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This road is not the Sea
…And this stupid infernal combustion plastic destroyer can’t possibly be a sailboat, but, wow, this country is freaking huge! Drivetime is the place you go in your head when the miles add up to more...
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Birthdays
When I was in my 30’s I figured that when I made it past my fifth decade I would give up on celebrating the day of my birth. I was wrong about that. As it turned out I was wrong about quite a few...
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Home
Sometimes our world changes so fast! We left India when Wuhan was a whisper, we left Sallisaw as the coronavirus was an interesting topic and we returned to Covid-19. Oklahoma welcomed us back to a...
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Splashing SVSN Cetacea
Her first haulout was a long one – out last September and in at the beginning of April. It really was the same thing in reverse. The guy who did the haulout also splashed her, and wow – am I ever glad...
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No Longer Pushing Rope
Hands are sensory organs, and the difference to the hand between old and new lines is emotional, encouraging, adventurous. A soft handful of control, thick enough to grip and pull, easy on the skin:...
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Seth Thomas – It Works!
We got this Seth Thomas striking watch-clock at Captain Jim’s Marine Salvage in Portland, Maine last year when we first made landfall there as a boat-warming present to ourselves. It was over wound...
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Starting Fires
Starting a fire is the very essence of human technology. If you’ve ever built a fire, you know — it’s an awesome achievement! It’s the fundamental step in the manipulation of our environment that...
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Another boom rebuild
There was a mutual, audible gulp between us when we saw that future storm bearing down on us from all our media sources. It sucked! Some said 50 knot gusts with sustained 30 knot blasts throughout the...
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Trusting Ourselves
I (Dena) woke at four in the morning and spent an hour and a half pondering dread. It’s not an emotion I spend a lot of time with, but I’ve learned that I ignore it at my peril. We’re anchored in...
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The gales of an isolated spring
The thought of riding out another southerly gale in the middle of Knock Down Alley between Dutch Island and Jamestown felt like a long growling sigh, grrr-argh! But Sunday was the quintessential...
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Jump
When the weather says ‘Jump’! We woke up, looked at the weather, weighed anchor and were underway, just like that, after three weeks of feeding the fire and foraging in Covid-New England. Sailing...
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On Main Alone
Days of gales at anchor, a wild ride in a monster truck (up and down the Eastern Seaboard to get our bikes to Annapolis)… …and some clever social-distancing from some good friends defined the...
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Somnium
In the dream, the feelings, sensations and levels of stimulus on a sailing adventure that starts at 4 am in Long Island and ends one day and seventeen hours later in a hurricane-hole 209 nautical...
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Fade into Bay
Chesapeake City rained a little, gusted a bit and all the boats in the anchorage drug-down on their anchors… all but one, of course…us! One plastic-destroyer skipper actually motored up to me while I...
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Charm City Lament
Baltimore, you smell funny. That lightly diluted chemical that fills your Inner Harbor is not water and it hasn’t been for a very long time. It sinks my floating dinghy line and smells of… I (James)...
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Sailing the Seas of Eastport
For the past few months (since before we got back in February) we’ve been piling projects up on our “when we get to Eastport and haul the boat” list. We had put together everything we’d need, but...
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Rebuilding the Solar System
When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to destroy a system that no longer works, not just efficiently but at all, the only obvious progression is an absolute and total rebuild, from...
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Pointing to Holaga Snood
Harness Creek was kind and gentle on everything but the dinghy. When we felt the bottom of the dink, it was furry and tenacious like a lime-green shag carpet, cir. 1974! Time to weigh-up and move on....
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The Turnaround
The sail from Holaga Snood off Kent Point to Solomons Island took, well, all day. We were heading downwind and couldn’t quite make straight for it because Cetacea doesn’t have a great big genoa that...
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A leap, with no faith
Our volte-face in the Chesapeake was an awesome call. We went sailing and Deale, Maryland, was were we gunkholed, then bounced on to the Magothy River the following day to survey for the Guide. Three...
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