by Judy Handley | Jun 2, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 153: By the Light of the Silvery Moon
Date: Friday, June 2, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 77, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
At 7:30 this evening, I was standing on the dock in Quissett Harbor watching Eider (still to be renamed Ardenna) pick up a mooring.
Not long after, a dinghy manned by Sam, Jonah, and Ollie came to pick me up.
What a strange feeling it was to be headed out in that harbor to a boat that was not my own Windbird. But at the same time, what a wonderful feeling to be headed out to a sailboat that I have ‘adopted’. I was invited out to the boat for dinner and as we ate, the light of silvery ‘almost full’ moon shone down on us through the companionway.
And we used the light of that moon to get us back to the dinghy dock at the end of the evening. Eider will be moored in Quissett Harbor until mid-month when her mooring in Wings Cove back across Buzzards Bay in Marion is available. Hopefully the Goldstones will be able to enjoy sailing the boat out of Quissett during the next two weeks, but if this weekend is any indication, they will have very little opportunity. Tomorrow Heather will attend the Falmouth High School graduation ceremony as a School Committee member and in the afternoon Jed flies to Washington, DC to help his mother close her home there for the summer and drive her to Boothbay, Maine to her summer home. He will return home on Monday. Sam has two more full days of Driver’s Ed class this weekend. So maybe Heather and the boys will get out to the boat on late on Sunday afternoon, Busy times, but hopefully they will get in a few after school and work sails while the boat is on this side of the bay.
I started my day with a two-hour Encore meeting, came home to have lunch and then dig up more garden soil to take to my new gardens in town. I then joined Bruce and Jane Woodin for happy hour on their deck before heading to Quissett. It has been really warm the last two days and it was a lovely evening on the Woodin’s deck. But things cool down for the weekend. And we might get some rain. Tomorrow I will continue my dirt moving project and hopefully work on the drip irrigation system for the new raised beds.
by Judy Handley | Jun 1, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 152: Encore Work and Play
Date: Thursday, June 1, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 75, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
This day was dedicated to Encore work and play. Christina Brodie and I are the co-presidents elect and we have much work to do. I met with Christina for three hours this morning and into the afternoon reviewing the notes from our discussions with incoming Board members. Then we switched gears and headed to our welcome of Newcomers moving to Encore event. The venue was great and I think the welcome was enjoyed by all. Tomorrow, I have another meeting with Christina in the morning and then I will change gears to focus on planting a garden at 225 Lakeview where I will be living as of July 1.
by Judy Handley | May 31, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 151: Boat Launch Day
Date: Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 68, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
She’s in the water! I had to get the cottage ready for a showing this morning and then Shadow and I took off for Mashpee where I had to get blood tests done for an annual physical. Then we went to the boat. I just couldn’t stay away. The two big trucks from Brownell Boat Transport were in the process of loading the sailboat and dinghy on one truck and the mast on the other. Brownell has an excellent reputation, but still it was disconcerting for Heather to see her sailboat rocking a bit while they were placing the braces.
I arrived just in time to watch the final loading and then Heather asked if I could drive into Falmouth to their house to pick up something important that they had forgotten. Shadow and I drove like crazy to get the items and get back to the boat before the Brownell trucks left. We made it with about 5 minutes to spare. Then the two big trucks and Heather and Jed in their car were off to Marion across Buzzards Bay.
That is where the boat would be put in the water. I headed home to cut the grass, but I was very relieved to hear later in the afternoon that all had gone well. Once the boat was in the water, there was a lot of jockeying around in close quarters to get the boat on a dock and then out to a temporary mooring. When I asked Jed how that went, he said Heather is an excellent captain and she did her job well. I am so proud to have a daughter who captains her own sailboat. In sailing around the world, Mark and I probably met a few hundred boats, but I can’t think of even ten that were captained by women. Maybe seven or eight. I know Mark would be so proud. He trained her well and I like to think he was there today watching and guiding her.
After cutting the grass and having lunch, I headed into town to pick up Jonah from jazz band practice. He leaves his big bass at school all week but brings it home after practice on Thursdays. It is big and heavy and he appreciates getting a ride. I did some shopping for an Encore event tomorrow and went to Staples to buy a cable and an adaptor that I hope will speed up the upload of files from my new computer to the cloud. Heather and Jed think that might be the cause of the issues I am having, so I’ll try to fast upload by connecting the computer directly to my router. I sure hope that helps. Then I took Ollie to his saxophone lesson. When we got back home, Heather and Jed were home and Heather was on to the next project. This winter she moved the plant containers on the deck which required rerouting some of the irrigation hoses. But to do this, she needed more of a particular irrigation line. I went to where I will soon be living to take some of the line from my irrigation system that I moved from the cottage, but it wasn’t enough. Heather did a work around and made it work. So, she now has irrigation for the planters on the deck. This Friday I hope to get the drip irrigation system installed in the raised beds at the new house. Only two of the four raised beds have garden soil in them, so I need to do something about that as well.
