted to do all that. he was more excited to get that little thing going than i was! it was all worth the trouble when the three of us were putt-putting down the river, waving to all the folks, waving to us from the unwatery shore!

20090617: rock-a-bye-baby on the sea top

2009-06-17T19:02:00.001-07:00

when the wind blows, the cradle will rock.
and the wind is definitely blowing! so we will be rocking to sleep tonight.
but that must mean... yes! we are finally in the water!
cricket is so happy when she is in the water, and so are we. she is not stuck unmoving upon the solid ground, but is freed to float and bob with the wind and waves.
today the big boat moving crane contraption came and put it's huge belts around cricket's belly, lifted her off the blocks on the ground, and slowly led a little parade down to the boat launch. the parade consisted of a guy to direct traffic in front, the bbmcc with cricket, and then pam and jerry and i following in the rear, with our hands out in front of us in order to catch the boat in case she fell. but she didn't fall. cricket was lowered gently into the bay, and while i jumped on board to make sure she wasn't sinking, some dock guys were yanking on ropes from the shore to pull her along the harbor wall.
we're happily in a slip at the marina tonight listening to the wind whistling through the rigging of a couple hundred other sailboats, and the halyards (ropes) clanging and clattering against masts.
earlier today i was unfolding our little inflatable zodiac tender boat (which we are considering naming "jimminy") i found a couple mouse nests. the dinghy has been stored in kell's shed for a couple years now, so this wasn't too shocking. no mice ran out, so i hope they didn't abandon ship in the toyota car deanna is driving now, but perhaps deanna is in for a surprise by a couple of cute little stowaways! anyways... as we were inflating the boat we discovered that the mice had nibbled a hole through part of the rubber. those little rascals! as we were about to patch it, mike, a friend of jerr bear's showed up. we had a very nice visit, and a delicious dinner out, but the hole is still there now at 10:30pm... we'll patch the hole tomorrow.
sleep now. good night all. | )

20090616: cricket sinks

2009-06-16T20:34:00.000-07:00

today we worked on cricket's sinks... well, her faucets anyways. and we discovered what a great ship's store fawcet's is. and bacon.
owen has self taught himself how to climb down and up the ladder to the boat! he's so proud of himself, and happy to be freeer.
we've got a leak in the forward fresh water tank : (
we had a nice visit from our new friend john (vern's husband)
cricket goes in the water tomorrow!!! yippee!
tired. going to sleep.

20090615: like the trees lining the winding road

2009-06-15T20:11:00.000-07:00

cricket's got a name! well, she's had a name for a while, but today she's got her name tatood on her beautifully curved hips! i will attempt to post a picture of her new lettering on my facebook before i fall asleep. it's nice to have our home port of grand marias, mn proudly displayed for all to see. hopefully cricket'll make it there someday!

we hear it's bad luck to change a boat's name, so to counter that "curse" we are hanging the sweet blessing of a gift up in cricket's cabin. it's a medalion of st. francis (patron saint of traveling) given to us as a bon voyage from rebecca s., and it looks lovely hanging over the salon setee (that'd be sailor talk for a dining room bench ; ) thanks rebecca!

also today we have cleaner water tanks, a bilge fresh and clean as a whistle, and new oil running thru cricket's veins.

another great time in annapolis. we found out that there are folks who are not only friendly and cordial in boat stores, but also folks who actually know what they're talking about! hurray for jerry and fawsets marine! --semilong plumbing story attached here--
did i mention ice cream? : )

20090613: papa jerry's here, now let's get to work

2009-06-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

great day! clicking off things on the to do list... clean water tanks, install stereo, get supplies, change oil, scrape and paint below the waterline of the hull, organize all the stuff... blog on the end of the dock so as not to get eaten alive by mosquitoes... keep owen awake to get revenge on him for keeping us awake last night (and to hopefully keep him from the same tonight ; )
we are enjoying having jerr bear with us. good help and good company!

pam is the best helpmate in the world. just wanted to say that. : )

20090612: bye deanna, hello papa jerry

2009-06-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

we had a great time this morning scoping out annapolis, md. we found the most conveniant spots to get stuff for this and for that. pam and i both absolutely love old town annapolis! it feels like history. we walked deanna thru there for one last goodbye, came back to the boat, and off to connecticut (sp?) she went. we were stranded without a car for a full hour or two! then papa jerry came to the rescue and became our second overnight guest. he'll be with us for ten days. yeah! time to get cracking in earnest on boat projects tomorrow.

20090611 location: 3846.502' -7634.070'

2009-06-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

this morning we had our first boat guest besides deanna... he was a boat electrical expert guy named ryan. he was a very nice young man, but... well... it seems appropriate at this moment to exlain what the standard monetary "boat unit" is. one boat unit (1bu) = $1000.00. this should make it much easier to explain some facts of boat ownership in the future. back to ryan now. ummm, let me continue that subject on monday, when he gives us his price estimate for fixing our depth gauge.
owen update: owen is our ship's cat. he is black. he endured the car ride wonderfully, and is now happily exploring his new home, like a trooper! only problem is at the moment, the boat is on the hard (on land), and owen is getting in the habit of walking on the very edge of the deck. this could prove to be a big mistake once we are in the water, and things start rocking a bit.
one last thing for the day today. we visited kell's (the amazing previous owner of this sweet craft) wife, (also amazing)! we picked up a few things for the boat. we saw their beautiful home and land (i've been sworn to secrecy as to how many acres it is) which is in the east area of the apalacian mountains, and we had a very lovely visit!
time for bed!

over the hard, on the hard

2009-06-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

after well over 20 hours over the pavement in car jammed full of stuff, a traffic jam in chicago, plenty of toll booths to help us get more used to traveling slower, another traffic jam in dc, a few imaginative turns leading to our nation's capital, and a sweet gaulking at the library of congress, we finally arrived! deanna (our daughter), and pam and i are resting for the rest of the day in the belly of our beloved cricket.

more to come

2009-06-09T22:28:00.000-07:00

for pam's blog go to "sailcricketpam@blogspot.com"

later!