Too tired for anything but pretty pictures...

But as pretty pictures go I thought these were nice. We had a little pre-Fourth fireworks action in the form of a good thunderstorm - I'd just finished working on the schooner and gone over to the barge to watch the storm. Ran into friends there so got a drink, hung out, and eventually as the storm cleared out we we rewarded with a spectacular sunset.


As far as the sailing - well, it was a hot day (some watermelon materialized at one point and I have no words to explain how good that watermelon tasted - imho, watermelon is THE ABSOLUTE BEST THING when you've been sweating buckets all day, and ladies don't glow when the ladies in question are sailors on a hot day, we SWEAT) - the sailing rocked though, good solid wind, we got the sails up first thing on both sails & didn't have to motor at all until it was time to drop at the end. We had the rail in the water on both sails - it's always fascinating to do that, the Adirondack is a good-sized boat & I can't remember how many pounds of lead she's got in her keel - the builder did tell me one time though & it was an impressive amount. All that weight is resisting the heeling force & trying to keep the boat right-side up - when we do heel that far, you can almost feel the struggle between the wind pushing on the sails, and the boat resisting, but gradually going down until the water comes up on the deck. Makes for an exciting sail for the passengers. Oh yeah, and it was All-Girl Crew Sunday! There are a number of other women besides me that work on the boat, and every now & then the rotation comes around to a situation like today where it was me & Capt. Kat (crewing today, she still crews sometimes) & Capt. Michelle. That's always fun, 'cause people just aren't expecting it. And we do a pretty good job if I may say so myself.

The one thing I was a little bummed out about was - no sign of catamarans (and I have to apologize to all the Prindles and other makes, I did the knee-jerk "Hobie cats!" the other day when there ARE other kinds). The forecast was a little on the dicey side - small craft advisory, possibility of severe thunderstorms - that didn't come through until probably WELL after they would've gotten back to Sandy Hook, but that stretch across the Lower Harbor is a long one & maybe they didn't want to risk being caught out there. Of course the other possibility is that with that fantastic wind they did their zipping-past-the-statue before we even left on our 1:00 - Alex, if you're reading, fill us in!

Did get one nice picture of a sailboat though - here's the sloop Clearwater - worth checking out their website if you aren't familiar with the Clearwater organization. Folk singer Pete Seeger founded the group & is still very involved - it's a neat program, they take groups out (focusing on schoolkids although grownup groups can book trips too) and teach them about the river. Think all us recreational users owe Mr. Seeger a debt of gratitude for doing so much to increase awareness long before kayaking became such an in thing.