A Nice Low-Key Saturday in August

Old picture, but the boat looks the same and the conditions aren't far off from when I launched yesterday. 

Surfski spin yesterday after finishing off the repairs to Trusty Romany by gluing the foam support pieces back under the seat. I did 2 laps of the basin, I haven't been using the ski enough to go too far from home right now, plus there was a fog bank rolling in from the Rockaways and I wasn't sure how I would manage the orienteering compass I carry in my lifejacket on this boat - no deck, no sprayskirt, not really any good place to set something down and look at it.

 Started out a little tense but warmed up nicely. I haven't been paddling that boat enough - better exercise than the Romany (with far less stability, a surfski demands full engagement in a way that the average sea kayak doesn't, so even if you aren't pushing really hard, you're still working more) plus so nice not being all buttoned up under a sprayskirt in the summertime.

 There was crazy bluefish action out there - the basin has been thick with menhaden this year and the area under the bridge at the entrance to the basin was seething with schools leaping from the water as the blues attacked from beneath. Great day for fishermen, there were a dozen casting from the beach there. I paused on my 2nd turn under the bridge to watch someone land what I think was a ray - I couldn't get really close because of all the lines but it didn't look like a bluefish.

 Sometimes when I want to sit still on my surfski I put my feet in the water to add more stability. I wasn't doing that yesterday - with all those hungry bluefish I was afraid one might have a go at my toes!

A couple of the Sebago sailors who'd gotten off the bus with me were just coming back from their sail, having cut it a little bit short because of the fog. I wish I'd had my camera because their little white sail in the fog was such a picture. Nice quiet afternoon at the club. I watered my garden afterwards, picked some chard and pulled up a couple of carrots and came home and incorporated those and some leftovers into a really fantastic homemade skirt steak lo mein.