9-25-11 0745
Green House
Stripers with Steve
“Hey Alan, wanna go fishing tomorrow?” A phone call at the end of a rather grey day..spiced with fog during the late morning, and even some spots of sun in the later day. And there was enough wind in the morning to keep me out of the kayak. So who knew about tomorrow? And yet, Steve has some kind of pull with the gods of weather. After all, he does announce it on the local NPR station, WCAI (officially “Cape and Islands”, which Tirien has always identified as the “Capon Islands”). He even hosts a fishing show..no call in’s yet, but perhaps that’s coming.
“Shure thing!” We settled the ‘your boat or mine’ question quickly, since the last trip, early morning with a big bluefish bite, had been in his boat, and I definitely am using up gas at the end of my fishing season, while Steve will be fishing on into the fall.
“How about before 5, say 4:55, at my skiff?”
I woke at about 2:30..my internal clock at 70 is pretty much driven by prostate rather than anxiety… and was pleased to see some stars, and feel no hint of wind to mute the zinging of crickets. Back to sleep with dreams of the boat light wiring project I am working on, and at 3:55 I turned off the alarm and got up in the moonless dark. Made the tea, found the stainless steel long nose pliers that are important for removing hooks, and spent a few minutes rigging the LED’s to power a red/green running light (something that morning fishermen like to pretend they are not required to have), based on a plan that seemed to have originated in the dream. Lots of dew..another sign of a clear night. And no water dripping through the oak leaves of the trees surrounding this clearing in the woods.
It was dark enough to need the headlamp biking downtown. Low tide, so a climb down the ladder to get from seawall to boat, and the current will be just about full force flooding out in The Hole. I had time to jury rig the bow light with duct tape before Steve arrived.
We both rigged up the Estonian poppers. These are lures that are intended to stay on the surface, making a popping splash as you retrieve them..they have the red head and basically white body that has always been a hit with local striped bass and bluefish. And they don’t risk getting stuck on shallow rocks. Plus you can hear them chugging back towards the boat, and thus in the dark figure out when to stop reeling. And finally, when a big hungry fish lunges towards them on the surface, it makes a special noise that electrifies all bait casting fisherpeople.
The surface of Eel Pond was flat calm, shimmering night lights from the institutional buildings, and the bright red of the lights warning us that the drawbridge is closed. At 4 feet bridge to water we have plenty of room. The bow red/green works fine..very little back scatter to dim night vision. And just enough forward light to light up the reflective tape on the navigation bouys marking the channel. Out beyond, there’s the complex winking of bigger bouys that I know are several miles away.
We powered up and out, feeling the current in The Hole coil and twist, giving the boat strange lurches and swerves. Ran SW against the flooding current, and then slowed and worked left into the eddy behind the rockpile and metal marker at the SW end. The ospreys seem to have fledged, flown, and moved away for the winter. Cut the engine and started floating down current over Middle Ledge, casting as we went.
It was dark enough so it was a little hard to be sure that we would miss the day marker, a 12 foot wide stainless steel tripod embedded in rocks at the NE end of Middle Ledge. At current speeds of 6 knots, it creates a significant boiling disruption, white water and noise that seem closer or farther away depending on tiny shifts in the water dynamics. This first run, we sail by a good 4 yards to the West. Steve says he heard one fish go for his lure, but I didn’t even get that. I start the engine again, and, making sure of landmarks I can only barely see, head up current alongside the ledge and we try it again. Lots of burbling warbling splashing, but it’s all just water on rock. After about four of these, perhaps because of overconfidence, sweeping by within 3 feet of the day marker. Coming up against it sideways at this current would not be good. For those of you who have done river rafting, it means we would have to highside immediately, or swamp and turn over. And getting off against the pressure of water would be almost impossible.
“Maybe we should try Red Ledge?”, suggests Steve. It’s light enough now at 5:30 to see things more clearly. Red Ledge has some rocks above the surface..its further to the NE, and just SW of the ship channel that empties Great Harbor into Vineyard Sound.
“Yeah, the book I’m reading, about the guys who begin salt water sport fishing back in the 30’s and 40’s, is full of advice NOT to just stay in one place. If the bite isn’t there, you should move till it is, they say” I reply.
Drifting with the current, we go shooting right by Red Ledge too fast for more than one cast. So, as the sky continues to lighten over the steamship wharf where the Island Home ferry is taking on cars and passengers for the first run of the morning, I nudge the boat, motor running, near to the triangle of rocks where Steve is convinced the fish are waiting.
After a couple warm ups, he makes a perfect cast right into the middle, and with barely any pause, a fish slashes at the Estonian plug..and misses!. But the next cast, another slash and this time I know by the bend of his rod and the singing sound the reel makes when a heavy fish is pulling line against the automatic drag that he’s connected. I shut off the motor, and we drift towards the light, towards the arch of multicolored dawn that is brewing over the sillouettes of houses and trees on Juniper Point..that is, into the steamship channel.
The boat’s turning on the current, and Steve scrambles back and forth to keep his line clear. The ferry is loaded and leaving, and gives a preemptory toot. On the bow, a searchlight comes on, sweeps, spots us and is turned off.
“How’s it feel?” I ask. “I think it’s a keeper bass” replies Steve. Minutes later, with the ferry bearing down, I managed to miss twice with the net, but mama nature is smiling and on the third try I land his striped bass..definitely more than 28 inches, and can start the motor in time to take us out of the ferry’s path.
How much more exciting and beautiful the morning looks with a fish in the boat! We run motor back up, and takes turns catching two smaller bass that leap all the way out of the water, troutlike, and can be returned unharmed. And then, with Steve at the wheel (after all, he built the boat and has a fish already) I cast into the same spot, now more easily seen, a roiling boiling hole in the midst of the rocks, and connect…not quite as large, but still a 29 inch fish , which Steve scoops up. Suddenly, our fishing is over. It’s a little after 6 AM.
Almost magically, the boat drifts into an eddy in the deep water on the East side of the rocks of Red Ledge. We circle slowly in place. The Island Home is long gone around the Great Ledge heading for Vineyard Haven. The sky show colors have blossomed up into oranges and reds, with silvery cloud banks in silver framing the scene. Definitely genesis. And by good fortune, the tea I brought is still unspilled and warm.
I guess we talked. The kind of inconsequential noises that reassure rather than represent. Just being there in the dawn, with Steve and two fish in the boat.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Wee Peckets in the Mist
9-23-11 1550 Green House. Rainy bullets pounding on the porches and the sky is darkening grey. Sixty eight degrees, a summery kind of rain. It was grey earlier, the kind of high stratus grey that lets a lot of light onto the sea. Long wavy lines of reflection, making the view take on immense importance. The seawall forms a kind of extended stage for the grey on grey horizon line. A lobster buoy poking through the shimmery gray in solitary angular splendor centers attention. Far off to stage right, a sailboat under power with bare spars sails out of view.
Yesterday was not so scenic. It was a somehow more oppressive grey, perhaps due to the light rain cum heavy mist, perhaps due to my mood somehow? I managed to get down to the boathouse and out in the Looksha 4 Fiberglas kayak by a little after 10…a virtual meeting at 9, and tea with my sister before that. The ebb tide carrying me smoothly down a beautiful smooth tongue of water pouring out of Great Harbor and South into Buzzards Bay. It was near flat calm, no sea at all running, and the grey made it hard to see the just barely submerged rocks as I paddled along the shore of Uncatena. Without the suns wash of light, the rocks along the shore can’t show their contrasty color and edginess…greys dominate, and in some way the details become less interesting, perhaps as they are less well defined. I paddled along though, still enjoying the paddling, remembering to push as much as pull. Wonder if I remember physically even when I am not remembering mentally. How does that transfer thought to action occur? It’s been known for a time that our brain commences quite a few thousandth of a second before we start to move. We are marvelously slow compared to machines. Moving hydrated salt atoms across cell membranes IS slow…perhaps a literal explanation of the phrase ‘give me time to think!’.
The things I do that I had formal lessons to learn; very few. The things I started doing and then received corrective help; also pretty sparse. The number of things I did, kept doing, and probably have some weird energy inefficient and mentally taxing way of doing; probably huge. Sometimes it becomes clear with practice…I don’t mean improvement, I mean pain. Cocking my right wrist, for example, definitely is where my right ‘golfers elbow’ came from. (‘tennis elbow’ is pain in the lateral (outside) lump at the elbow..the lateral epicondyle of the humerus (upper arm bone), and it’s the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle which originates there and is involved in lifting with the palm down and, yes, tennis, that is often the culprit. My problem is pain on the inside of the right elbow, the medial epicondyle, which has extensor muscles involved in movements of the hand, such as paddling a kayak). Still, paddling yesterday went well..my shoulders were pretty tired after 6 hours, but it was that kind of Germanic ‘good’ pain.
There were plenty of fish, mostly small to medium striped bass, hanging out near the surface and close to rocks along the shore. You can often see their fins moving slowly through the mirror of the surface. As they become aware, there’s a carangiform spasm of the tail and they’re gone. There’s no current to stimulate them here along Uncatena; perhaps they are meditating. Perhaps they are always meditating. What if Buddha is a porpoise? Or at least, that the historical Buddha achieved nothing more or less than marine mammal brain function? What if whales are so relaxed they are always, well, Buddha? ( Of course, I imagine Sala responding, and you are too!)
However, what often happens to me with attempts at sitting meditation is not enlightenment, but sleep. I have completely fallen asleep paddling in the past, and when I do that I wake up already past the point of saving myself by a quick brace with the paddle..Yesterday was more like those times in the car that I would rather not admit I have. And as in the car, it’s generally enough to motivate a renewed wakefulness. It also helped that the kayak just then went grinding and gritting across a flat barnacle covered rock that was a few inches under the surface..Nothing like the sound of $10 an ounce epoxy gelcoat being macerated to bring skinflints like me to full wakefulness.
Fully awake, I paddled on. Push/pull and push/pull. Let the movements come from the thighs, the hips, the lats and pecs as well as the arms. Let the boat develop a rhythmic sway from side to side..it helps to align the paddle strokes. And let the overall effect be relaxation ( enlightenment wouldn’t be bad either)...and please not sleep!
Uncatena is just a little blip off the Northwest end of Naushon. Naushon is more substantial..about 8 miles long. The shore is mostly granite boulders, and in the water on a clear calm day, many of they are under water, often coated with seaweed; wavery bulky mysteries to the passing kayak. Sometimes there are fishes circling way down under, sometimes it’s just the current coiling around this obstacle, running it’s hands through the seaweed as the tidal flow continues on down Buzzards Bay. The ebbing current lasts will well past noon. Now its suddenly foggy, can barely see the rocks on shore, which are suddenly exciting, the face of an old lover imagined in the crowd. Now it’s misting… such heavy mists that some spoilsports might call it rain. Buttoned up with a waterproof top and a spray skirt, it doesn’t make much difference.
Another mile along, past some very attractive collections of flotsam..plastic fish boxes, fragments of net, and fewer and fewer beer cans and plastic bottles every year…a series of white sand crescent shaped beaches relieve the ongoing boulders and cliffs. Each one has a large sign beginning with PRIVATE PROPERTY. And it is; the whole string of island except for Cuttyhunk at the end is owned by the Forbes Trust. They do allow ‘seasonal visitors’ to land at three of the beaches, though you are not supposed to stay overnight . And it’s OK to land on Wee Peckets island, which is my first scheduled stop.
Wee Peckets is actually three islands. Two are tidal rockpiles, the most southerly is a sand hill with poison ivy and spartina grass, and a rookery for sea gulls in the spring. When I used to work for MBL on the Supply Department crew, we would occasionally have an order for seagull eggs..Dr S. had a special license to work on the (otherwise protected) birds. Those visits, during the hatching season, were merry mayhem; adult gulls shrieking overhead, battering wings when we came too close, already hatched fuzzy chicks running through the little gull paths in the grass, and of course the heavy odor of guano baking in the sun. One year, several weeks after the egg hunting, I took a small power boat to dump all the discarded biological material out in Vineyard Sound. As we arrived at the dumping area, and cut the noisy engine of the boat, it became clear that some of the discarded eggs were hatching…two gull chicks were in fact free of their shells and staggering around in the garbage pail, all bright eyes and optimistic peeping. Against both common sense and legal practice, I took them home, and in that distant and more relaxed era, my mother and younger brother raised the two gulls, named Gulliver (of course) and Blake ( Susie liked his poems). This summer, my brother reminded me of his long ago gullfather summer job, and that one of the gulls made a practice of walking down to town along the road. Eventually, imprinting on my brothers running and flapping, they learned to fly and left us groundlings behind.
There were a few gulls on Wee Peckets white sand beach (most were away at work at the Falmouth dump), and for once it wasn’t too hot. The rains have washed away the gull smells too. There are a few shells, of the subdued New England variety, and a few stray feathers (not the blizzards you encounter during the squabbling and molting of nesting season). Then the misty wisty sky comes back down, and I take refuge in my buttoned up Kayak again.
Later the tide has changed, and I start back with it towards Woods Hole, paddling in open water now. No rocks to avoid and Uncatena is still several miles ahead.
Reflecting on my work in progress; communications between couples. For the first time this summer, I have been able to hear the content of Sala’s reaction to my writing without being swept into some angry wastebasket state by my reaction to her reaction. Constructive criticism is so rarely encountered (even in a hundred thousand million kalpas (as the Buddhist invocation says about enlightment), and so why am I so ungracious about it when offered by the person I can probably trust above all others? Because…well…because of all the rest, years of kitchen table conversation, the fear of rejection, or at least of not succeeding. All the bits and pieces of metaphorical nest making material that form ego. The stuff we never agreed on, public vs. private school for example. The stuff we always agreed on but never discussed; interracial divorces, for example. My preferences for sleeping in strange places, hers for coffee in bed. So, it’s good to think that we are expending the areas where it’s safe to offer a real opinion, rather than a platitude.
Back at the boathouse, the mist is definitely rain, no kidding. On the way to dinner, I bike across the golf course. Here’s this beautiful stretch of grass, so carefully tended, so expensive of space and chemicals, and to ride full speed down a steep green hill, knowing there is no need for caution…in the rain…it’s pretty exciting. I crossed the golf course with Fuji during Hurricane Irene…with seagulls and swallows flying in amazing fast swoops, magical fish swimming in the currents of upended weather. Last night it was quiet in the woods. I guess we were all listening to the raindrops moving through the leaves. Where do the crickets go when it rains?
