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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