A week on Mystic Whaler

Several weeks ago, I gave Hudson River Sloop Clearwater my 4th volunteer week (over three years). With Clearwater upriver completing some Winter repairs, I was on board the schooner Mystic Whaler for the first time. (For 18 years, Mystic Whaler has teamed up with Clearwater during the busy, Spring season.) The program is the same... two sails a day, about 40 New York school kids in the morning and the same in the afternoon, then do it again tomorrow. All ships (and all captains) are different though and Mystic Whaler was a new experience for me.

It took me a day or two to settle in to a different ship, captain and routine. No pre-breakfast morning deck wash on Mystic Whaler. A private cabin. Candle light dinners. No evening deck wash, either. An easier rig, schooner vs. sloop, with lighter loads, makes sail handling lots easier for our 4th grade guests. I never minded the work and accommodations on Clearwater but neither did I miss them on Mystic Whaler.

I was on board for eight days. We taught 400 kids details about water quality, the Hudson River watershed, life in the river and more. The big picture though is that keeping the river clean is important. The bigger picture is that the river is just a metaphor for rivers everywhere, watersheds everywhere and our planet as a whole.

Why isn't there an equivalent program in Boston?

Dinghy war update!

So far, so good and the dinghy is pretty much holding air. If I check for a leak, there's just the smallest hint of a bubble... next slow day at the marina, I'll add another patch but I seem to be safe without it.

I might be winning the dinghy war!

For more than a year, I've been fighting this pesky little air leak in the starboard tube of my inflatable. The leak is on a seam and at the after end of the tube, where the rubber bumper is, all of this making getting a good seal with a patch rather difficult.

I pretty much used up the circles that came with the patch kit, building up the area around the seam and the bumper in an effort to get a better seal. What I needed was a larger patch.

Wandering the yard, I came across what looked like an abandoned dinghy. I'll emphasize "looked like," as pretty much any dinghy left deflated on the ground through the winter would look the same. Still, it was worth investigating.

What I discovered was that some other scavenger had already removed about a square foot of dinghy. This one was indeed dead! So I sliced a square foot or so for myself, without question or ethical quandry.

So far, so good... patch in place, dinghy inflated to full pressure... 24 hours later, still fully inflated and no sign of any leak around the patch. But I'll be heading back to the yard to salvage a bit more material, just in case.

Stay tuned.

LIQUIDITY is Afloat!

Seacocks serviced? Check!
Topsides waxed? Check!
Bottom painted? Check!
Launch form completed? Check!

Bottom painting was finished on Monday morning and the launch form was dropped at the Marina Bay office on Monday afternoon. The call that LIQUIDITY was launched came before 10 am on Tuesday! Thanks to Matt for his prompt attention to getting me in the water.

We're almost ready to go, with LIQUIDITY's gear mostly back on board, the main bent on and the Genoa on board and waiting.

Life is good.

At least it's not snowing

It is, on the other hand, completely freezing out. Still, I managed to get the winter cover off last weekend and greased the seacocks. I'd like to see some warm days for hull waxing and bottom painting. Is that too much to ask for?

Is it Spring yet?

We're now post-St. Patrick's Day and from my point of view, it's not supposed to be snowing.

Mid-March is usually a great time to head to the marina yard and remove LIQUIDITY's winter cover. All it takes is a mild, sunny and relatively windless day. Cut off the cover, climb aboard, have lunch (either in the cockpit or the cabin, depending on the weather) and go home. Other than cutting the cover off, it's not intended to be a working day.

Maybe this weekend.

What I learned in Japan

L and I are just back from a two week vacation in Japan and I've been thinking about what I may have learned there that will make me a better sailor. It's not that we sailed in Japan. Rather, we did the usual tourist thing, visiting historic sites, eating, more sites, more eating. So what did I learn?

Well, it seems the Japanese people are expert at doing more with less. They live in small homes, with little in the way of furnishings. They eat simply. Life for them just takes up less space. There's a lesson there. It's not in the specifics, it's in the philosophy.

Perhaps their lifestyle is lesson enough.