We've sort of gone into hibernation here at the future of the sailing vessel Clarity. Part of our desire to sail outta here is that both Kris and I have had it with winters. If you know anything about real winters and you know anything about Great Northwet winters, you'll think we are real wimps.
Which we may well be.
Winters are very temperate here, which is part of the appeal. However, we don't want anything to do with seasons anymore. Give us a sun over head for twelve hours and leave the dang leaves on the tree.
So, we are doing all of the household stuff for fall prep and counting down the days to Maui. 37 for me and 39 for Kris. I like that math.
On the boat front, we are still working steadily toward making a choice and getting our finances in order to purchase and eventually move aboard full-time.
All of which adds up to why we are slacking on the sailing and posting front. Greg's picking up extra writing work and draining his wit for The Man every day. None left in the evening.
Looking forward to some sun and some breathing room.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Monday, September 28, 2009
Cap'n JP!
So, yesterday was World Rivers Day and our favorite Putney Bridge pub host is prodding us all to post with regards to this important event.
What did we do? Instead, we rode the Harley 300 miles to a little Bavarian-themed town in the Northern Washington Cascades to help them kick off the Oktoberfest season. They couldn't have done it without us. They would have sold approximately two gallons less of beer, and 2-3 pounds of german-themed meat products would have had to wait a couple of minutes for someone else to come along and eat them, instead of us.
All of this beer drinking, and meat eating took place on the amazingly beautiful Wenatchee River, which drains into the Columbia and fills up a couple of damns that generate some power that pay my bills.
We are grateful for some awe-inspiring rivers here in Oregon Country. And we are grateful that the Willamette doesn't require a typhoid shot, most of the time anymore.
What did we do? Instead, we rode the Harley 300 miles to a little Bavarian-themed town in the Northern Washington Cascades to help them kick off the Oktoberfest season. They couldn't have done it without us. They would have sold approximately two gallons less of beer, and 2-3 pounds of german-themed meat products would have had to wait a couple of minutes for someone else to come along and eat them, instead of us.
All of this beer drinking, and meat eating took place on the amazingly beautiful Wenatchee River, which drains into the Columbia and fills up a couple of damns that generate some power that pay my bills.
We are grateful for some awe-inspiring rivers here in Oregon Country. And we are grateful that the Willamette doesn't require a typhoid shot, most of the time anymore.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
It's Business Time
Annual check-in meeting due this month ... or next. Kris and I are due to review our plan again. We'll take a weekend day and spend 3-4 hours checking where we are at, what's been accomplished, what's at risk, and what are next steps are. That's right, my friends, it's back to bidness time.
Results to follow!
Results to follow!
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The Salvage Effort Continues
After the events of November 8, 2008, Kris and I mapped out a slow road to recovery for the girls. Joining the sailing club was step one; the hope being to get them around the water more often, and especially with other kids who sail and may inspire the girls to get back out on the water. With that in mind, I took the girls to the club on Monday night, the three of us intending to meet Kris after work.
Last night went well, in the other-kid regard. When we arrived at the club, Kris was already down at the dock, even though the mass of folks had gathered up on the hill. I think she was driven down there by the shorebound antics of the Laser fleet. With extremely light and variable wind, the bulk of the laserettes were up on the cliff yelling abuse at the race committee and the handful of laser sailors attempting to launch their boats.
We found Kris and then wandered back to the boat launch area where a precocious young lady, about 2 years older than A and M, was working her way down the ramp, deeper into the water, while holding onto the dock.
She told us she was looking for a 'daggerboard' that one of the sailors had dropped. A and M were very intrigued and pretty soon, with a bit of encouragement from the kid, they were hip deep with their new friend Sierra, all three engaged in an active, vocal recovery operation.
As the salvage progressed, they came up with an unopened bottle of Red Dog beer. If you clicked that link and read to the end, all I can say is, "I dunno." I didn't have access to this information prior to viewing the bottle cap. Or maybe I don't have much imagination. I read a lot of Batman comics as a kid, but I think the thrill for me was a sort of empowerment fantasy, rather than, well, let's just call it: the author's particular bent.
Anyway, after a half-hour or so of dagger recovery operations, (which I later found out from The Tillerman was more likely a rudder recovery operation, owing to the fact that Laser daggerboards are designed to float) the team shifted interest toward the rush of Laser sailors who were now trying to launch as the wind had come up and the race committee were dropping buoys.