Alan
Yesterday was not so scenic. It was a somehow more oppressive grey, perhaps due to the light rain cum heavy mist, perhaps due to my mood somehow? I managed to get down to the boathouse and out in the Looksha 4 Fiberglas kayak by a little after 10…a virtual meeting at 9, and tea with my sister before that. The ebb tide carrying me smoothly down a beautiful smooth tongue of water pouring out of Great Harbor and South into Buzzards Bay. It was near flat calm, no sea at all running, and the grey made it hard to see the just barely submerged rocks as I paddled along the shore of Uncatena. Without the suns wash of light, the rocks along the shore can’t show their contrasty color and edginess…greys dominate, and in some way the details become less interesting, perhaps as they are less well defined. I paddled along though, still enjoying the paddling, remembering to push as much as pull. Wonder if I remember physically even when I am not remembering mentally. How does that transfer thought to action occur? It’s been known for a time that our brain commences quite a few thousandth of a second before we start to move. We are marvelously slow compared to machines. Moving hydrated salt atoms across cell membranes IS slow…perhaps a literal explanation of the phrase ‘give me time to think!’.
The things I do that I had formal lessons to learn; very few. The things I started doing and then received corrective help; also pretty sparse. The number of things I did, kept doing, and probably have some weird energy inefficient and mentally taxing way of doing; probably huge. Sometimes it becomes clear with practice…I don’t mean improvement, I mean pain. Cocking my right wrist, for example, definitely is where my right ‘golfers elbow’ came from. (‘tennis elbow’ is pain in the lateral (outside) lump at the elbow..the lateral epicondyle of the humerus (upper arm bone), and it’s the extensor carpi radialis brevis muscle which originates there and is involved in lifting with the palm down and, yes, tennis, that is often the culprit. My problem is pain on the inside of the right elbow, the medial epicondyle, which has extensor muscles involved in movements of the hand, such as paddling a kayak). Still, paddling yesterday went well..my shoulders were pretty tired after 6 hours, but it was that kind of Germanic ‘good’ pain.
There were plenty of fish, mostly small to medium striped bass, hanging out near the surface and close to rocks along the shore. You can often see their fins moving slowly through the mirror of the surface. As they become aware, there’s a carangiform spasm of the tail and they’re gone. There’s no current to stimulate them here along Uncatena; perhaps they are meditating. Perhaps they are always meditating. What if Buddha is a porpoise? Or at least, that the historical Buddha achieved nothing more or less than marine mammal brain function? What if whales are so relaxed they are always, well, Buddha? ( Of course, I imagine Sala responding, and you are too!)
However, what often happens to me with attempts at sitting meditation is not enlightenment, but sleep. I have completely fallen asleep paddling in the past, and when I do that I wake up already past the point of saving myself by a quick brace with the paddle..Yesterday was more like those times in the car that I would rather not admit I have. And as in the car, it’s generally enough to motivate a renewed wakefulness. It also helped that the kayak just then went grinding and gritting across a flat barnacle covered rock that was a few inches under the surface..Nothing like the sound of $10 an ounce epoxy gelcoat being macerated to bring skinflints like me to full wakefulness.
Fully awake, I paddled on. Push/pull and push/pull. Let the movements come from the thighs, the hips, the lats and pecs as well as the arms. Let the boat develop a rhythmic sway from side to side..it helps to align the paddle strokes. And let the overall effect be relaxation ( enlightenment wouldn’t be bad either)...and please not sleep!
Uncatena is just a little blip off the Northwest end of Naushon. Naushon is more substantial..about 8 miles long. The shore is mostly granite boulders, and in the water on a clear calm day, many of they are under water, often coated with seaweed; wavery bulky mysteries to the passing kayak. Sometimes there are fishes circling way down under, sometimes it’s just the current coiling around this obstacle, running it’s hands through the seaweed as the tidal flow continues on down Buzzards Bay. The ebbing current lasts will well past noon. Now its suddenly foggy, can barely see the rocks on shore, which are suddenly exciting, the face of an old lover imagined in the crowd. Now it’s misting… such heavy mists that some spoilsports might call it rain. Buttoned up with a waterproof top and a spray skirt, it doesn’t make much difference.
Another mile along, past some very attractive collections of flotsam..plastic fish boxes, fragments of net, and fewer and fewer beer cans and plastic bottles every year…a series of white sand crescent shaped beaches relieve the ongoing boulders and cliffs. Each one has a large sign beginning with PRIVATE PROPERTY. And it is; the whole string of island except for Cuttyhunk at the end is owned by the Forbes Trust. They do allow ‘seasonal visitors’ to land at three of the beaches, though you are not supposed to stay overnight . And it’s OK to land on Wee Peckets island, which is my first scheduled stop.
Wee Peckets is actually three islands. Two are tidal rockpiles, the most southerly is a sand hill with poison ivy and spartina grass, and a rookery for sea gulls in the spring. When I used to work for MBL on the Supply Department crew, we would occasionally have an order for seagull eggs..Dr S. had a special license to work on the (otherwise protected) birds. Those visits, during the hatching season, were merry mayhem; adult gulls shrieking overhead, battering wings when we came too close, already hatched fuzzy chicks running through the little gull paths in the grass, and of course the heavy odor of guano baking in the sun. One year, several weeks after the egg hunting, I took a small power boat to dump all the discarded biological material out in Vineyard Sound. As we arrived at the dumping area, and cut the noisy engine of the boat, it became clear that some of the discarded eggs were hatching…two gull chicks were in fact free of their shells and staggering around in the garbage pail, all bright eyes and optimistic peeping. Against both common sense and legal practice, I took them home, and in that distant and more relaxed era, my mother and younger brother raised the two gulls, named Gulliver (of course) and Blake ( Susie liked his poems). This summer, my brother reminded me of his long ago gullfather summer job, and that one of the gulls made a practice of walking down to town along the road. Eventually, imprinting on my brothers running and flapping, they learned to fly and left us groundlings behind.
There were a few gulls on Wee Peckets white sand beach (most were away at work at the Falmouth dump), and for once it wasn’t too hot. The rains have washed away the gull smells too. There are a few shells, of the subdued New England variety, and a few stray feathers (not the blizzards you encounter during the squabbling and molting of nesting season). Then the misty wisty sky comes back down, and I take refuge in my buttoned up Kayak again.
Later the tide has changed, and I start back with it towards Woods Hole, paddling in open water now. No rocks to avoid and Uncatena is still several miles ahead.
Reflecting on my work in progress; communications between couples. For the first time this summer, I have been able to hear the content of Sala’s reaction to my writing without being swept into some angry wastebasket state by my reaction to her reaction. Constructive criticism is so rarely encountered (even in a hundred thousand million kalpas (as the Buddhist invocation says about enlightment), and so why am I so ungracious about it when offered by the person I can probably trust above all others? Because…well…because of all the rest, years of kitchen table conversation, the fear of rejection, or at least of not succeeding. All the bits and pieces of metaphorical nest making material that form ego. The stuff we never agreed on, public vs. private school for example. The stuff we always agreed on but never discussed; interracial divorces, for example. My preferences for sleeping in strange places, hers for coffee in bed. So, it’s good to think that we are expending the areas where it’s safe to offer a real opinion, rather than a platitude.
Back at the boathouse, the mist is definitely rain, no kidding. On the way to dinner, I bike across the golf course. Here’s this beautiful stretch of grass, so carefully tended, so expensive of space and chemicals, and to ride full speed down a steep green hill, knowing there is no need for caution…in the rain…it’s pretty exciting. I crossed the golf course with Fuji during Hurricane Irene…with seagulls and swallows flying in amazing fast swoops, magical fish swimming in the currents of upended weather. Last night it was quiet in the woods. I guess we were all listening to the raindrops moving through the leaves. Where do the crickets go when it rains?
Alan
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Fiddler Crabs, Truro, and Edward Hopper
9-10-11. 1605 Green House, Woods Hole, Cape Cod. We didnt go in search of Edward Hopper, but on the way back on South Pamet Rd, we passed under route 6, and were back in telephone land. So it was easy to look up his street address, since there had been a controversy in the last few years over a plan by the new owner to tear down the 840 square foot white cottage and replace it with something...well...more substantial anyway.
The lot in question,25-27 Stevens Way, is off Depot Road in Truro. There is not that much of a there there in Truro, not compared even to Welfleet to the SW, and Provincetown to the NE. Cape Cod's beckoning finger begins to curl Northward at Orleans, and so Welfleet harbor is very sheltered. The very wrap around bony witches tip of the Cape might be trying to wheedle the Gulf Stream closer.* Of course the real 'there' in Truro is what Edward Hopper came for; light.
You become aware of just how well Edward Hopper created his own ' unique experience of nature' ( to paraphrase the explanation of the creative process attributed to him in the 1950's that I found in some biography years ago ) when you get off Route 6 and either turn left down South Pamet road to Balston beach, or right and wander through the dirt roads that actually lead to his house and the other summer cottages. The glacial leavings of sand and granite boulder 'erratics', beset by wind and rain over centuries, and then attacked in the 1820's by human handed saws to feed the furnaces of the Boston and Sandwich Glass Factory that young Deming Jarves built at Sandwich (also the site of the oldest continously held Quaker Meeting in the USA), are naturally a somehow soothing landscape. What Edward Hopper saw was early regrowth. Bayberry, blueberry, baby scrub pine trees, and grasses, spartina and others. The grass and bayberry is still visible, but only where wind and water make any other growth difficult, like near his house. Along the dirt roads he traveled, the land is going through a scrub pine phase, The trees are only 20 feet tall and 6-10 inches in diameter now, but already their needles blanket the ground and keep poison ivy and other shrubs from growing. These were the trees you can see in his backgrounds..a gas station along route 6 for example..and in those places, they have been replaced by the larger oaks that are also the dominant tree here in Woods Hole.
These are the sandy roads and tracks that I remember in the early 50's. During a rain the water sluices and cascades down into depressions that become lakes, and the smaller depressions are then deepened by passing cars until they become potholes. The rains in July and August are warm as the Gulf Stream itself, and my finger tips would be all pruned from the watery labor of engineering the flow into the channels I dug in the road out in front of our house, before being called in for supper.
As far as I can tell, Edward Hopper wasn't much drawn to paint weather. Or water. He really liked human constructs, and the play of light on the surfaces they present. Of course the weather is implicit in every painting anyway, because it's the weather that makes those reds redder and that stark line of the shadow against the building against the sky just so very stark. Sala only has a week more here on the Cape for this season, and when we discovered that we had nothing planned for yesterday (Friday), we decided to drive to Welfleet and Truro. During tourist season I wouldn't be tempted to try this, but the people supply turned off, as usual, on last Monday night. Literally the next day Water Street was more or less empty, there was no line for the Vineyard ferry, and year 'round people I hadn't seen all summer were daring to parade in full view.
Although Sala does not appreciate Fuji's sharp little feet stamping all over her lap to try to see out the window, she still would rather ride shotgun than drive. Sala and Fuji do, of course, go through a graceful pas de deux in which Sala (with a considerable weight advantage) lifts Fuji and whirls her towards the gap between the seats while saying "back, good dog, back!". And Fuji, with perfect timing, splays out her little legs and suddenly becomes too wide to fit between the seats, while looking soulfully put upon. It's as much part of our driving ritual as is stopping at antique stores.
The store we happened to stop at was a little before Welfleet. I walked Fuji, and then joined Sala inside. The prices were still summer prices, but books were on sale. Plus Sala found a pair of older clip on sunglasses that just fit her favorite ( round ) prescription frames, and at what she assured me was a great bargain. I picked up a copy of The Old Man and the Sea, and a volume about salt water angling that happened to have a great description from the 1800's of sailing to Cuttyhunk. They also had some Sandwich glass...whale oil lamps as it happens..that was thank goodness too pricy for impulse buying. But beautiful. The guy behind the counter was the one who told me about chopping down the Cape's forests for the firewood. And oh yes, 'A brief history of time", because what library is complete without that basic book, and ours was borrowed some time ago.
We turned left a little further along route 6 and headed for Pleasant Point..who could resist the name? Small cabins with Novelty siding or shingles, screen porches and some retrofitted skylights, and a few new constructions in the same vein. The road turned dirt and meandered around trees. Finally it ended..at a timber retained wall with the sea grass marsh of Welfleet harbor just beyond. Fuji barked to a pleasant faced woman who appeared rather suddenly from the stairs up from the beach next to us, and with the introduction we found that the place to eat was PJ's, at the next large intersection, which, she said, looked like all the other places serving junk but knew how to cook it. Fifty years of eating junk food all up and down the Cape, she said.
So we went to PJ's, ordered a lobster roll with mayo, a cod sandwich with tomato and lettuce, a side of french fries, a root beer float and some water for Fuji. While waiting, I went with the little dog to the nearest walking place, which happened to be a cemetary. Slate tombstones, staggering under the ravages of time, and very few of marble too. The earlierst was 1783, most were from the early part of the nineteenth century. So some of these people probably cut down the trees, made the glass, fished for the cod and the striped bass and started the communities, dealt with the weather the Gulf Stream brought them, and built the structures that attracted Edward Hopper. Or perhaps Josephine?
Back at Pleasant Point, we went down the stairs and traipsed left towards Drummer Cove. The tide was going out, leaving a modest 20 feet of firm clean yellow sand, and then a dense and lovely swale of tall salt grass that bordered the actual water. A few small boats fastened to cement blocks were stranded in the grass until the next tide. And, now scrabbling and hustling to escape into the grass or to herd up against the timbered seawall, there were armies of fiddler crabs, uca pugnax. These fellas are scarce around Woods Hole..they make great bait for catching Blackfish or Tautog..but here there was still hoardes of them. And caught up in the windrows of dead eel grass, many more of the limulus exoskeletons I found at Tarpaulin cove last weekend. Only these were smaller, more delicate, still the same iconic shape.
.
We ate (the lobster roll and fish were all right, the root beer float quite exotic when you are only having one or two spoonfulls), we walked, Fuji leaped into the mud after things she heard or saw (mostly imperceptable to us) and I collected exoskeletons ( you never know when you might need a pristine limulus exoskeleton).We talked to a couple who were wondering if there was a place to swim; they were considering a summer rental on Pleasant Point road. But this part of Welfleet Harbor, Drummer Cove, is very shallow..great for molting limulus and fiddler crabs and shellfish of all kinds, but not so great for washing humans.
Fuji feet were now not only sharp but also covered with marsh mud, and it seemed that Sala had kind of given up on the battle. With Fuji proudly and rendolently rampant on her lap, we forged on to find the Welfleet that I rememberd with some disliking, the downtown Welfleet, comlplete with a residuum of tourists and stores selling T shirts and salt water taffy
.
The North pointing arm of the outer cape is one long beach, beginning down near Chatham and extending all the way up to Ptown. Balslton Beach, where South Pamet now ends, was noisy with Atlantic surf. Probably because of Hurricane Katia about a hundred miles offshore, there was a no swimming advisory, and the water is cold, anyhow. There was a good NE wind blowing, and the combination of big empty beach and moving air is like catnip for our little dog. If we want to play, that's great too, but she's perfectly capable of just racing in circles for the fun of it. And of course, barking at the waves and chasing any available shorebird. Meanwhile, Hopper blue skies and Hopper green grass and yellow sand cliffs..it's all there.
