It was supposed to be an easy run from Flowers Cove, Newfoundland, to Chateau Bay, Labrador: gentle southwest wind and a fair tide, even if we did have to get up at two AM to catch it. And the wind was, at least, gentle, even though it was from the opposite quarter than predicted. No …
There have been, in the nearly thirty years that I’ve been cruising, certain places that I leave with regret and remember with affection. Like peaks that rise above the rest of a mountain range, these destinations stand out in memory as highlights of the cruising experience, and places that I would love to revisit. None, …
For nearly a year before this trip began, neither Mark nor I could bring ourselves to tell people of the plan. Whether from a reluctance to seem too cocky, or a superstitious fear of jinxing the precarious structure of circumstances that all had to come together for the venture to even get started, we forbore …
When only a few weeks were left before my departure for a long summer voyage, time management became a priority. May had arrived with still too many things to do before leaving, and I had to put some things aside in order to fast-track the really important ones. Those were, of course, getting Pshrimp and …
If you asked me to fit out a boat for a cruise to the tropics, and to put together a list of necessary things, I could do it with ease: I’ve been doing voyages like that for close to thirty years. Likewise if you wanted to know what’s necessary for a two-week ocean passage, or …
I mentioned, a few posts back, the ill-fated bow shed I’d built over Ganymede, the Cape George 31 cutter we have sitting in the yard, to keep the weather out. The alert reader will remember that we last left it tied up with string until we could get to bracing it better. I’m rather devastated …
One of the reasons that the old saw about necessity being the mother of invention is still around is because it’s pretty much true. In times of need I have often invented, adapted, jury-rigged, and re-purposed whatever was at hand to get the crisis past. Most of humankind’s greatest achievements have come about for this …
In a huge departure from my normal practice of letting everyone forget I even have a blog in between posts, I’m posting a second one hard on the heels of the last, with apologies to those who feel that two updates a year is already more of me than they want to hear. The thing …
A half dozen or so blog posts back, before getting distracted by the tiny schooner Pshrimp, I hinted at a couple of other projects that were in the works. Now that Pshrimp is hauled out on her trailer, wrapped, winterized, and parked behind the house, let’s devote some spare brain cells to those other things. …
For about a week after the first failed launch of Pshrimp that I told you about in the last post, we turned our hands to other things: a quick weekend to New Hampshire, some work around the house—but the problem of giving Pshimp time to take up and stop sinking was always in our minds. …