Every tradition has to start sometime, right?
Just wanted to spread the word about something neat in my own little amphibious way - people are organizing an Opening Day & Blessing of the Fleet ceremony to be held on June 4th. Blessings of the Fleets are very traditional, but we haven't had one in our particular stretch of the water before - but then again, we're getting more & more boats as more & more city people are discovering how much fun having a waterfront can be, so 2005 is as good a time to start as any! Sounds like fun!
Great day on the water today - first sail of the season on the Adirondack (as opposed to the Adirondack II which is laid out more for passengers than the crew), followed by about an hour and a half of practicing strokes & edging. God - there was an instant there where the sunset was starting to deepen its colors (ended up being one of those deep rose ones - red sky at night, y'know - but it started by working through deepening golds), and then light raindrops started spreading circles in the smooth water around me, and that was so gorgeous, and of course when you have sun and rain at the same time, you look in the direction of your shadow & there will probably be a rainbow there - so I turned in that direction and there was a full rainbow arching over Chelsea - and with all that I just quit messing around with bow rudder strokes and just sat there for a minute going "ooooh"...
I finished up my practice session with the first non-hooded, non-drysuit rolls of the season - the water's still cold enough that I came up panting a bit after sculling down for an initial controlled immersion, but it's definitely up to "tolerable for a limited period" temperature (I was in a full wetsuit, though - not time to roll in a t-shirt yet, nope, nohow, nu-uh).
Finished off the day by going back over to the schooner to catch lines as they came back from their 6:00 - 8:00 sail - since I was going to be around, and the Adirondack II is still at our dock, which complicates docking, I said I'd do that (followed, naturally, by the traditional post-sail beer!). They were late getting back, they were out in that same glorious stuff & the captain decided to stay out 'cause there wasn't an 8:30 sail & nobody on board had a plane to catch & it was just too nice with the rainbow and the sunset and all to hurry back in, so the passengers got an extra bonus sail for the price of the usual 2 hour trip.
I sort of figured that's what had happened so I made myself comfortable on board the Adirondack II, pulled out my long-neglected tin whistle & played a few tunes there in the sunset.
What a perfect day.
Gonna be weird to go back to my cubicle tomorrow - it always is after a really good boat-centric weekend, and the more spectacular the boating is, the stranger the return to number crunching.
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