And finally, consulting the iphone to correct course, we were bumping along twisty turney Stevens way, which has probably not changed too much since Edward and Jo Hopper, in a car with better clearance than ours, bumped and swayed this way. We know Edward Hopper liked to paint from his car, and explored the area thoroughly. Some of his views are changed by the regrowth of trees. His house, on the last dune before Massachusetts Bay and overlooking the place where the Pilgrims encountered the Wampanoag, is there. Except I picked the wrong one to take a photograph of..turns out I recognized this house, in a fold of the hills, because he painted it. The studio they built is a bit further along the road. Square, asphalt shingle roof, white walls, facing the sea.
I can see why he came, and came back. Reportedly, he didnt socialize much, but I guess he didnt socialize muich in NY either. And I should know more about Josephine Nivens, his wife, than I do; she was an accomplished painter in her own right. But it's Edward Hopper that holds the stage in my mental museum . Edward Hopper and that amazing light.
Fuji and Sala both slept on the way back. NPR was on the radio. There was very little traffic. Summer is over, I guess. Time for the Hoppers to pack up and head back to NY.
Alan
*( I just had to spend some time with the Gulf Stream on line, and it's more impressive than ever with all the new virtual color maps. Thirty Sverdrups (1 Sverdrup is 30 million cubic meters per second..all of the rivers of the world total 0.6 Sverdrup) of water that flows north from Florida and conditions weather all the way to Scotland. And, not incidentally this time of year, breeds that uniquely American cyclonic storm, sometimes called Hurricane.)
The lot in question,25-27 Stevens Way, is off Depot Road in Truro. There is not that much of a there there in Truro, not compared even to Welfleet to the SW, and Provincetown to the NE. Cape Cod's beckoning finger begins to curl Northward at Orleans, and so Welfleet harbor is very sheltered. The very wrap around bony witches tip of the Cape might be trying to wheedle the Gulf Stream closer.* Of course the real 'there' in Truro is what Edward Hopper came for; light.
You become aware of just how well Edward Hopper created his own ' unique experience of nature' ( to paraphrase the explanation of the creative process attributed to him in the 1950's that I found in some biography years ago ) when you get off Route 6 and either turn left down South Pamet road to Balston beach, or right and wander through the dirt roads that actually lead to his house and the other summer cottages. The glacial leavings of sand and granite boulder 'erratics', beset by wind and rain over centuries, and then attacked in the 1820's by human handed saws to feed the furnaces of the Boston and Sandwich Glass Factory that young Deming Jarves built at Sandwich (also the site of the oldest continously held Quaker Meeting in the USA), are naturally a somehow soothing landscape. What Edward Hopper saw was early regrowth. Bayberry, blueberry, baby scrub pine trees, and grasses, spartina and others. The grass and bayberry is still visible, but only where wind and water make any other growth difficult, like near his house. Along the dirt roads he traveled, the land is going through a scrub pine phase, The trees are only 20 feet tall and 6-10 inches in diameter now, but already their needles blanket the ground and keep poison ivy and other shrubs from growing. These were the trees you can see in his backgrounds..a gas station along route 6 for example..and in those places, they have been replaced by the larger oaks that are also the dominant tree here in Woods Hole.
These are the sandy roads and tracks that I remember in the early 50's. During a rain the water sluices and cascades down into depressions that become lakes, and the smaller depressions are then deepened by passing cars until they become potholes. The rains in July and August are warm as the Gulf Stream itself, and my finger tips would be all pruned from the watery labor of engineering the flow into the channels I dug in the road out in front of our house, before being called in for supper.
As far as I can tell, Edward Hopper wasn't much drawn to paint weather. Or water. He really liked human constructs, and the play of light on the surfaces they present. Of course the weather is implicit in every painting anyway, because it's the weather that makes those reds redder and that stark line of the shadow against the building against the sky just so very stark. Sala only has a week more here on the Cape for this season, and when we discovered that we had nothing planned for yesterday (Friday), we decided to drive to Welfleet and Truro. During tourist season I wouldn't be tempted to try this, but the people supply turned off, as usual, on last Monday night. Literally the next day Water Street was more or less empty, there was no line for the Vineyard ferry, and year 'round people I hadn't seen all summer were daring to parade in full view.
Although Sala does not appreciate Fuji's sharp little feet stamping all over her lap to try to see out the window, she still would rather ride shotgun than drive. Sala and Fuji do, of course, go through a graceful pas de deux in which Sala (with a considerable weight advantage) lifts Fuji and whirls her towards the gap between the seats while saying "back, good dog, back!". And Fuji, with perfect timing, splays out her little legs and suddenly becomes too wide to fit between the seats, while looking soulfully put upon. It's as much part of our driving ritual as is stopping at antique stores.
The store we happened to stop at was a little before Welfleet. I walked Fuji, and then joined Sala inside. The prices were still summer prices, but books were on sale. Plus Sala found a pair of older clip on sunglasses that just fit her favorite ( round ) prescription frames, and at what she assured me was a great bargain. I picked up a copy of The Old Man and the Sea, and a volume about salt water angling that happened to have a great description from the 1800's of sailing to Cuttyhunk. They also had some Sandwich glass...whale oil lamps as it happens..that was thank goodness too pricy for impulse buying. But beautiful. The guy behind the counter was the one who told me about chopping down the Cape's forests for the firewood. And oh yes, 'A brief history of time", because what library is complete without that basic book, and ours was borrowed some time ago.
We turned left a little further along route 6 and headed for Pleasant Point..who could resist the name? Small cabins with Novelty siding or shingles, screen porches and some retrofitted skylights, and a few new constructions in the same vein. The road turned dirt and meandered around trees. Finally it ended..at a timber retained wall with the sea grass marsh of Welfleet harbor just beyond. Fuji barked to a pleasant faced woman who appeared rather suddenly from the stairs up from the beach next to us, and with the introduction we found that the place to eat was PJ's, at the next large intersection, which, she said, looked like all the other places serving junk but knew how to cook it. Fifty years of eating junk food all up and down the Cape, she said.
So we went to PJ's, ordered a lobster roll with mayo, a cod sandwich with tomato and lettuce, a side of french fries, a root beer float and some water for Fuji. While waiting, I went with the little dog to the nearest walking place, which happened to be a cemetary. Slate tombstones, staggering under the ravages of time, and very few of marble too. The earlierst was 1783, most were from the early part of the nineteenth century. So some of these people probably cut down the trees, made the glass, fished for the cod and the striped bass and started the communities, dealt with the weather the Gulf Stream brought them, and built the structures that attracted Edward Hopper. Or perhaps Josephine?
Back at Pleasant Point, we went down the stairs and traipsed left towards Drummer Cove. The tide was going out, leaving a modest 20 feet of firm clean yellow sand, and then a dense and lovely swale of tall salt grass that bordered the actual water. A few small boats fastened to cement blocks were stranded in the grass until the next tide. And, now scrabbling and hustling to escape into the grass or to herd up against the timbered seawall, there were armies of fiddler crabs, uca pugnax. These fellas are scarce around Woods Hole..they make great bait for catching Blackfish or Tautog..but here there was still hoardes of them. And caught up in the windrows of dead eel grass, many more of the limulus exoskeletons I found at Tarpaulin cove last weekend. Only these were smaller, more delicate, still the same iconic shape.
.
We ate (the lobster roll and fish were all right, the root beer float quite exotic when you are only having one or two spoonfulls), we walked, Fuji leaped into the mud after things she heard or saw (mostly imperceptable to us) and I collected exoskeletons ( you never know when you might need a pristine limulus exoskeleton).We talked to a couple who were wondering if there was a place to swim; they were considering a summer rental on Pleasant Point road. But this part of Welfleet Harbor, Drummer Cove, is very shallow..great for molting limulus and fiddler crabs and shellfish of all kinds, but not so great for washing humans.
Fuji feet were now not only sharp but also covered with marsh mud, and it seemed that Sala had kind of given up on the battle. With Fuji proudly and rendolently rampant on her lap, we forged on to find the Welfleet that I rememberd with some disliking, the downtown Welfleet, comlplete with a residuum of tourists and stores selling T shirts and salt water taffy
.
The North pointing arm of the outer cape is one long beach, beginning down near Chatham and extending all the way up to Ptown. Balslton Beach, where South Pamet now ends, was noisy with Atlantic surf. Probably because of Hurricane Katia about a hundred miles offshore, there was a no swimming advisory, and the water is cold, anyhow. There was a good NE wind blowing, and the combination of big empty beach and moving air is like catnip for our little dog. If we want to play, that's great too, but she's perfectly capable of just racing in circles for the fun of it. And of course, barking at the waves and chasing any available shorebird. Meanwhile, Hopper blue skies and Hopper green grass and yellow sand cliffs..it's all there.
And finally, consulting the iphone to correct course, we were bumping along twisty turney Stevens way, which has probably not changed too much since Edward and Jo Hopper, in a car with better clearance than ours, bumped and swayed this way. We know Edward Hopper liked to paint from his car, and explored the area thoroughly. Some of his views are changed by the regrowth of trees. His house, on the last dune before Massachusetts Bay and overlooking the place where the Pilgrims encountered the Wampanoag, is there. Except I picked the wrong one to take a photograph of..turns out I recognized this house, in a fold of the hills, because he painted it. The studio they built is a bit further along the road. Square, asphalt shingle roof, white walls, facing the sea.
I can see why he came, and came back. Reportedly, he didnt socialize much, but I guess he didnt socialize muich in NY either. And I should know more about Josephine Nivens, his wife, than I do; she was an accomplished painter in her own right. But it's Edward Hopper that holds the stage in my mental museum . Edward Hopper and that amazing light.
Fuji and Sala both slept on the way back. NPR was on the radio. There was very little traffic. Summer is over, I guess. Time for the Hoppers to pack up and head back to NY.
Alan
*( I just had to spend some time with the Gulf Stream on line, and it's more impressive than ever with all the new virtual color maps. Thirty Sverdrups (1 Sverdrup is 30 million cubic meters per second..all of the rivers of the world total 0.6 Sverdrup) of water that flows north from Florida and conditions weather all the way to Scotland. And, not incidentally this time of year, breeds that uniquely American cyclonic storm, sometimes called Hurricane.)
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Day 3 Penikese to Woods Hole
Day 3 Dinoflagelates, docks, and damn good coffee on the way home to
Woods Hole.
9-6-11 1035 Green House. Being in a tubby catboat tied to a dock is very different than the same boat on an anchor line. Among the positives, no rocking and rolling with every passing wavelet, and no worry about dragging and a bad lee shore experience. Among the negatives; changes in wind direction and getting chewed up by the dock. On Saturday night at Penikese, after bluefish, broccoli, and the previously un-noticed dog kibble for dinner in the gathering dark, I set out an anchor to the side of the boat to hold her away from the doc, and we went happily to bed. About a half hour later, the rising tide changed our relationship to the doc, and I got up to change the lines. By 11, the moon was down and the bumping against the doc more insistant. But it was warm and windless, and the waters were twinkling with startlight..and more! With Fuji watching disapprovingly, I went over the side and into that paradise of light that is commonly called phosphoresence. In this case, probably Noctiluca scintillans, the sea sparkle. It's brilliant greenish light in response to water movement means that your hands, feet and,yes, any body part you chose to move, is surrounded by a layer of flashing light. Warm velvet water, halo's of energy, a great reward for being up at odd hours.
About 1 AM the wind came up out of the SE,which meant that Susie P began to have a serious fight with the dock. I set a second anchor, but eventually around 4, had to recognize it was time to move. I used both of the anchor lines, and figured out how to push the boat out and around the end of the dock to hang off the other side..and managed to get it done without losing Susie P or causing serious damage to myself. Time for one more submergence into the sea of sleep, rocked by the sleeping sea. And then the sun was hinting,whispering, calling, speaking, shouting up into the eastern sky, back towards Woods Hole, and it was time to get up. Went for a walk with the little dog, on a leash because of the birds, along the rough mown paths to the old rainwater cistern, to the leprosarium bathhouse, and finally to the north end and the cemetary, where those who died during the 20 years, up to the 1920's, are buried. Back at the boat, we were sitting down to our regular kibble, bacon and eggs breakfast when Chuck, with Deb's two kids, came down to bathe, meaning swing excitingly out on the crane used to life heavy baggage to land from the supply boat, and then let go!. Chuck worked at the Penikese School. He's a chemist become molecular biologist become healer become teacher of delinquent boys. A full sized bearded friendly faced guy guy. Fuji and I walked back through the sunny windy morning with him, and hung out in the main room of the main building while he brewed coffee and Deb made pancakes. Debs day jobs center around body work these days, with a history of social work, along with raising the kids who seem bright and sparkly. Deb has one of those 'light up the whole face' smiles The room, virtually unchanged during my years of visiting, has that patina of a well used group kitchen. A mixture of rules and accepted anarchy. Wooden counters coated with the finish of many hands, many meals, and perhaps a few butts in blue jeans. Photographs, artefacts, and of most interst to me several faded and smoky fish prints in rough frames..one huge flounder, and one small black sea bass. The windows look out towards the North, and you can imagine the remanded boys, city dwellers set down in such a rural spot, watching the sea for the appearance of the supply boat. Eating Deb's pancakes and drinking the damm good coffee, we talk of schools, of drug and alcohol treatment possibilities, of whether the sea is boiling hot, and how the pig died, still without wings. Fuji hopes for more bacon, but its all gone, and time for us to go, too
Hmm, still a double reef day, with the wind now blowing straight back towards Woods Hole. I had thought to sail south through Sow and Pigs shoal and perhaps off towards Nomans, but with this wind that seems difficult. We untie, motor out, head up and hoist our reefed sail, and slam off across the wind on starboard tack towards the Canapitsit channel between Nashawena and Cuttyhunk. Penikese, as the adventure novels relate, disappears in the wake.
Most of the sailboats coming our way are running on motor under bare spars. The few going downwind are flying along on jib only. With the double reef, Susie P chuckles and gurgles and sails herself..I can literally let go of the tiller and she just sails steadily along on a easy beat upwind. We duck in close to Nashawena, come about, and are back across towards Cuttyhunk, and so on and forth until we're rounding up under the lee of Barge Beach. So called because it was constructed out of wooden railway barges towed up from New York and sunk to create a sand trap. Perhaps one day they will rot and the sea will break through and flood Cuttyhunk Pond, but for now its a wonderfully sheltered harbor. We drop the sail, tie it up the the boom, pull up the centerboard and motor towards the channel entrance. A madwoman/merwoman standing on the fore deck of an approaching 32 foot sailboat draws our attention. She's gesticulating, flailing her arms, shouting something. What, give way?? What, rocks ahead? What, cosmic bad hair day? Oh, it's Bronwen, Bronwen from Woods Hole, and she's just to saying hello!!.