Sierra offered to push a couple of the Lasers out and quickly jumped in the water to do just that. M followed close behind and the two of them created a proper nuisance in the midst of the Laser launchings. It was beautiful.
After everybody was underway, one of the race committee boats returned to the dock and the girls invited themselves along to 'help out.' I gave the guy in the boat an out, asking him if it was okay if the girls went along. He cleared it and away they went for at least an hour.
They acted as the escort boat when the Portland Spirit came through on its evening upriver run. They also waved flags and wreaked havoc on the high seas, I'm certain. The boat driver was nonplussed, however, on return. We delivered him a beer and told him we probably owed him two. He was happy to enjoy it with us and sat down to chat. With roots in Florida, our new friend, turns out, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica.
All in all, a good day at the club. Next step, getting the kids on the dinghy again. I think Sierra helped our case when she told the girls, "I love to do capsize drills. Want to do some capsize drills? They are the best!"
I can feel the perspective shifting.
Last night went well, in the other-kid regard. When we arrived at the club, Kris was already down at the dock, even though the mass of folks had gathered up on the hill. I think she was driven down there by the shorebound antics of the Laser fleet. With extremely light and variable wind, the bulk of the laserettes were up on the cliff yelling abuse at the race committee and the handful of laser sailors attempting to launch their boats.
We found Kris and then wandered back to the boat launch area where a precocious young lady, about 2 years older than A and M, was working her way down the ramp, deeper into the water, while holding onto the dock.
She told us she was looking for a 'daggerboard' that one of the sailors had dropped. A and M were very intrigued and pretty soon, with a bit of encouragement from the kid, they were hip deep with their new friend Sierra, all three engaged in an active, vocal recovery operation.
As the salvage progressed, they came up with an unopened bottle of Red Dog beer. If you clicked that link and read to the end, all I can say is, "I dunno." I didn't have access to this information prior to viewing the bottle cap. Or maybe I don't have much imagination. I read a lot of Batman comics as a kid, but I think the thrill for me was a sort of empowerment fantasy, rather than, well, let's just call it: the author's particular bent.
Anyway, after a half-hour or so of dagger recovery operations, (which I later found out from The Tillerman was more likely a rudder recovery operation, owing to the fact that Laser daggerboards are designed to float) the team shifted interest toward the rush of Laser sailors who were now trying to launch as the wind had come up and the race committee were dropping buoys.
Sierra offered to push a couple of the Lasers out and quickly jumped in the water to do just that. M followed close behind and the two of them created a proper nuisance in the midst of the Laser launchings. It was beautiful.
After everybody was underway, one of the race committee boats returned to the dock and the girls invited themselves along to 'help out.' I gave the guy in the boat an out, asking him if it was okay if the girls went along. He cleared it and away they went for at least an hour.
They acted as the escort boat when the Portland Spirit came through on its evening upriver run. They also waved flags and wreaked havoc on the high seas, I'm certain. The boat driver was nonplussed, however, on return. We delivered him a beer and told him we probably owed him two. He was happy to enjoy it with us and sat down to chat. With roots in Florida, our new friend, turns out, grew up in Kingston, Jamaica.
All in all, a good day at the club. Next step, getting the kids on the dinghy again. I think Sierra helped our case when she told the girls, "I love to do capsize drills. Want to do some capsize drills? They are the best!"
I can feel the perspective shifting.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Book Review: Rounding the Horn
Loved it! Absolutely.
Dallas Murphy's Round the Horn is a wonderful mix of travelogue, exploration, sailing, geography, history, sociology, meteorology, and some cooking. His subtitle says most of it: Being a story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Savages--A deck's eye view of Cape Horn.
I found it to be a fantastic read; couldn't wait to pick it up and dive back in, wherever I was. Murphy did his research on this one and presents us with great collection of insights into the place and the human events that took place there over the past 500 years. Read this one and you'll have the best possible insight into the mysteries of Tierra del Fuego and the struggles to master the winds and seas throughout the past couple of centuries.
I give it my top rating, whatever that is. Some stars? A handful! Some thumbs? Another handful.
Read it.
