Sun and Sailing

Suddenly, poof! It's summer, or at least it sure feels like it. My lovely wife and I had a lazy afternoon sailing around the lake.

Our little Oday 19 is such a simple boat to sail. The Ranger 23 was only 4 feet longer but had basically the same complexity and layout of much larger boats. It was good training while it lasted. One thing I do miss is the roller furling jib. However, it's a sad day when I'm too too lazy to send the lovely wife out on the bow to hank the jib on by hand. Besides, while she's out there she takes care of raising the anchor too.

So what did my lovely wife do after a long afternoon of sailing? She opened up the sailing books and did some more studying. Me thinks she's gotten over our shipwreck and is ready for more adventure. There is a good sized semi-wilderness lake not too far up the road in Maine that she wants to visit. It's supposed to have some really nice beaches.

I may skip tomorrow's blog. It is a holiday weekend after all, right? We've been invited to a huge pool party so that looks like loads of fun.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday. Take at least a few minutes to remember those who've passed on, but then party. Life is for the living.

-Sixbears

Quick trip to the coast

Sunday my lovely wife and I went a quick trip to the coast of Maine. We joined up with some friends and went to Hamiton Marine in Portland Maine. There aren't a lot of marine supply stores where I live in the mountains. Zero, in fact. Fortunately, the coast of Maine is only three hours away.

My lovely wife rather go buy boat goodies rather than shop for jewelry. I love her so much.

We had a lot of little odds and ends to purchase: things lost in the shipwreck, parts for the Oday sailboat, and hardware for the boat trailer. One of the tough decisions was the purchase of a new boat hook. Do we get a beautiful one made of brass and hardwood or the modern one make of aluminum and plastic. This time utility won out and modern one came home with us. The fact that it doesn't need varnish might have been the deciding factor for me.

While in the area we had to check out the ocean.




You can't go to the coast without taking a photo of a lighthouse.



We had a great lunch at Salvage BBQ (TX eat your heart out.) Later we met up with friends around a campfire. Finally made it home around midnight.

Now it's off to start installing all those lovely bits and bobs from the store.

-Sixbears

Police encounter

There I was minding my own business driving through the White Mountains. It was a beautiful sunny day and I didn't have a care in the world.

Well, I didn't have a care in the world until the blue flashing lights came on behind me and a policeman pulled me over. Apparently I was doing something like 70 in a 50 mph zone. My bad. Like I told the cop, I wasn't paying attention and picked up a lot of speed going downhill. My fault.

Then it gets better.

“License and registration.”

Right. Recently I got my missing driver's license replaced so that was fine. I asked my lovely wife to get the registration for me. When we bought the car it had been put it in the nice holder with the owner's manual. It wasn't there. Rummaged all through the dash but could not find it.

Yep, speeding and no registration. All I had on my side was manners, honesty, and a non threatening attitude. The cop gave me a written warning for both offenses. Darn decent of him as he had me dead to rights.

Okay, I know I was speeding because I'd spent 6 months driving in dead flat Florida. Kinda forgot how hills work. The missing registration was a real puzzlement.

After searching the car and the house the for a few hours my lovely wife remembered what she did with it. When we'd parked the car to go sailing for a couple months she removed some paperwork from the car. She'd forgotten that one piece of that paperwork was the registration. To make it even more interesting it was stuffed inside an empty cough drop bag. No wonder I could not find it.

It's a good thing I wasn't stopped on the drive up from Florida as my driver's license was missing and my lovely wife had hidden the registration from everyone, including herself.

Well . . . no harm, no foul.

-Sixbears

A day out and about

My lovely wife and I connected with some friends we haven't seen in six or seven months. They live over 100 miles away from us so we split the travel difference.

We met at a shooting range. This place is open to the public, has nice shooting stations, and is totally free and unsupervised. Only in America.

My buddy always brings interesting things to the range for us to play with. Among other items he brought a Luger, a Broom Handle Mauser, and SIG's version of the AK. All interesting firearms to shoot.

After a couple hours on the range they took my lovely wife and I out to lunch. Really great to get together. My buddy and I have been friends since Jr. High School. Not saying that was a long time ago, but our History book was a pamphlet as most recorded History hadn't happened yet.

We took our time meandering home and checked out the changes that happened while we were away. My lovely wife, on an earlier trip with our daughter, had come across an antique marine compass and wanted to show it to me. It's not the sort of thing you normally find in a shop far from the ocean.


I suggested we could get the compass and then later build the right boat to slip underneath it. She's still not keen on me building another boat. However, she's not opposed to getting another one, so there's that.

All in all, a great day.

-Sixbears