Susie P follows 'Remembrance', Simon (and thus Bronwen's) boat up the channel, past the decomissioned lifeboat station, and into the harbor/pond. Most of the $35 a night moorings are taken, some huge motor yachts are backing and filling around the fuel dock, and Labor Day is clearly already in full swing. We put- put around gawking, but no real desire to go ashore. So we raft up with Remembrance, drink chocolate milk and eat cookies, and read some more of Anne Patchett while S and B head into shore to look for breakfast.
Now its after noon, and time to move on. The wind is still out of the southeast, and still pretty strong, but what the heck, we've got two reefs in. So we cast off, motor out, put up the sail and, whoops, are away downwind at a terrific pace. Against the tide and all, we must be making a full 7 knots through the water and about 5 on land. Nashawena, the beach where we have anchored in the past, the beach where the Highland cattle sniffed me awake one morning several years ago, and all the rest of its beautiful rock bound shore glides by. This is almost straight downwind, with surging waves that lift Susie's little haunches and surf her down into the next valley, and the next wave. No real danger, just the thrill of feeling the boat, all tons of her, take off on the back of a wave and act like a surfboard. Fuji does not appreciate my undivided attention on steering, and spends most of her time under the cockpit benchseat, or down in the cabin. We race by Nashawena, across the mouth of Robinsons (waves, but nothing like the day before) past Pasque, and angle a bit upwind to the right towards West End Beach on the end of Naushon.
It's bright sun and some clouds passing, lighting up the white sand beach with its green woodlands rising behind. The wind is about 15 with gusts to 20, and we come into West End beach cautiously under motor. A couple of Tupperware motor boats are anchored on double anchors near the beach, and there's a 2 foot wave running right up to the beach. But we anchor without any problem, and the big Danforth seems to hold agianst the tossing of the boat. We also put out a second anchor, to stop Susie P from swinging around on the main anchor, and after waitig ot be sure, load Fuji into the Diaper Rash and row for shore. The people from the two boats are one extended family, and no wusses either. In the continuing wind, they are broiling hamburgers and offering beer. Their black lab is happy to see us. Labs are so rewarding that way. Fuji wants to play chase, excited by the moving air. But the lab is a little old for chasing. Instead, Fuji goes wild in the little fresh water stream that has helped create this beach. Tiny troutlets in the water. Wrack and weeds from Irene's recent incursion. Spartina and other grasses, and behind it all the endless green of catbriar and poison ivy.We share a beer with the uncles and cousins, and then get our butts a little wet inthe shore break getting into the Diaper Rash to row back out to Susie P. Once there, we feast on ham and turkey sandwiches, and some more Ann Patchett. She's left Manaus now, and with the mysterious scientist are heading for what sounds like a New World version of Heart of Darkness. I know its not gonna be Platoon or Apocalypse Now, because Sala doesnt finish books like that, walks out of the movies, too.
Now its coming on 5 PM and the picnic group is rounding up coolers and kids, getting them out to the Tupperwares, starting motors, and pulling anchors. I think about spending the night here, which had been Plan A, But with the low tide, aobut 3 feet of water under us, the wind shows no sign of abating, and the 2 foot waves are starting to break before they get to us. I imagine the night ahead, the darkness, the pitching and rolling, and the worry about the anchor dragging, the sickening noises Susie P's hull will make as it grinds on the rocks. Nope, time to move on.
Two reefs are still best, and sure enough, we whirl out of the shallow bay and are careening North once agian, this time towards Kettle Cove, the next anchorage. It's only a few moments away at this speed, and clearly has the same size waves crashing on its white sand beach. Hmmm...well, two hours of light left, and perhaps it will be better in the lee of Wee Peckets. So we move on, big swoops and swooshes, constant noise of water moving, of the propellor of the motor spinning in neutral, of the breaking waves around us. The wind is if anything a little higher, and so I scandalize the sail...which means slacking the top halyard to decrease the efficiency of the sail even more. That seems to work, now I can hold a course towards Wee Peckets, whereas a few moments ago, the boat would come down a wave and fight against the rudder to head off the wind and to the right, towards the shore.
About a mile north of the passage between Wee Peckets and Naushon, the wind suddenly shifts to the SW, and I have to change tacks. Rather than jibing at this speed with this kind of following wave, I decide to come about. Whoa, that was exciting...big noises of rattling pulleys and other gear, big wallowing and rolling, and an exciting armount of flying spray as we head back out for sea room before coming about again to resume our trip. This is a little like doing a right and two lefts to negotiate a no left turn, but seems safer. And soon we are through the channel, and come about again to head left over to the downwind of Wee Peckets.
Wee Peckets is really three islands, and now a breeding ground for gulls. Once it was the main target for bombing practice for war planes flying out of Otis Airr base, which is now a military reservation. .Sometimes on a South wind there is a good lee onthe North of the main island, But not today. A 60 foot square rigger is sitting in the only real out of the wind spot. And so I imagine the night...fear of collisions added to fear of anchor dragging...about 45 minutes of daylight...and hoist sail again, to head on downwind towards the only really safe harbor for miles...Woods Hole!!
So we came flying along past Uncatena, upwind slightly to catch the current that I was convinced would be there to sweep us through the Hole and into Great Harbor.
Ooops!, Little miscalculation. The current had turned an hour earlier, and is ebbing, thus AGAINST us.
Well, nothing to lose. If we can't make it, we can always run down to Quissett, and perhaps tie up next to John's boat 'Limulus' for the night. But we might as well try.
That big wind pushed us right along into the Hole,and once there,I turned up the little engine, and we were making it. Big swirls and boils, but all familiar from early morning fishing trips. Now the current is a little stronger, and we are just about holding steady. And is the wind shifting further west? Are we gonna suddenly jibe, lose power, and start going backwards?
At that point, a strange sound., a little like the jangle of a bicycle hand bell. From behind us. I turn to look, and whoa, about 20 feet away, dead slow and right behind us, her two hulls looming on either sides of a tunnel that looks ready to swallow us up, is the Fast Ferry Catamaran!! That sorta friendly alert noise is the alternative to their air horn, which is definitly capable of causing heart attacks when heard in this situation.
The guy on the side of the wheelhouse of the Fast Ferry holds both arms out, hands up, clearly asking me what I am doing. I wave, point ot the sail, hold my own hands up; sorry, doing the best I can.
It took a very very long 5 minutes to make headway, avoid a jibe, and ease over to let the Fast Ferry by. As it did so, and gathered speed again working up to its usual blindingly fast 30 mph or so, an amplified voice said said 'Nice sailing'. Best news I have ever received from an electronic voice.
And so we got through the Hole, jibed and ran into Great Harbor, headed up, took down the sail, motored to the mooring and in the fading light, now overcast with clouds that adumbrated rain, called Sala with the last of the cell phone to say we had finished our cruise to Penikese.
Alan
Woods Hole.
9-6-11 1035 Green House. Being in a tubby catboat tied to a dock is very different than the same boat on an anchor line. Among the positives, no rocking and rolling with every passing wavelet, and no worry about dragging and a bad lee shore experience. Among the negatives; changes in wind direction and getting chewed up by the dock. On Saturday night at Penikese, after bluefish, broccoli, and the previously un-noticed dog kibble for dinner in the gathering dark, I set out an anchor to the side of the boat to hold her away from the doc, and we went happily to bed. About a half hour later, the rising tide changed our relationship to the doc, and I got up to change the lines. By 11, the moon was down and the bumping against the doc more insistant. But it was warm and windless, and the waters were twinkling with startlight..and more! With Fuji watching disapprovingly, I went over the side and into that paradise of light that is commonly called phosphoresence. In this case, probably Noctiluca scintillans, the sea sparkle. It's brilliant greenish light in response to water movement means that your hands, feet and,yes, any body part you chose to move, is surrounded by a layer of flashing light. Warm velvet water, halo's of energy, a great reward for being up at odd hours.
About 1 AM the wind came up out of the SE,which meant that Susie P began to have a serious fight with the dock. I set a second anchor, but eventually around 4, had to recognize it was time to move. I used both of the anchor lines, and figured out how to push the boat out and around the end of the dock to hang off the other side..and managed to get it done without losing Susie P or causing serious damage to myself. Time for one more submergence into the sea of sleep, rocked by the sleeping sea. And then the sun was hinting,whispering, calling, speaking, shouting up into the eastern sky, back towards Woods Hole, and it was time to get up. Went for a walk with the little dog, on a leash because of the birds, along the rough mown paths to the old rainwater cistern, to the leprosarium bathhouse, and finally to the north end and the cemetary, where those who died during the 20 years, up to the 1920's, are buried. Back at the boat, we were sitting down to our regular kibble, bacon and eggs breakfast when Chuck, with Deb's two kids, came down to bathe, meaning swing excitingly out on the crane used to life heavy baggage to land from the supply boat, and then let go!. Chuck worked at the Penikese School. He's a chemist become molecular biologist become healer become teacher of delinquent boys. A full sized bearded friendly faced guy guy. Fuji and I walked back through the sunny windy morning with him, and hung out in the main room of the main building while he brewed coffee and Deb made pancakes. Debs day jobs center around body work these days, with a history of social work, along with raising the kids who seem bright and sparkly. Deb has one of those 'light up the whole face' smiles The room, virtually unchanged during my years of visiting, has that patina of a well used group kitchen. A mixture of rules and accepted anarchy. Wooden counters coated with the finish of many hands, many meals, and perhaps a few butts in blue jeans. Photographs, artefacts, and of most interst to me several faded and smoky fish prints in rough frames..one huge flounder, and one small black sea bass. The windows look out towards the North, and you can imagine the remanded boys, city dwellers set down in such a rural spot, watching the sea for the appearance of the supply boat. Eating Deb's pancakes and drinking the damm good coffee, we talk of schools, of drug and alcohol treatment possibilities, of whether the sea is boiling hot, and how the pig died, still without wings. Fuji hopes for more bacon, but its all gone, and time for us to go, too
Hmm, still a double reef day, with the wind now blowing straight back towards Woods Hole. I had thought to sail south through Sow and Pigs shoal and perhaps off towards Nomans, but with this wind that seems difficult. We untie, motor out, head up and hoist our reefed sail, and slam off across the wind on starboard tack towards the Canapitsit channel between Nashawena and Cuttyhunk. Penikese, as the adventure novels relate, disappears in the wake.
Most of the sailboats coming our way are running on motor under bare spars. The few going downwind are flying along on jib only. With the double reef, Susie P chuckles and gurgles and sails herself..I can literally let go of the tiller and she just sails steadily along on a easy beat upwind. We duck in close to Nashawena, come about, and are back across towards Cuttyhunk, and so on and forth until we're rounding up under the lee of Barge Beach. So called because it was constructed out of wooden railway barges towed up from New York and sunk to create a sand trap. Perhaps one day they will rot and the sea will break through and flood Cuttyhunk Pond, but for now its a wonderfully sheltered harbor. We drop the sail, tie it up the the boom, pull up the centerboard and motor towards the channel entrance. A madwoman/merwoman standing on the fore deck of an approaching 32 foot sailboat draws our attention. She's gesticulating, flailing her arms, shouting something. What, give way?? What, rocks ahead? What, cosmic bad hair day? Oh, it's Bronwen, Bronwen from Woods Hole, and she's just to saying hello!!.
Susie P follows 'Remembrance', Simon (and thus Bronwen's) boat up the channel, past the decomissioned lifeboat station, and into the harbor/pond. Most of the $35 a night moorings are taken, some huge motor yachts are backing and filling around the fuel dock, and Labor Day is clearly already in full swing. We put- put around gawking, but no real desire to go ashore. So we raft up with Remembrance, drink chocolate milk and eat cookies, and read some more of Anne Patchett while S and B head into shore to look for breakfast.
Now its after noon, and time to move on. The wind is still out of the southeast, and still pretty strong, but what the heck, we've got two reefs in. So we cast off, motor out, put up the sail and, whoops, are away downwind at a terrific pace. Against the tide and all, we must be making a full 7 knots through the water and about 5 on land. Nashawena, the beach where we have anchored in the past, the beach where the Highland cattle sniffed me awake one morning several years ago, and all the rest of its beautiful rock bound shore glides by. This is almost straight downwind, with surging waves that lift Susie's little haunches and surf her down into the next valley, and the next wave. No real danger, just the thrill of feeling the boat, all tons of her, take off on the back of a wave and act like a surfboard. Fuji does not appreciate my undivided attention on steering, and spends most of her time under the cockpit benchseat, or down in the cabin. We race by Nashawena, across the mouth of Robinsons (waves, but nothing like the day before) past Pasque, and angle a bit upwind to the right towards West End Beach on the end of Naushon.
It's bright sun and some clouds passing, lighting up the white sand beach with its green woodlands rising behind. The wind is about 15 with gusts to 20, and we come into West End beach cautiously under motor. A couple of Tupperware motor boats are anchored on double anchors near the beach, and there's a 2 foot wave running right up to the beach. But we anchor without any problem, and the big Danforth seems to hold agianst the tossing of the boat. We also put out a second anchor, to stop Susie P from swinging around on the main anchor, and after waitig ot be sure, load Fuji into the Diaper Rash and row for shore. The people from the two boats are one extended family, and no wusses either. In the continuing wind, they are broiling hamburgers and offering beer. Their black lab is happy to see us. Labs are so rewarding that way. Fuji wants to play chase, excited by the moving air. But the lab is a little old for chasing. Instead, Fuji goes wild in the little fresh water stream that has helped create this beach. Tiny troutlets in the water. Wrack and weeds from Irene's recent incursion. Spartina and other grasses, and behind it all the endless green of catbriar and poison ivy.We share a beer with the uncles and cousins, and then get our butts a little wet inthe shore break getting into the Diaper Rash to row back out to Susie P. Once there, we feast on ham and turkey sandwiches, and some more Ann Patchett. She's left Manaus now, and with the mysterious scientist are heading for what sounds like a New World version of Heart of Darkness. I know its not gonna be Platoon or Apocalypse Now, because Sala doesnt finish books like that, walks out of the movies, too.
Now its coming on 5 PM and the picnic group is rounding up coolers and kids, getting them out to the Tupperwares, starting motors, and pulling anchors. I think about spending the night here, which had been Plan A, But with the low tide, aobut 3 feet of water under us, the wind shows no sign of abating, and the 2 foot waves are starting to break before they get to us. I imagine the night ahead, the darkness, the pitching and rolling, and the worry about the anchor dragging, the sickening noises Susie P's hull will make as it grinds on the rocks. Nope, time to move on.
Two reefs are still best, and sure enough, we whirl out of the shallow bay and are careening North once agian, this time towards Kettle Cove, the next anchorage. It's only a few moments away at this speed, and clearly has the same size waves crashing on its white sand beach. Hmmm...well, two hours of light left, and perhaps it will be better in the lee of Wee Peckets. So we move on, big swoops and swooshes, constant noise of water moving, of the propellor of the motor spinning in neutral, of the breaking waves around us. The wind is if anything a little higher, and so I scandalize the sail...which means slacking the top halyard to decrease the efficiency of the sail even more. That seems to work, now I can hold a course towards Wee Peckets, whereas a few moments ago, the boat would come down a wave and fight against the rudder to head off the wind and to the right, towards the shore.
