Good followup to the weekend really. One of our usual crew on the Schooner Adirondack is up in Newport this week working on the Adirondack II, so I've been called in for a couple of evening sails.
Tonight was breathtaking - one of those nights on the harbor that we tend to get when the trailing end of a cloudy day reaches us just a bit before sunset, and somehow the light that glows in under the clouds is just trapped and reflected in a way that just sets everything on fire - everything just glows golden.
Couldn't take pix but it's the same impression as I managed to get some pix of last year in this gallery. Not exactly the same - it seems like no two nights are every precisely the same, the place changes from day to day.
Plus it turned out to be All-Girl Crew Tuesday! Woo hoo! Captain Sarah, me, and Meghan. Captain Sarah and I are both in our 4th season and Meghan (who has the most amazing smile of anyone I know) is in her 3rd - we know each other, we know the boat, and I love working with these guys. Just feels really solid.
Plus I was happy with myself in that I finally did the new bow jump - somebody has to get from the bow to the dock to make off the lines at the end of the sail; owing to a switcharound of the dock, we've reversed the direction of the boat & the jump now involves being out on the end of the bowsprit instead of perched on the gunwale by the aft end of the whisker stay (the cables that run from the tip of the bowsprit back to the sides of the boat to stop any side-to-side motion), and somehow it just feels like a lot more of a jump. I've been stalling on doing this - most of the crew are very young and springy and like jumping, and I kinda figure why risk joints that are closer to 40 than 30 (ok, there's one other crew member my age but she's a dancer and knows how to land lightly, whereas I just sort of land however) - but this is something that we all need to be able to, so tonight, feeling pretty great, I went ahead & did it - it was definitely higher than the old jump but I was fine & now that I've done it once, I know what it's like & I'm not so worried. Which was great, and I was psyched - and we were all in such a good mood after the sail - and one of the perks of working on this particular schooner is that you get to hang out on the boat & unwind for a little while at the end of the day. Tonight, with no 8:30 sail, and the sunset just fading away, this was a particular luxury - usually my enjoyment is mitigated by a keen awareness that the longer I unwind, the longer it's going to take to get home.
What a great night.
Hope tomorrow's anywhere near as nice.
Here we are, playing Charlie's Angels after the sail tonight - Captain Sarah, Meghan and me. All a little windblown, yes, but the three of us have just been showing some very happy passengers just how much fun we have sailing an 80 foot schooner.
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