Hurry Up and Wait!
- Details
- Written by Dave Dave
- Category: Captain's Log Captain's Log
- Published: 20 July 2021 20 July 2021
- Hits: 77 77
The popular adage “We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails” seems to capture the essence of sailing, harnessing the wind to set our course. Certainly wind is a central concern for sailors it can be fickle, soft and gentle, boisterous, raging, and all together absent at times. The sailor’s relationship to wind is simple, understand its mood and harness its energy. Wind is the sailor’s partner.
Wind alone is not sufficient for sailing, a sailboat needs water. If the wind is a mostly willing partner, water is a petulant child. Even in the lightest breezes, wind can be cajoled and nursed into cooperation. Water fights the sailor every inch of the way.
Two Weeks?
- Details
- Written by Dave Dave
- Category: Captain's Log Captain's Log
- Published: 15 July 2021 15 July 2021
- Hits: 103 103
These are the evenings of which sailors dream. Reclining in the cockpit, warm breezes blending aromas of land and sea with soft tropical themed music in the background. This is tonight’s experience, if only Second Star was unbound from her Upstate NY berth lying at anchor in the tropics.
While the Gremlins have retreated and projects are moving along more or less on schedule, our departure is yet again on hold. We had hoped to leave this weekend, only a few days after our projected July 5 departure. But that will not be.
Gremlins!
- Details
- Written by Dave Dave
- Category: Captain's Log Captain's Log
- Published: 06 July 2021 06 July 2021
- Hits: 85 85
Today is July 6, 2021. On this date in 2014 Susan and I woke up in Gasport, NY, our first stop on the Erie Canal as we brought Second Star to her new home in Oswego, NY.
Seven years later we expected to wake up on Erie Canal on our way home to Fair Haven, NY from our Plan A trip.
Two weeks ago, we expected to wake up somewhere on the Oswego or Erie Canal on this date, having set off on our Plan B trip.
Plan A, out the St. Lawrence and then turn right was a victim of Covid and border closings. A year later, with the border still closed, Plan B emerged, down the Erie and then turn right. So, why are we still tied to the dock? Gremlins, gremlins in cahoots with marine suppliers. That’s my story.
Try as we might to avoid them and thwart them, the Gremlins persist in frivolous folly placing obstacles in our course. Follies sometimes small but annoying such as hiding a needed tool or part. Sometimes more serious, causing us to chase elusive fuel leaks. We could do without their antics.
Our plan today, Plan B.1, has us departing next week, weather (and Gremlins) permitting.
A Dream Begins
- Details
- Written by Dave Dave
- Category: Captain's Log Captain's Log
- Published: 18 June 2021 18 June 2021
- Hits: 93 93
There is a time and place where a dream is born. Sometimes it is a small and fleeting place, one that escapes into memory and curiosity. Such was the case with this dream. The dream in its generic form is one that is shared by many; sail away to distant lands, azure waters, white sands, and sun filled skies. Magazine photos of sailboats at anchor, beating across tropic seas have an allure unto themselves.
Geography influences our dreams. Had I been landlocked in the Midwest sailing dreams might have remained just that, dreams. By fortune I landed in Oswego, NY and the entrance to the Erie Canal. Twice each year Oswego played host to the annual migration of snowbirds; boaters who plied the Great Lakes by summer and the tropics by winter. In the fall we watched as boats with masts down and clean bows entered the canal system to return eight months later with masts down and tannin-stained bows returning from southern adventures.