About a mile north of the passage between Wee Peckets and Naushon, the wind suddenly shifts to the SW, and I have to change tacks. Rather than jibing at this speed with this kind of following wave, I decide to come about. Whoa, that was exciting...big noises of rattling pulleys and other gear, big wallowing and rolling, and an exciting armount of flying spray as we head back out for sea room before coming about again to resume our trip. This is a little like doing a right and two lefts to negotiate a no left turn, but seems safer. And soon we are through the channel, and come about again to head left over to the downwind of Wee Peckets.
Wee Peckets is really three islands, and now a breeding ground for gulls. Once it was the main target for bombing practice for war planes flying out of Otis Airr base, which is now a military reservation. .Sometimes on a South wind there is a good lee onthe North of the main island, But not today. A 60 foot square rigger is sitting in the only real out of the wind spot. And so I imagine the night...fear of collisions added to fear of anchor dragging...about 45 minutes of daylight...and hoist sail again, to head on downwind towards the only really safe harbor for miles...Woods Hole!!
So we came flying along past Uncatena, upwind slightly to catch the current that I was convinced would be there to sweep us through the Hole and into Great Harbor.
Ooops!, Little miscalculation. The current had turned an hour earlier, and is ebbing, thus AGAINST us.
Well, nothing to lose. If we can't make it, we can always run down to Quissett, and perhaps tie up next to John's boat 'Limulus' for the night. But we might as well try.
That big wind pushed us right along into the Hole,and once there,I turned up the little engine, and we were making it. Big swirls and boils, but all familiar from early morning fishing trips. Now the current is a little stronger, and we are just about holding steady. And is the wind shifting further west? Are we gonna suddenly jibe, lose power, and start going backwards?
At that point, a strange sound., a little like the jangle of a bicycle hand bell. From behind us. I turn to look, and whoa, about 20 feet away, dead slow and right behind us, her two hulls looming on either sides of a tunnel that looks ready to swallow us up, is the Fast Ferry Catamaran!! That sorta friendly alert noise is the alternative to their air horn, which is definitly capable of causing heart attacks when heard in this situation.
The guy on the side of the wheelhouse of the Fast Ferry holds both arms out, hands up, clearly asking me what I am doing. I wave, point ot the sail, hold my own hands up; sorry, doing the best I can.
It took a very very long 5 minutes to make headway, avoid a jibe, and ease over to let the Fast Ferry by. As it did so, and gathered speed again working up to its usual blindingly fast 30 mph or so, an amplified voice said said 'Nice sailing'. Best news I have ever received from an electronic voice.
And so we got through the Hole, jibed and ran into Great Harbor, headed up, took down the sail, motored to the mooring and in the fading light, now overcast with clouds that adumbrated rain, called Sala with the last of the cell phone to say we had finished our cruise to Penikese.
Alan
Day 2 Tarpaulin Cove to Penikese
Subject: Day 2: Penikese by way of Vineyard Sound and Quicks Hole
9-5-11 0710 Woods Hole, The Green House. Well, Fuji and I clambered into the starboard berth of Susie P's cabin at about 8:30 PM last Thursday. Fuji had been taking refuge there many times during the day, curling up on top of the poupourri of clothes and sleeping bag. We both settled in with a sign of expected relief. Well, and also after 400 mg of ibuprofen in my case; otherwise the the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and living to be 70 otherwise wake me up too often. The annoying ringing noise that halyard ropes running up the mast otherwise make was stilled by tie-offs to the forestay. The worst of the squarking that the rudder makes was abated by other tie-offs for the tiller. The sail was stopped to the mast by sail ties. The metal centerboard hoisted up into it's well, to diminish its dull clanking. And the growing night was gorgeous; the big dipper visible through the open hatchway, and when the boat swung on the anchor, the milky way just coming into view. A very small and mousily tentative new moon making its and discrete visit in the southwestern sky. The lighthouses...nearby on the high point, beyond at Gay Head (now called Acquinnah), and on East Chop at the other end of the island all visible, along with assorted lighted navigation aids winking frostily out in the Sound. The lapping of little waves on the shore 25 yards away. Perfect.
Actually, Susie P rocks vigorously from side to side in a not quite regular series of lurches. This happens in the very slightest of oncoming waves. This isnt a lulling soothing movement, it's more like a seatmate who is large and afflicted with sleep apnea, so that every breathing movement and breath holding event causes a lurching shove against your shoulder. And of course, with the lurches comes some amount of squeeking squarking banging clunking noise from the various tied off but still not silent rigging. And of course, after a few rounds of this, a bigger wave train comes along and sets off an even bigger set of lurches, enough to dislodge me slightly from the thinnnish foam mattress that felt so soft a few minutes ago, and cause me to join the lurching.
How did I forget about this? How am I going to get any sleep? I get it, the physics of this; the mast up in the air and not stabilized by air pressure on the sail makes a counterweight to the round tubby bottom of the boat...a pendulum mechanism, with all the moments of inertia we learned about in HS physics. If the boat was facing perfectly into the waves, it would be different, but that's not possible. Now the stars are becoming sparkly annoyances and the moon: way to bright!! The wave noise has an annoying slapping quality. And Fuji's modest body weight on my feet is unbearable.
Well, I thought of chemical solutions; yes doctor, you do have the pain pills and the sleepers in that little bottle. And then it occurred to me that this was perhaps just the right time to practice being in the moment. When I had trouble with monkey mind while trying to sit, I found it much easier to let my thoughts go while running. As if the physical challenge of that coordinated series of jumps we call a run was just enough more demanding to attach my attention to the moment more securely than possible in the relative comfort of sitting. In any case, instead of trying to escape, I tried joining the whole event, clanks,clunks, lurches, squeals, and starting over again, tried not expecting an end, just being there. And of course, was asleep within minutes.
I woke, but without rancor, about every hour. To pee,to drink, to check the anchor, to look at the stars, to appreciate the navigation lights, and to feel the gentle and slightly cool touch of the night breeze. And the rocking and rolling continued, and became a part of whatever dreams I had, and when the light came up in the East over the headland to the North of Tarpaulin, I felt well rested and able to give Fuji her morning scratch with a clear head.
When I first got Susie P I bought an alchohol stove on EBay. Propane is not well thought of by most boaters, because if it gets loose it flows to the bottom of the boat and explodes, whereas alcohol vapor rises. The stove is cheerily noisy, once you finish the dangerous ritual of flooding in a little puddle of alcohol and making that loud 'WHUFF!' as it lights. Unfortunately, it makes a very similar noise when it has blown out and is just flooding again. Luckily the flame does not create a black ash, as gasoline does, so my flaring mistakes didn't leave any permanent scars. I made tea, and then took Fuji back on shore for her morning run.
The beach was all firm clean smooth sand from the high tide during the night, with just enough sprinkling of shells. Crepidula fornicata, the boat shell that deputizes one male in the whole family of females...the smallest one on the end. Pecten sp, the small Bay Scallop...delicious but oh so many for a mouthful. Calinectes..or at least bits of blue crab shell washed up by the storm. And jingle shells, anomia simplex, sometimes called mermaids toenails, all shades of butter yellow and metalic orange. And at the far end, wads and windrows and hills and mountains of dead, brown, blown ashore eel grass. The best compost ever, and nary a garden for miles! Fuji treated it like snow, leaping and porpoising through it, snorting and snapping at it. And mixed in, the limulus polyphemus exoskeletons, with their complex and ancient spines and smooth roundnesses, and the beautiful polyhedrons pseudopupils of their complex spider eyes.
Well, the wind was still out of the Northwest, and made me think about a second reef. This makes the sail about half its usual 250 square feet. But I could see white capped waves all over the Sound, and I remembered the three laws. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast, mixed with some kibble for Fuji and some toast for me. Ran the mental checklist for leaving, put away the loose stuff below, and puttered out to put up the sail. The sail immediately filled, the engine was stopped, and we swooped out of Tarpaulin, headed out across the Sound again. It was blue and sparkling, a solid wind to push us against the flooding current heading Northeast. This time, I could tie down the tiller and let Susie P sail heself, and so made some headway in "State of Wonder", recommended by Sala and by it's setting: I visited Manaus in 1967, and have my own memories of the smell of the meat market, and the black vultures perched like gargoyles on the wraught iron posts overhead. And our research location was, like the memorable Doctor in Anne Patchetts book, on the Rio Negro...only quite a bit further out..it took 3 days for the boat to get back to Manaus when we left our station.
We passed over middle ground and Hey!, Presto!!, another bluefish. By this time Fuji is an old hand at fishing from the sail boat, saving her barks for when the fish is actually in the dinghy. And the whole process of making fillets on the beach, which gives her a chance to run has worked out well. Washed out the Diaper Rash ( it's about as big as a bathtub), and decided to head back across the Sound to Naushon. Still sailing against the tide,but even with the double reef, Susie P made good time, and we came up on Robinson's Hole by about noon. Not as many other boats as I would have expected for t he start of Labor Day..presumably Irene disrupted some plans. The current was still running strongly against us at Robinsons,which is the Hole between Naushon and the next island, Pasque. It's pretty narrow,and no possiblity of us sailing through until the change, which was due in about 2 hours. So we sailed on in the Sound, along the East Shore of Pasque. It was time for Fuji to be ashore for a while, and with the wind still out of the North, there was a nice looking little bay, albeit with a rocky shore. As we got closer, I could see large erratics, the boulders left by the Laurentian Glaciation, appearing as vague blue brown shapes under the clear water. But Susie P draws only 21 inches with her centerboad up, so we anchored without diffiiculty.
It was hot, and the wind blowing over the land was gentle here. However,it was plenty enough to catch the Diaper Rash and start it moving away from Susie P's stern when I accidentally dropped the tow line. In fact, in the several seconds since I realized what I had done, the little dinghy, light as an eggshell, was picking up speed and already beyond reach.
This probably makes the 3rd or 4th rendition of this little puzzle. Do you jump after the boat...or figure out how to retrieve by other means? The last performance, in the Pacific off Muir Beach, I had bailed out of my kayak, towed it to a nearby rock, poured the water out, set it down rightside up, and thought I had hold of the bow line when I turned away to size up the situation. By the time I turned back, the kayak was on its way towards the Farralones, and moving faster than I thought I could swim. That time, it took several hours to recover the boat, which had drifted beyond sight. This time, I suppose I thought about how longit would take to get the anchor up, and what a hassle that would be, and whether the boat would lodge in some downwind rocks, etc, but in real time, I jammed both hands into the pockets of my shorts, pulled them out holding whatever I could grab, dropped it on the seat, and dove in, hat, sunnies, and all. Worked fine, and after I had swum the dinghy back and fastened it to the Susie P (with Fuji looking on and wagging her tail, assuming this was some new game whose point might or might not ever be evident), I discovered that it was possible, as I had hoped, to squirm in over the stern of the dinghy without totally swamping the boat, and thus get enough of a platform to get back in the Susie P.
Imagine these people who sail single handed around the world. Every day must have many such little puzzles, any one of which could come to grief. There is no changing channels. No one has inspected the roller coaster. There is no one to sue if the ride goes awry.. I guess thats why I generally avoid amusement parks and like being outdoors alone. 'Because it is there', as I believe Mallory said. There is no there there in an amusement park, or a water slide.
Refreshed by the swimming, and the exploration of the foreshore of Pasque, we returned to the Susie P. The hurricane had herded all the wrecked lobster pots, longline bouys, and assorted flipflops and beer cans into an absolute battlement of wrack and ruin, and there was plenty to look at,and smell if you have a Fuji level smeller. About 10 beaches south on Pasque, we passed the beach where I was more of less driven ashore in my kayak several years ago, blinded by fog and beset by rolling waves coming in past Nomans Land from the open Atlantic. This time, on the lee side with a wind that was still pretty much out of the Northeast, the beach looked hot and a little desolate. And it was 3:30, the current had turned, and was ebbing out through the larger Hole between Pasque and Nashawena, known as Quick's Hole.
Quick's Hole is nice and wide, and mostly East/West. The wind seemed to have shifted a little West, but it should sitll be possible to make a single starboard tack (wind coming from the right side of the boat, remember?) and with the current behind us, shoot right through. I headed for the space between the red and green channel markers, just like the book says. And then I looked up ahead. The horizon was no longer flat. Stretching across most of the space between the islands, the line between sea and the distant blue hazed land of Rhode Island had become a jagged band of white.
Now sometimes a line like that means just a bunch of 6 inch wavelets. Sometimes it's a very shallow reef. Depends on the current, the wind. But in this case, and seen at a half mile distance, it probably meant that there was a pretty big tide rip with current opposing wind, waiting for us at the end of Quicks Hole. That's about 6 minutes at our combined water and wind speed. And short tubby boats are not the best conveyance to take into a tide rip.
However, this was a catboat situation. Catboats originated in Buzzards Bay, the body of water we were approaching. Susie P would do fine, as long as I didnt do something stupid. Hmm, about 3 minutes now...smooth sailing as we zipped past the foaming and gurgling red channel marker on our right. Fuji, perhaps sensing something, retired to the cabin and made a bed in my sweatshirt. In another few hundred yards, we came out of the lee of Pasque, now to the North and fading East, and got a taste of what the North wind had been up to as it came those miles down Buzzards Bay. The waves ahead were making that kind of ripping noise I associate with big rapids. And it seemed that the wind has shifted a few more degrees to the West, giving us even less power. The logical thing to do is called 'heading off' (which I know form experience means nothing to intelligent non sailors like Sala when I scream it without explanation..I mean heading the boat more downwind, to pick up more wind on the sail). But that meant heading to the left, and right there, edging closer, was the shore of Nashawena, complete with a giant erratic boulder, big as a house, reaching out ahead of us. We couldn't head off.
Those of you who read nautical books,or sail yourselves, will recognize what was happening as yet another version of a 'lee shore' experience. It happens when you are close to land, and the wind is driving you ever closer. Without sufficient speed, or space to turn and gather speed, you cannot bring the boat about. For example :
"In 1898, the four masted schooner, Lunet, loaded with coal, anchored here (in Tarpaulin Cove) to wait out a Southwesterly gale. The next day, the winds changed direction to Northeasterly, and the hurricane force winds were accompanied by a blinding blizzard. Unable to escape, and now on a lee shore, Lunet was lost when her anchor parted and she sank in 60 feet of water with all 200 persons onboard. It was one of the worst disasters in New England shipping history." (http://www.setauketyc.com/CruiseGuide/tarpaulincove/index.htm )
And then we hit the waves. Hmm, bigger than I thought. Oh well, I can start the engine. Meanwhile, Susie P has started a combination of pitching up and pounding down, which is what 18 foot boats do when they encounter a 6 foot chop. As I finally got the engine running, there is a loud noise from down in the cabin; the cooler has leaped off its bench and was down on the deck. Thankfully, it is also wedged semi shut, so the color of the water flooding out isn'tcolored milk mixed with fishblood , at least not yet. From the security of her nest, Fuji looks wistful, perhaps wishing me well. Nah, dog's don't worry about lee shores. Meanwhile, the engine, trying hard, is alternately racing and bogging, as the propellor lifted out of the water or the boat pitched out of the trought between waves. The sail is making those machine gun snapping noises that sails make in high wind conditions trying to sail too close hauled.