Dallas Murphy's Round the Horn is a wonderful mix of travelogue, exploration, sailing, geography, history, sociology, meteorology, and some cooking. His subtitle says most of it: Being a story of Williwaws and Windjammers, Drake, Darwin, Murdered Missionaries and Naked Savages--A deck's eye view of Cape Horn.
I found it to be a fantastic read; couldn't wait to pick it up and dive back in, wherever I was. Murphy did his research on this one and presents us with great collection of insights into the place and the human events that took place there over the past 500 years. Read this one and you'll have the best possible insight into the mysteries of Tierra del Fuego and the struggles to master the winds and seas throughout the past couple of centuries.
I give it my top rating, whatever that is. Some stars? A handful! Some thumbs? Another handful.
Read it.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Book Review: We the Navigators - The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific
I'm about halfway through this one and enjoying it immensely, although I don't know that I would recommend it to most. David Lewis is the author, and he turns out to be quite a prolific writer, mostly covering things Polynesian.
Born on some island off the coast of France, Mr. Lewis was raised in New Zealand and Rarotonga, where he attended a Polynesian school. He later studied to become a doctor and after many years practicing medicine, including some involvement of the establishment of the British National Health Service, he set off to circumnavigate the world in a sailboat and then into a second career as a sailor. He built his own catamaran and completed the first recorded circumnav of the world in a multihull.
Maybe you all know these things, but he's new to me and most interesting for his disciplined study of Polynesian navigation methods. I was fascinated by the concept of navigating without instruments and have always wanted to know more about how the Pacific Islanders moved about and established themselves in such an enormous expanse of open ocean with no modern navigation tools.
This book does an excellent job (so far) of detailing how the indigenous sailors of the Pacific use only the things they can see to determine where to find land.
With tribal knowledge passed on through rote learning, the subjects of Dr. Lewis's study seem to be able to establish their location by stars and sun position and then maintain course through periods of cloud cover by orienting themselves to the running ocean swells. Coupled with the detailed drawings and explanations of the primitive sailing vessels they piloted, the scientific research approach to understanding the navigation methods is turning into quite a page-turner for me.
If my life was not so much on the go these days, I'd love to write more of these reviews. I've got a stack of about twenty books lined up to read, many of a similar sort as this one. And I've got another twenty that I've read in the past nine months that have mostly been recaps of sailors trips around the world.
Thanks T-man.
Addendum: Some Older Reviews
A Family Cruise
A Family Cruise Gone Horribly Awry - NOT a light read
Born on some island off the coast of France, Mr. Lewis was raised in New Zealand and Rarotonga, where he attended a Polynesian school. He later studied to become a doctor and after many years practicing medicine, including some involvement of the establishment of the British National Health Service, he set off to circumnavigate the world in a sailboat and then into a second career as a sailor. He built his own catamaran and completed the first recorded circumnav of the world in a multihull.
Maybe you all know these things, but he's new to me and most interesting for his disciplined study of Polynesian navigation methods. I was fascinated by the concept of navigating without instruments and have always wanted to know more about how the Pacific Islanders moved about and established themselves in such an enormous expanse of open ocean with no modern navigation tools.
This book does an excellent job (so far) of detailing how the indigenous sailors of the Pacific use only the things they can see to determine where to find land.
With tribal knowledge passed on through rote learning, the subjects of Dr. Lewis's study seem to be able to establish their location by stars and sun position and then maintain course through periods of cloud cover by orienting themselves to the running ocean swells. Coupled with the detailed drawings and explanations of the primitive sailing vessels they piloted, the scientific research approach to understanding the navigation methods is turning into quite a page-turner for me.
If my life was not so much on the go these days, I'd love to write more of these reviews. I've got a stack of about twenty books lined up to read, many of a similar sort as this one. And I've got another twenty that I've read in the past nine months that have mostly been recaps of sailors trips around the world.
Thanks T-man.
Addendum: Some Older Reviews
A Family Cruise
A Family Cruise Gone Horribly Awry - NOT a light read
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
RKJ Day
Sir Robin Knox-Johnston became the first person to sail around the world non-stop and single-handed forty years ago today, April 22, 1969 when he crossed that finish line in Falmouth, UK, completing the Golden Globe Yacht race.
Today is Robin Knox-Johnston Day on the Web.
Earth Day, Sea Day, it's all good.
Today is Robin Knox-Johnston Day on the Web.
Earth Day, Sea Day, it's all good.
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