Hmm, indeed!!
Of such situations are religious converts made. With the combination of motor and sail, Susie P maintained just enough seaway to stay clear of the lee shore, and make it out through the tide rip to the relatively safe yet white capped rollers of Buzzards Bay. Clear of the North tip of Nashawena and it's waiting boulders, we were able to head off a bit, and pick up speed. A few minutes more, engine no longer needed, we were rolling down wind towards our destination, Penikese Island.
Penikese lies to the West off Cuttyhunk Island, which is the Southern most of the Elizabeths. You can read about its history as a leprosarium,and about the New York sporting bankers and their Cuttyhunk Fishing Club. Both are public land, and their own county ( Gosnold). Nashawena is Forbes owned, with some beautiful houses and a very protected little bay about half way along (visitors not really welcome). A fair number of reddish shaggy Highland cattle,and even some sheep I think. It's the same grey to reddish granite rocks and sloping green covered un farmed land that I find so attractive all along these islands. We jammed along, downwind and down waves now, and steering again required constant attention to avoid jibing. Jibing is where rather than turning into the wind and through it, to sail the other direction upwind, you turn further downwind and then try to bring the sail gently around before the wind, now from the other side of the boat, blows the boom violently around and bonks someone on the head or shakes the mast loose when it hits the end of its travel. It's easier to avoid unintentional jibes with a reefed sail, which ours was. Thank you, three laws of catboat sailing!
About half mile offshore between Penikese and the end of Nashawena lies Gull Island, really just a bunch of rocks and sand washed by the tide, Once on a long ago kayak trip I tried to stay there, and was evicted by the constant noise and smell of the seagulls. The sandbar is where wailing seals haul out to get warm...I think I mentioned that in a dispatch several years ago. The official channel into Cuttyhunk lies to the Northeast of Gull Island. I wanted to go the more direct route, between Gull and Penikese, Hmm, the old chart has several "x" marks, which means single rocks. But I should be able to see those within three feet of the surface, so with the centerboard up, I should be fine.
Well, when you have two foot waves at low tide, it means that a barely seen rock at peak of a wave becomes a sure thing direct hit at the trough, Plus I had not counted on the sun, reflecting off the water as it began to set in the Southwest, directly ahead. Actually, when I hit the rock, the centerboard was down about 6 inches, but slanted backwards, so it was just a loud clunk. A heart attack clunk! I pulled the board the rest of the way up,and then jumped up onto the seat,trying to keep us on course with one foot on the tiller, Nothing dead ahead; ominous blue brown shapes underwater to both sides. And a lobster pot dead ahead. No problem, we'll just sail over it. Wait a moment, whats a lobster pot doing here? Quick course correction, and then, way too late to have avoided it, the rock that was marked by the informal lobster pot bouy went boiling by on the left, and ahead the water looked clear and blue green.
We rounded up into the little semi protected harbor at Penikese, Two kids were playing with plastic floaties on the pier used by the boat that brings supplies to the Penikese School, which has operated as an alternative to prison for juvenile boys over the past several decades. I had heard it had closed for lack of funding, and that volunteers were 'island sitting' to maintain a watch over the facilities. My plan was to anchor up in the shallows of the harbor. With the sail down, we puttered around for a few minutes, but the entire upper harbor was a weedbed of eelgrass. The kind of anchor I have ( a Danforth) is a beautiful design for sand or gravel, but slips right through weeds. The kids, and a bearded adult, had left the pier by now, and so I changed plans, and puttered in to the dock. With the north wind blowing, Susie P hung nicely clear of the dock on a bow and stern line, and Fuji gladly leaped ashore, ready to chase anything in sight.
Actually, Penikese is public land and a bird sanctuary; the school has some caretaker arrangement with the state and Audubon. It's a nesting spot for roseate terns and a special shearwater that returns to one specific wall near the main building every year, So...no free ranging birc chasing attidogs. We climbed over the tangle of weed and lobster pots deposited by Irene, marveling at the disappearance of most of the sandy beach since we were here last year. The small roads, suitable for tractor or ATV's only, are very familiar. I came here first after the last private enterprise lobster and farming scheme had failed, and before the school was begun. During the school years, I went inside only once, for some minor medical issue one of the boys had, This time, Chuck was out on the porch tending to the grill, and Deb emerged a few moments later. They and Deb's kids were there for 4 days island sitting. No other boats were expected, and it was fine with them if I tied up to the dock for the night. At about that time, two guinea fowl came around the corner of a shed and noticed Fuji about the same time as she noticed them. They had been quietly discussing the weather and the state of the universe, but noticing Fuji broke into that gratingly shriekingly loud cxpletive amazement that guinea fowl specialize in. Fuji, hampered by the leash, was unable to deal with this noise as she wanted to. In fact, we took it as a good time to go back to the Susie P.
Take one cold bluefish fillet, and slice the meat thin, discarding the skin as biodegradable, while braising broccoli florets in white wine diluted with water and flavored with salt and pepper. When the broccoli is al dente, remove into the only bowl., having forgotten most of the kitchen and eating ware back at home. Reserve the reduction sauce in the green plastic cup, which probably contained the last of the morning tea. Add butter to the pan, get the durned alcohol stove going again, wait for the fireball of extra alchohol to abate, and then fry the bluefish slices for a few seconds on each side, add back the reduction, cook for enough time to fill Fuji's bowl with the kibble she doesnt like but will eat if hungry enough, and then put on the water for tea, take the cooling pan of fish and added broccoli back up to the cockpit bench. Feel the fading North wind coming across the tip of the island. Smells of seaweed, iodinated and tangy. Take a gander at them stars emerging, at the glow over the island to the Wes, at the shy new moon quietly asserting it's presence over the lights of Gosnold town on Cuttyhunkt. Lookie at them clouds, definitly animals tonight, and scooting right along towards the Vineyard and Nantucket beyond. Listen to the wavelets providing backup for the crickets in the catbrier and bayberry tangles at the base of the pier. And most of all, do NOT worry about the anchor! Eat and enjoy.
Tomorrow, swimming with diatoms, how to move an 18 foot boat at 4 AM, breakfast with Chuck, and reflections on relationhip, all on the way home.
Alan
9-5-11 0710 Woods Hole, The Green House. Well, Fuji and I clambered into the starboard berth of Susie P's cabin at about 8:30 PM last Thursday. Fuji had been taking refuge there many times during the day, curling up on top of the poupourri of clothes and sleeping bag. We both settled in with a sign of expected relief. Well, and also after 400 mg of ibuprofen in my case; otherwise the the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and living to be 70 otherwise wake me up too often. The annoying ringing noise that halyard ropes running up the mast otherwise make was stilled by tie-offs to the forestay. The worst of the squarking that the rudder makes was abated by other tie-offs for the tiller. The sail was stopped to the mast by sail ties. The metal centerboard hoisted up into it's well, to diminish its dull clanking. And the growing night was gorgeous; the big dipper visible through the open hatchway, and when the boat swung on the anchor, the milky way just coming into view. A very small and mousily tentative new moon making its and discrete visit in the southwestern sky. The lighthouses...nearby on the high point, beyond at Gay Head (now called Acquinnah), and on East Chop at the other end of the island all visible, along with assorted lighted navigation aids winking frostily out in the Sound. The lapping of little waves on the shore 25 yards away. Perfect.
Actually, Susie P rocks vigorously from side to side in a not quite regular series of lurches. This happens in the very slightest of oncoming waves. This isnt a lulling soothing movement, it's more like a seatmate who is large and afflicted with sleep apnea, so that every breathing movement and breath holding event causes a lurching shove against your shoulder. And of course, with the lurches comes some amount of squeeking squarking banging clunking noise from the various tied off but still not silent rigging. And of course, after a few rounds of this, a bigger wave train comes along and sets off an even bigger set of lurches, enough to dislodge me slightly from the thinnnish foam mattress that felt so soft a few minutes ago, and cause me to join the lurching.
How did I forget about this? How am I going to get any sleep? I get it, the physics of this; the mast up in the air and not stabilized by air pressure on the sail makes a counterweight to the round tubby bottom of the boat...a pendulum mechanism, with all the moments of inertia we learned about in HS physics. If the boat was facing perfectly into the waves, it would be different, but that's not possible. Now the stars are becoming sparkly annoyances and the moon: way to bright!! The wave noise has an annoying slapping quality. And Fuji's modest body weight on my feet is unbearable.
Well, I thought of chemical solutions; yes doctor, you do have the pain pills and the sleepers in that little bottle. And then it occurred to me that this was perhaps just the right time to practice being in the moment. When I had trouble with monkey mind while trying to sit, I found it much easier to let my thoughts go while running. As if the physical challenge of that coordinated series of jumps we call a run was just enough more demanding to attach my attention to the moment more securely than possible in the relative comfort of sitting. In any case, instead of trying to escape, I tried joining the whole event, clanks,clunks, lurches, squeals, and starting over again, tried not expecting an end, just being there. And of course, was asleep within minutes.
I woke, but without rancor, about every hour. To pee,to drink, to check the anchor, to look at the stars, to appreciate the navigation lights, and to feel the gentle and slightly cool touch of the night breeze. And the rocking and rolling continued, and became a part of whatever dreams I had, and when the light came up in the East over the headland to the North of Tarpaulin, I felt well rested and able to give Fuji her morning scratch with a clear head.
When I first got Susie P I bought an alchohol stove on EBay. Propane is not well thought of by most boaters, because if it gets loose it flows to the bottom of the boat and explodes, whereas alcohol vapor rises. The stove is cheerily noisy, once you finish the dangerous ritual of flooding in a little puddle of alcohol and making that loud 'WHUFF!' as it lights. Unfortunately, it makes a very similar noise when it has blown out and is just flooding again. Luckily the flame does not create a black ash, as gasoline does, so my flaring mistakes didn't leave any permanent scars. I made tea, and then took Fuji back on shore for her morning run.
The beach was all firm clean smooth sand from the high tide during the night, with just enough sprinkling of shells. Crepidula fornicata, the boat shell that deputizes one male in the whole family of females...the smallest one on the end. Pecten sp, the small Bay Scallop...delicious but oh so many for a mouthful. Calinectes..or at least bits of blue crab shell washed up by the storm. And jingle shells, anomia simplex, sometimes called mermaids toenails, all shades of butter yellow and metalic orange. And at the far end, wads and windrows and hills and mountains of dead, brown, blown ashore eel grass. The best compost ever, and nary a garden for miles! Fuji treated it like snow, leaping and porpoising through it, snorting and snapping at it. And mixed in, the limulus polyphemus exoskeletons, with their complex and ancient spines and smooth roundnesses, and the beautiful polyhedrons pseudopupils of their complex spider eyes.
Well, the wind was still out of the Northwest, and made me think about a second reef. This makes the sail about half its usual 250 square feet. But I could see white capped waves all over the Sound, and I remembered the three laws. We had bacon and eggs for breakfast, mixed with some kibble for Fuji and some toast for me. Ran the mental checklist for leaving, put away the loose stuff below, and puttered out to put up the sail. The sail immediately filled, the engine was stopped, and we swooped out of Tarpaulin, headed out across the Sound again. It was blue and sparkling, a solid wind to push us against the flooding current heading Northeast. This time, I could tie down the tiller and let Susie P sail heself, and so made some headway in "State of Wonder", recommended by Sala and by it's setting: I visited Manaus in 1967, and have my own memories of the smell of the meat market, and the black vultures perched like gargoyles on the wraught iron posts overhead. And our research location was, like the memorable Doctor in Anne Patchetts book, on the Rio Negro...only quite a bit further out..it took 3 days for the boat to get back to Manaus when we left our station.
We passed over middle ground and Hey!, Presto!!, another bluefish. By this time Fuji is an old hand at fishing from the sail boat, saving her barks for when the fish is actually in the dinghy. And the whole process of making fillets on the beach, which gives her a chance to run has worked out well. Washed out the Diaper Rash ( it's about as big as a bathtub), and decided to head back across the Sound to Naushon. Still sailing against the tide,but even with the double reef, Susie P made good time, and we came up on Robinson's Hole by about noon. Not as many other boats as I would have expected for t he start of Labor Day..presumably Irene disrupted some plans. The current was still running strongly against us at Robinsons,which is the Hole between Naushon and the next island, Pasque. It's pretty narrow,and no possiblity of us sailing through until the change, which was due in about 2 hours. So we sailed on in the Sound, along the East Shore of Pasque. It was time for Fuji to be ashore for a while, and with the wind still out of the North, there was a nice looking little bay, albeit with a rocky shore. As we got closer, I could see large erratics, the boulders left by the Laurentian Glaciation, appearing as vague blue brown shapes under the clear water. But Susie P draws only 21 inches with her centerboad up, so we anchored without diffiiculty.
It was hot, and the wind blowing over the land was gentle here. However,it was plenty enough to catch the Diaper Rash and start it moving away from Susie P's stern when I accidentally dropped the tow line. In fact, in the several seconds since I realized what I had done, the little dinghy, light as an eggshell, was picking up speed and already beyond reach.
This probably makes the 3rd or 4th rendition of this little puzzle. Do you jump after the boat...or figure out how to retrieve by other means? The last performance, in the Pacific off Muir Beach, I had bailed out of my kayak, towed it to a nearby rock, poured the water out, set it down rightside up, and thought I had hold of the bow line when I turned away to size up the situation. By the time I turned back, the kayak was on its way towards the Farralones, and moving faster than I thought I could swim. That time, it took several hours to recover the boat, which had drifted beyond sight. This time, I suppose I thought about how longit would take to get the anchor up, and what a hassle that would be, and whether the boat would lodge in some downwind rocks, etc, but in real time, I jammed both hands into the pockets of my shorts, pulled them out holding whatever I could grab, dropped it on the seat, and dove in, hat, sunnies, and all. Worked fine, and after I had swum the dinghy back and fastened it to the Susie P (with Fuji looking on and wagging her tail, assuming this was some new game whose point might or might not ever be evident), I discovered that it was possible, as I had hoped, to squirm in over the stern of the dinghy without totally swamping the boat, and thus get enough of a platform to get back in the Susie P.
Imagine these people who sail single handed around the world. Every day must have many such little puzzles, any one of which could come to grief. There is no changing channels. No one has inspected the roller coaster. There is no one to sue if the ride goes awry.. I guess thats why I generally avoid amusement parks and like being outdoors alone. 'Because it is there', as I believe Mallory said. There is no there there in an amusement park, or a water slide.
Refreshed by the swimming, and the exploration of the foreshore of Pasque, we returned to the Susie P. The hurricane had herded all the wrecked lobster pots, longline bouys, and assorted flipflops and beer cans into an absolute battlement of wrack and ruin, and there was plenty to look at,and smell if you have a Fuji level smeller. About 10 beaches south on Pasque, we passed the beach where I was more of less driven ashore in my kayak several years ago, blinded by fog and beset by rolling waves coming in past Nomans Land from the open Atlantic. This time, on the lee side with a wind that was still pretty much out of the Northeast, the beach looked hot and a little desolate. And it was 3:30, the current had turned, and was ebbing out through the larger Hole between Pasque and Nashawena, known as Quick's Hole.
Quick's Hole is nice and wide, and mostly East/West. The wind seemed to have shifted a little West, but it should sitll be possible to make a single starboard tack (wind coming from the right side of the boat, remember?) and with the current behind us, shoot right through. I headed for the space between the red and green channel markers, just like the book says. And then I looked up ahead. The horizon was no longer flat. Stretching across most of the space between the islands, the line between sea and the distant blue hazed land of Rhode Island had become a jagged band of white.
Now sometimes a line like that means just a bunch of 6 inch wavelets. Sometimes it's a very shallow reef. Depends on the current, the wind. But in this case, and seen at a half mile distance, it probably meant that there was a pretty big tide rip with current opposing wind, waiting for us at the end of Quicks Hole. That's about 6 minutes at our combined water and wind speed. And short tubby boats are not the best conveyance to take into a tide rip.
However, this was a catboat situation. Catboats originated in Buzzards Bay, the body of water we were approaching. Susie P would do fine, as long as I didnt do something stupid. Hmm, about 3 minutes now...smooth sailing as we zipped past the foaming and gurgling red channel marker on our right. Fuji, perhaps sensing something, retired to the cabin and made a bed in my sweatshirt. In another few hundred yards, we came out of the lee of Pasque, now to the North and fading East, and got a taste of what the North wind had been up to as it came those miles down Buzzards Bay. The waves ahead were making that kind of ripping noise I associate with big rapids. And it seemed that the wind has shifted a few more degrees to the West, giving us even less power. The logical thing to do is called 'heading off' (which I know form experience means nothing to intelligent non sailors like Sala when I scream it without explanation..I mean heading the boat more downwind, to pick up more wind on the sail). But that meant heading to the left, and right there, edging closer, was the shore of Nashawena, complete with a giant erratic boulder, big as a house, reaching out ahead of us. We couldn't head off.
Those of you who read nautical books,or sail yourselves, will recognize what was happening as yet another version of a 'lee shore' experience. It happens when you are close to land, and the wind is driving you ever closer. Without sufficient speed, or space to turn and gather speed, you cannot bring the boat about. For example :
"In 1898, the four masted schooner, Lunet, loaded with coal, anchored here (in Tarpaulin Cove) to wait out a Southwesterly gale. The next day, the winds changed direction to Northeasterly, and the hurricane force winds were accompanied by a blinding blizzard. Unable to escape, and now on a lee shore, Lunet was lost when her anchor parted and she sank in 60 feet of water with all 200 persons onboard. It was one of the worst disasters in New England shipping history." (http://www.setauketyc.com/CruiseGuide/tarpaulincove/index.htm )
And then we hit the waves. Hmm, bigger than I thought. Oh well, I can start the engine. Meanwhile, Susie P has started a combination of pitching up and pounding down, which is what 18 foot boats do when they encounter a 6 foot chop. As I finally got the engine running, there is a loud noise from down in the cabin; the cooler has leaped off its bench and was down on the deck. Thankfully, it is also wedged semi shut, so the color of the water flooding out isn'tcolored milk mixed with fishblood , at least not yet. From the security of her nest, Fuji looks wistful, perhaps wishing me well. Nah, dog's don't worry about lee shores. Meanwhile, the engine, trying hard, is alternately racing and bogging, as the propellor lifted out of the water or the boat pitched out of the trought between waves. The sail is making those machine gun snapping noises that sails make in high wind conditions trying to sail too close hauled.
Hmm, indeed!!
Of such situations are religious converts made. With the combination of motor and sail, Susie P maintained just enough seaway to stay clear of the lee shore, and make it out through the tide rip to the relatively safe yet white capped rollers of Buzzards Bay. Clear of the North tip of Nashawena and it's waiting boulders, we were able to head off a bit, and pick up speed. A few minutes more, engine no longer needed, we were rolling down wind towards our destination, Penikese Island.
Penikese lies to the West off Cuttyhunk Island, which is the Southern most of the Elizabeths. You can read about its history as a leprosarium,and about the New York sporting bankers and their Cuttyhunk Fishing Club. Both are public land, and their own county ( Gosnold). Nashawena is Forbes owned, with some beautiful houses and a very protected little bay about half way along (visitors not really welcome). A fair number of reddish shaggy Highland cattle,and even some sheep I think. It's the same grey to reddish granite rocks and sloping green covered un farmed land that I find so attractive all along these islands. We jammed along, downwind and down waves now, and steering again required constant attention to avoid jibing. Jibing is where rather than turning into the wind and through it, to sail the other direction upwind, you turn further downwind and then try to bring the sail gently around before the wind, now from the other side of the boat, blows the boom violently around and bonks someone on the head or shakes the mast loose when it hits the end of its travel. It's easier to avoid unintentional jibes with a reefed sail, which ours was. Thank you, three laws of catboat sailing!
About half mile offshore between Penikese and the end of Nashawena lies Gull Island, really just a bunch of rocks and sand washed by the tide, Once on a long ago kayak trip I tried to stay there, and was evicted by the constant noise and smell of the seagulls. The sandbar is where wailing seals haul out to get warm...I think I mentioned that in a dispatch several years ago. The official channel into Cuttyhunk lies to the Northeast of Gull Island. I wanted to go the more direct route, between Gull and Penikese, Hmm, the old chart has several "x" marks, which means single rocks. But I should be able to see those within three feet of the surface, so with the centerboard up, I should be fine.
Well, when you have two foot waves at low tide, it means that a barely seen rock at peak of a wave becomes a sure thing direct hit at the trough, Plus I had not counted on the sun, reflecting off the water as it began to set in the Southwest, directly ahead. Actually, when I hit the rock, the centerboard was down about 6 inches, but slanted backwards, so it was just a loud clunk. A heart attack clunk! I pulled the board the rest of the way up,and then jumped up onto the seat,trying to keep us on course with one foot on the tiller, Nothing dead ahead; ominous blue brown shapes underwater to both sides. And a lobster pot dead ahead. No problem, we'll just sail over it. Wait a moment, whats a lobster pot doing here? Quick course correction, and then, way too late to have avoided it, the rock that was marked by the informal lobster pot bouy went boiling by on the left, and ahead the water looked clear and blue green.
We rounded up into the little semi protected harbor at Penikese, Two kids were playing with plastic floaties on the pier used by the boat that brings supplies to the Penikese School, which has operated as an alternative to prison for juvenile boys over the past several decades. I had heard it had closed for lack of funding, and that volunteers were 'island sitting' to maintain a watch over the facilities. My plan was to anchor up in the shallows of the harbor. With the sail down, we puttered around for a few minutes, but the entire upper harbor was a weedbed of eelgrass. The kind of anchor I have ( a Danforth) is a beautiful design for sand or gravel, but slips right through weeds. The kids, and a bearded adult, had left the pier by now, and so I changed plans, and puttered in to the dock. With the north wind blowing, Susie P hung nicely clear of the dock on a bow and stern line, and Fuji gladly leaped ashore, ready to chase anything in sight.
Actually, Penikese is public land and a bird sanctuary; the school has some caretaker arrangement with the state and Audubon. It's a nesting spot for roseate terns and a special shearwater that returns to one specific wall near the main building every year, So...no free ranging birc chasing attidogs. We climbed over the tangle of weed and lobster pots deposited by Irene, marveling at the disappearance of most of the sandy beach since we were here last year. The small roads, suitable for tractor or ATV's only, are very familiar. I came here first after the last private enterprise lobster and farming scheme had failed, and before the school was begun. During the school years, I went inside only once, for some minor medical issue one of the boys had, This time, Chuck was out on the porch tending to the grill, and Deb emerged a few moments later. They and Deb's kids were there for 4 days island sitting. No other boats were expected, and it was fine with them if I tied up to the dock for the night. At about that time, two guinea fowl came around the corner of a shed and noticed Fuji about the same time as she noticed them. They had been quietly discussing the weather and the state of the universe, but noticing Fuji broke into that gratingly shriekingly loud cxpletive amazement that guinea fowl specialize in. Fuji, hampered by the leash, was unable to deal with this noise as she wanted to. In fact, we took it as a good time to go back to the Susie P.
Take one cold bluefish fillet, and slice the meat thin, discarding the skin as biodegradable, while braising broccoli florets in white wine diluted with water and flavored with salt and pepper. When the broccoli is al dente, remove into the only bowl., having forgotten most of the kitchen and eating ware back at home. Reserve the reduction sauce in the green plastic cup, which probably contained the last of the morning tea. Add butter to the pan, get the durned alcohol stove going again, wait for the fireball of extra alchohol to abate, and then fry the bluefish slices for a few seconds on each side, add back the reduction, cook for enough time to fill Fuji's bowl with the kibble she doesnt like but will eat if hungry enough, and then put on the water for tea, take the cooling pan of fish and added broccoli back up to the cockpit bench. Feel the fading North wind coming across the tip of the island. Smells of seaweed, iodinated and tangy. Take a gander at them stars emerging, at the glow over the island to the Wes, at the shy new moon quietly asserting it's presence over the lights of Gosnold town on Cuttyhunkt. Lookie at them clouds, definitly animals tonight, and scooting right along towards the Vineyard and Nantucket beyond. Listen to the wavelets providing backup for the crickets in the catbrier and bayberry tangles at the base of the pier. And most of all, do NOT worry about the anchor! Eat and enjoy.
Tomorrow, swimming with diatoms, how to move an 18 foot boat at 4 AM, breakfast with Chuck, and reflections on relationhip, all on the way home.
Alan
Day 1: Woods Hole to Tarpaulin Cove
9-4-11 Woods Hole MA. 0755. It was a blowsy kind of sail, although it began mildly enough last Thursday. I am working Mondays and Wednesdays, so the weekly window is Thursday to Sunday. Hurricane Irene swept into New England just a week ago, definitely pushing aside my sailing plans for what had looked like an ideal 4 days. As you may have heard, Irene actually headed inland, bringing wind and water to New Jersey and points North, but giving us mostly just 50 mph wind and a small tidal surge that cleaned out the swallow guano from John's boathouse. I did pull the Susie P, our 18 foot Herreshoff designed fiberglass hulled catboat out, and then put her right back in last Tuesday. Thursday morning at 4:55 AM exactly, I met Steve at the outhaul
lines where we keep the motor skiff George B (belonging to Sala but used for fishing be me). It was dead calm, with the night lights of town twinkling in long wavering banners on the surface of Eel Pond. We made those quiet remarks and those soft clunking noises that are made at the origins of early morning fishing trips, started the motor (which has worked wonderously since its $500 carburetor repair) and headed out between the sleeping yachts and workboats, under the drawbridge (it was near low tide) and into Great Harbor. This exit, under the bridge that has been the metaphoric departure of most of my early waterbourne experiences, and the brief transit between the Oceanographic main wharf on the right and the dock where the SEA square rigger Corwith Cramer ties up, means that emerging into the open expense of the harbor has all of the heroic elements of a REAL story. And at 5 AM you are accelerating into black gloom, with only the winking lights of the navigation signals ahead. But this is familiar to both of us, and we both pick up the slight glow of the reflective decals on the #1 red nun marking the North side of the channel, and then , limmed against the reflections of the stars on the water, the low rocks of Red Ledge on the South. It's a falling ebb tide, meaning the flow will carry us from East to West while fishing, and so I edge the George B left towards the South, until I see the next faint reflection from the midpoint bouy, and beyond it the tripodal marker whose big stainless steel tubes are sunk in the Eastern edge of Middle Ledge. It's other job is supporting this years generation of Ospreys, the little fish eagles that like to build on high places in the middle of their fishing grounds. I cut sharply left now, to position us in a place where we should drift near but not quite across Middle Ledge, and slow down, let the boat and the water come to equlibrium, and then turn off the engine. As our harsh noises wash away, nature turns up the gain on the natural sound track...gurgles of rushing water, and the keek keek keek of the watchful osprey parents.
Well, it should have been a fishy morning, but you know those right away because on the first cast there is an explosion of thrashing in the dark, and the tugging living weight comes on the end of the line and you get to say, with understatement, "I'm on!', or 'Got one!!",which is the signal to your partner to retrieve their own lure to avoid line tangles. Then there is the bending of the rod, and the sudden leaping out of water, heard more than seen in the dark, and this connection, as exciting as the string connecting two paper cups across the air shaft or between the houses of our youthful experiemnts in communications. 'Can you hear me now?' says the fish, in no undertain terms. It is, after all, fighting for its life. Or not. But it wasn't fishy. I switched from a surface running noise making popper (made in Estonia, this summers hot lure) to my home re-painted black diving plug, but even then most of the fish I caught were little striped bass...fight hugely, probably taste great, but under the legal keeping limit of 28 inches. In the light of the headlamp, I used a pliers to shake the hook out, and let them go back to grow. We did, in the crepuscular hour that followed, catch one small bluefish. As the light grew, leaping and bounding out of the Eastern sky, smiling around the few clouds gathered to witness, and creating the everyday wonder of surrealistic definition of edge that our visual system presents us with if only we are awake at that time, we called it a day and took George B in through the gutter between Pensance and Devils Foot Island, across the broad flowing pond and the sandbar between Missus Greer's dock and Ram Island, and tied up on the moording of the little catboat Susie P.
By a slightly complicated set of haulings and liftings, we moved Susie P in to John's boathouse, shifted Flossie, the new built for canals vessel now tied to the boathouse pier, and nosed Susie P up next to the boathouse itself. Some new construction, creating a second floor social hangout for Joan, has also, fortitously, created a mast stepping platform for me, and we had the mast hoisted and slid into place faster than ever before, and with only the two of us. I left Susie P tied upnext to Flossie (yes, the name is accurate; painted light blue with green and blue trim, a Christmas Tree ornament in a harbor of more conventional black, white and olive hulls), and we rowed back out to the George B and roared at full throttle across the now sunlit harbor and more sedately back under the bridge. Steve bicycled off with his fish, and I biked home, and then immediately to his house to borrow his little truck to go buy ice and food for the sail.
As we all know, there is some kind of law of nature that dictates the shorter the planned trip, the larger the amount of stuff you feel you must take with you. On kayaking ventures, I am limited by space, but Susie P has a seemingly endless amount of nooks and crannies in her tubby 8 x 18 hull. Hershey bars or cookies?; oh what the heck, take em both!! Of course, there is a corrollary of the law that specifies important items such as matches and the cell phone charger will be forgotten, whereas the Newmans Own tomato sauce with be remembered (and never used!). Since the Woods Hole Market is open again under new ownership I bought as much of the stuff as I could there (sliced ham or turkey?...oh, what the heck...!) and was back at the boat with the little dog and the pile of supplies by 11.
It was hot, re-rigging the boat, and bending on the sail. (I've wanted to use that verb for a long time, so lets not have any criticism. (from Miriam Webster: 3
: fasten
We finally slipped the mooring at 1 PM, and motored out to the wind. I had put in a single reef, which means tying the foot of the single sail that a catboat has down to the boom, to decrease sail area. 'Reef early, reef early, reef early' are the three main rules of catboat sailing. Yes, it's simpler with only one sail, but if you still have the full sail up when the wind rises, it's difficult to accomplish the details of reefing with a sail flailing around in the rising wind. With the reef, once we caught the North wind, we flew across Vineyard sound, I had wanted a closer look at the houses along the Western shore of Marthas Vineyard, and so we came up close North of the entrance to Lake Tashmoo, and admired the little beaches, paths, and houses partially hidden in greenery...turning brownery around the edges due to the spray carried ashore by Irenes winds. We sailed South along the shore, trailing a diving lure on a line, and durned if we didnt catch a bluefish, signalled by that whining sound that the reel makes when a fish is on. The boat is great, I just let go of the tiller, and sure enough, Susie P just came up into the wind and luffed along at low speed, letting me concentrate on the fish. Fuji emerged from her lifevest funk, and barked when the fish began jumping close to the boat. All in all, it was a great moment. With the fish in a bucket in the Diaper Rash ( a tiny fiberglass dinghy I tow for landings, deriving its name from Aminta's usual st, our older daughter who was at that stage when we acquired it) we made for the nearest cove, and anchored. You may recall the whole drill for getting the sail up and down. so I wont recreate that.
We rowed in to shore, and Fuji, joyfully out of her life vest, ran off to bark at the waves while I filleted the fish, washed up everything, and then got back on board.
With the fish on ice, we went on to LakeTashmoo.
All along the extensive system of sand bars and glacial moraines that constitute Cape Cod and the islands, there are fresh water lakes. They are usually part of the water table, sometimes draining by rivers that would probably be called creeks in other parts, and often close to the water. The ones near the beach are naturally separated from the ocean by sandbars that are piled up by water bourne sand, and the natural cycle is build up and break-through. Tashmoo seems to be one of those lakes, but there is now a permanent channel, protected by breakwaters. It being almost Labor Day weekend there were people doing beach things with umbrellas, beach balls and water. I took down the sail and powered in against the start of the ebbing current. The lake is about a mile longand up to a quarter mile wide including marsh and tidal sandbar, and narrows to 100 yards across towards the end. Its brackish at certai levels, and new species of small animals are still being found there. Lots of anchored boats, and trees coming right down the the water where they haven't built houses. No sign of hurricane damage at all here, and Fuji had a chance to get close enough to some dogs on boats to growl a bit, and be barked at in turn. Almost no wind in among the trees, mostly white and black oaks; the pines that I remember as a child having outgrown their lifespan. Then we turned, and sailed back down the lake, zipping down the by now 3 mph current, and out through some 2 foot breakers at end entrance.
The sail back to Tarpaulin Cove on Naushon was with the now ebbing tide, and across a nice NW wind, so even with the single reef we moved right along at the 4 knots that seems to be Susie P's natural speed. On this reach, moving basically down the wind, I have to be active in steering or the boat wanders off course immediately. Going up the wind, I can tie down the tiller and read or get up and make a sandwich. We made landfall about 5, and were at anchor a half hour later.
Tarpaulin was a thriving place once, and there are still two seasonal houses along the Southern edge. the curve of sandy beach stretches for about quarter mile.
Aside from us visitors, Tarpaulin Cove and its two Forbes owned houses was occupied only by gulls and an osprey nest. The sheep I remember are gone, and the shepherds who lived in the houses. In the middle 1700's, it was a thriving community, with a tavery whose owner, Zaccheus Lumpert, built the first light house. And that's not all: (from A Brief History of Naushon, available on line)
"Due to the ever-increasing amount of coastwise shipping (in the early 1600's) , much of it passing through Vineyard Sound with valuable cargoes from the West Indies, it was inevitable that pirates and privateers would attempt to attack and seize them. The two most famous—and perhaps the most successful—were Thomas Pound and William Kidd, whose exploits havebeen well recorded. They and numerous others were continually in and out of Tarpaulin Cove, from which they made forays on the passingships. Legend has it that Capt. Kidd left “a small packet of goods” atTarpaulin, but if so, it has never come to light. That was his last port of call before sailing to Boston, where he was taken prisoner( in 1699) and from which he was taken to England, where he was hanged.
Of course I researched Capt. Kidd a bit, and, well, maybe he as just a successful privateer who lacked proper respect for the authorities.
In any case, Fuji and I did not chance on his treasure, although she found wonderful smelly things to roll in, and I found some discarded exoskeleton of horseshoe crabs. We rowed back out to the boat, had some Jameson's Irish and watched the sunset, and dined royally on both sliced turkey and ham.
Tomorrow, rocking in the oceans bosom (but all night?!), and on to Penikese and an adventure in almost losing the Diaper Rash.
Alan
lines where we keep the motor skiff George B (belonging to Sala but used for fishing be me). It was dead calm, with the night lights of town twinkling in long wavering banners on the surface of Eel Pond. We made those quiet remarks and those soft clunking noises that are made at the origins of early morning fishing trips, started the motor (which has worked wonderously since its $500 carburetor repair) and headed out between the sleeping yachts and workboats, under the drawbridge (it was near low tide) and into Great Harbor. This exit, under the bridge that has been the metaphoric departure of most of my early waterbourne experiences, and the brief transit between the Oceanographic main wharf on the right and the dock where the SEA square rigger Corwith Cramer ties up, means that emerging into the open expense of the harbor has all of the heroic elements of a REAL story. And at 5 AM you are accelerating into black gloom, with only the winking lights of the navigation signals ahead. But this is familiar to both of us, and we both pick up the slight glow of the reflective decals on the #1 red nun marking the North side of the channel, and then , limmed against the reflections of the stars on the water, the low rocks of Red Ledge on the South. It's a falling ebb tide, meaning the flow will carry us from East to West while fishing, and so I edge the George B left towards the South, until I see the next faint reflection from the midpoint bouy, and beyond it the tripodal marker whose big stainless steel tubes are sunk in the Eastern edge of Middle Ledge. It's other job is supporting this years generation of Ospreys, the little fish eagles that like to build on high places in the middle of their fishing grounds. I cut sharply left now, to position us in a place where we should drift near but not quite across Middle Ledge, and slow down, let the boat and the water come to equlibrium, and then turn off the engine. As our harsh noises wash away, nature turns up the gain on the natural sound track...gurgles of rushing water, and the keek keek keek of the watchful osprey parents.
Well, it should have been a fishy morning, but you know those right away because on the first cast there is an explosion of thrashing in the dark, and the tugging living weight comes on the end of the line and you get to say, with understatement, "I'm on!', or 'Got one!!",which is the signal to your partner to retrieve their own lure to avoid line tangles. Then there is the bending of the rod, and the sudden leaping out of water, heard more than seen in the dark, and this connection, as exciting as the string connecting two paper cups across the air shaft or between the houses of our youthful experiemnts in communications. 'Can you hear me now?' says the fish, in no undertain terms. It is, after all, fighting for its life. Or not. But it wasn't fishy. I switched from a surface running noise making popper (made in Estonia, this summers hot lure) to my home re-painted black diving plug, but even then most of the fish I caught were little striped bass...fight hugely, probably taste great, but under the legal keeping limit of 28 inches. In the light of the headlamp, I used a pliers to shake the hook out, and let them go back to grow. We did, in the crepuscular hour that followed, catch one small bluefish. As the light grew, leaping and bounding out of the Eastern sky, smiling around the few clouds gathered to witness, and creating the everyday wonder of surrealistic definition of edge that our visual system presents us with if only we are awake at that time, we called it a day and took George B in through the gutter between Pensance and Devils Foot Island, across the broad flowing pond and the sandbar between Missus Greer's dock and Ram Island, and tied up on the moording of the little catboat Susie P.
By a slightly complicated set of haulings and liftings, we moved Susie P in to John's boathouse, shifted Flossie, the new built for canals vessel now tied to the boathouse pier, and nosed Susie P up next to the boathouse itself. Some new construction, creating a second floor social hangout for Joan, has also, fortitously, created a mast stepping platform for me, and we had the mast hoisted and slid into place faster than ever before, and with only the two of us. I left Susie P tied upnext to Flossie (yes, the name is accurate; painted light blue with green and blue trim, a Christmas Tree ornament in a harbor of more conventional black, white and olive hulls), and we rowed back out to the George B and roared at full throttle across the now sunlit harbor and more sedately back under the bridge. Steve bicycled off with his fish, and I biked home, and then immediately to his house to borrow his little truck to go buy ice and food for the sail.
As we all know, there is some kind of law of nature that dictates the shorter the planned trip, the larger the amount of stuff you feel you must take with you. On kayaking ventures, I am limited by space, but Susie P has a seemingly endless amount of nooks and crannies in her tubby 8 x 18 hull. Hershey bars or cookies?; oh what the heck, take em both!! Of course, there is a corrollary of the law that specifies important items such as matches and the cell phone charger will be forgotten, whereas the Newmans Own tomato sauce with be remembered (and never used!). Since the Woods Hole Market is open again under new ownership I bought as much of the stuff as I could there (sliced ham or turkey?...oh, what the heck...!) and was back at the boat with the little dog and the pile of supplies by 11.
It was hot, re-rigging the boat, and bending on the sail. (I've wanted to use that verb for a long time, so lets not have any criticism. (from Miriam Webster: 3
: fasten
We finally slipped the mooring at 1 PM, and motored out to the wind. I had put in a single reef, which means tying the foot of the single sail that a catboat has down to the boom, to decrease sail area. 'Reef early, reef early, reef early' are the three main rules of catboat sailing. Yes, it's simpler with only one sail, but if you still have the full sail up when the wind rises, it's difficult to accomplish the details of reefing with a sail flailing around in the rising wind. With the reef, once we caught the North wind, we flew across Vineyard sound, I had wanted a closer look at the houses along the Western shore of Marthas Vineyard, and so we came up close North of the entrance to Lake Tashmoo, and admired the little beaches, paths, and houses partially hidden in greenery...turning brownery around the edges due to the spray carried ashore by Irenes winds. We sailed South along the shore, trailing a diving lure on a line, and durned if we didnt catch a bluefish, signalled by that whining sound that the reel makes when a fish is on. The boat is great, I just let go of the tiller, and sure enough, Susie P just came up into the wind and luffed along at low speed, letting me concentrate on the fish. Fuji emerged from her lifevest funk, and barked when the fish began jumping close to the boat. All in all, it was a great moment. With the fish in a bucket in the Diaper Rash ( a tiny fiberglass dinghy I tow for landings, deriving its name from Aminta's usual st, our older daughter who was at that stage when we acquired it) we made for the nearest cove, and anchored. You may recall the whole drill for getting the sail up and down. so I wont recreate that.
We rowed in to shore, and Fuji, joyfully out of her life vest, ran off to bark at the waves while I filleted the fish, washed up everything, and then got back on board.
With the fish on ice, we went on to LakeTashmoo.
All along the extensive system of sand bars and glacial moraines that constitute Cape Cod and the islands, there are fresh water lakes. They are usually part of the water table, sometimes draining by rivers that would probably be called creeks in other parts, and often close to the water. The ones near the beach are naturally separated from the ocean by sandbars that are piled up by water bourne sand, and the natural cycle is build up and break-through. Tashmoo seems to be one of those lakes, but there is now a permanent channel, protected by breakwaters. It being almost Labor Day weekend there were people doing beach things with umbrellas, beach balls and water. I took down the sail and powered in against the start of the ebbing current. The lake is about a mile longand up to a quarter mile wide including marsh and tidal sandbar, and narrows to 100 yards across towards the end. Its brackish at certai levels, and new species of small animals are still being found there. Lots of anchored boats, and trees coming right down the the water where they haven't built houses. No sign of hurricane damage at all here, and Fuji had a chance to get close enough to some dogs on boats to growl a bit, and be barked at in turn. Almost no wind in among the trees, mostly white and black oaks; the pines that I remember as a child having outgrown their lifespan. Then we turned, and sailed back down the lake, zipping down the by now 3 mph current, and out through some 2 foot breakers at end entrance.
The sail back to Tarpaulin Cove on Naushon was with the now ebbing tide, and across a nice NW wind, so even with the single reef we moved right along at the 4 knots that seems to be Susie P's natural speed. On this reach, moving basically down the wind, I have to be active in steering or the boat wanders off course immediately. Going up the wind, I can tie down the tiller and read or get up and make a sandwich. We made landfall about 5, and were at anchor a half hour later.
Tarpaulin was a thriving place once, and there are still two seasonal houses along the Southern edge. the curve of sandy beach stretches for about quarter mile.
Aside from us visitors, Tarpaulin Cove and its two Forbes owned houses was occupied only by gulls and an osprey nest. The sheep I remember are gone, and the shepherds who lived in the houses. In the middle 1700's, it was a thriving community, with a tavery whose owner, Zaccheus Lumpert, built the first light house. And that's not all: (from A Brief History of Naushon, available on line)
"Due to the ever-increasing amount of coastwise shipping (in the early 1600's) , much of it passing through Vineyard Sound with valuable cargoes from the West Indies, it was inevitable that pirates and privateers would attempt to attack and seize them. The two most famous—and perhaps the most successful—were Thomas Pound and William Kidd, whose exploits havebeen well recorded. They and numerous others were continually in and out of Tarpaulin Cove, from which they made forays on the passingships. Legend has it that Capt. Kidd left “a small packet of goods” atTarpaulin, but if so, it has never come to light. That was his last port of call before sailing to Boston, where he was taken prisoner( in 1699) and from which he was taken to England, where he was hanged.
Of course I researched Capt. Kidd a bit, and, well, maybe he as just a successful privateer who lacked proper respect for the authorities.
In any case, Fuji and I did not chance on his treasure, although she found wonderful smelly things to roll in, and I found some discarded exoskeleton of horseshoe crabs. We rowed back out to the boat, had some Jameson's Irish and watched the sunset, and dined royally on both sliced turkey and ham.
Tomorrow, rocking in the oceans bosom (but all night?!), and on to Penikese and an adventure in almost losing the Diaper Rash.
Alan
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