Tomorrow is an Encore day. I will meet with Christina Brodie, who will be co-president with me, to do some planning. Then we will head to a 4 pm welcoming event for Newcomers moving to Encore that we are hosting. No rest for the wicked.
by Judy Handley | May 30, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 150: Potpourri
Date: Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 62, Low 47 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today was a potpourri of activities … boat, Encore meeting, Encore shopping, starting the moving process, doing laundry, dealing with the new computer that is having issues, and going to Ollie’s end-of-year band concert.
I started the day by going to the boat to put a second coat of anti-fouling paint on the dinghy. When I left, I took one more photo of the boat and the dinghy next to it which triggered a flood of then and now moments. Over the past two months, so much work has been done by me, Heather, Jed, and the Goldpebbles. On April 4, I started the removal of old varnish.
On April 6, the bottom of the boat was soda blasted to remove the build-up of bottom paint.
The boat now has all of her teak cleared of old varnish, cleaned, and teak sealed. Her bottom has two new barrier coats and two coats of anti-fouling bottom paint. She has a shiny new green waterline stripe. Her top sides have been polished. Water and electrical systems have been improved. The booms, the mast, the bimini covering, and anything else that got in the sights of Ollie has been rid of dirt, mold, and mildew. The dinghy bottom has been painted with anti-fouling. I am sure I am leaving things out and I am sure there are more things that could have been done. But she looks great and is launched tomorrow. The name Eider has been removed from the back of the boat. After the renaming ceremony, she will be called Ardenna, a genus of seabirds that include shearwaters. Shearwaters, just like this sailboat, use a “shearing” flight technique of flying close to the water, seemingly cutting or “shearing” the tips of the waves. Go, Ardenna!
By 11:30 am, I was in an Encore planning meeting. I went home to walk Shadow and then took him with me to the laundromat, to shop for some items for an Encore event on Thursday, and to deliver four boxes of books to the library for their July book sale. This is part of the moving process that must accelerate over the next four weeks if I am to be moved by July 1. I dropped Shadow at home and went to meet with Art Gilbert who has been working with me on my issues with the new computer. He has exhausted what he can do. But tonight I talked with Heather and Jed and they think all of the problems stem from the fact that I am trying to upload everything on the computer to the cloud. They had some suggestions that I will try before taking the computer back to Best Buy.
Then came the best part of the day, Ollie’s end-of-the-year band concert. He loves playing the saxophone and I enjoy watching him. This was a combined 5th and 6th grade concert.
I am constantly amazed at the quality of music instruction in this school district. It is very impressive.
by Judy Handley | May 29, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 149: Memorial Day Observance and Boat Work
Date: Monday, May 29, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 67, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I really was going to skip the Falmouth Memorial Day Observance
this morning and head straight to the boat. BUT I am addicted to those grandkids and anytime they are a part of something, I just have to go see them. This morning Jonah was a flag bearer for the Boy Scouts,
and Ollie and Jed were marching with the Scouts.
They all marched up Main Street to the library lawn and the instant they were there, Ollie took off running to go behind the crowds to join the Falmouth Combined School Band to America the Beautiful with them.
I did slip away early, went to West Marine to buy anti-fouling paint for the dinghy, drove home to check on Shadow, and then back to town to pick up Ollie and head to the boat. Together, we painted the dinghy bottom, I sprayed the bimini cover with Fabric Guard to help it be more water resistant, and then Ollie and I worked together on to get the stainless structure that supports the bimini off the deck and back in place. We started cleaning the stainless on the boat, but we ran out of time. I will put a second coat of bottom paint on the dinghy in the morning and clean some stainless, but I have an 11:30 meeting. When I leave for that, it will be the end of my boat work for spring 2023!!! Well, not really. I still have the drop boards and drink holder from the cockpit here at the cottage and I have to remove the varnish and get those coated with teak sealer. Then I think I will be done.
by Judy Handley | May 28, 2023 | 2023 Life Logs |
2023 Life Logs, Day 148: Still All About Boat Work
Date: Sunday, May 28, 2023
Weather: Sunny; High 70, Low 54 degrees F
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
My morning started at the boat around 10 am and it ended at the boat around 7 pm. I did get two coats of teak sealer applied, and after Ollie and Jed arrived in the early afternoon, Ollie and Jed got the other half of the winter cover folded and ready to put away until next winter. Ollie got the booms cleaned, and Ollie and I got the bimini cover cleaned. While we did this, Jed worked on waxing the hull. By 2:30 pm, I was ready for a lunch break and Ollie went home with me. I took Shadow for a walk, we ate, and we returned to the boat. Jed wasn’t there, so I called to find out where he had disappeared to. He had also gone home. He checked in with Jonah and Sam and was at the hardware store when I called. For the remainder of the day, once Jed returned, he continued on with the waxing while Ollie and cleaned the dinghy bottom. I brought vinegar from home, covered the bottom with towels, then soaked the towels with white vinegar to help dissolve the barnacle remains that were stuck to the bottom like they had been cemented there. They had been . . . with natural glue. The vinegar did help, but it took a lot of scraping to get the bottom cleaned.
Ollie and I decided we need to apply anti-fouling paint on the bottom tomorrow, so that has been added to the list. Jed got the inside of the boat vacuumed and ready to receive the sail bags tomorrow. He also has to finish waxing the hull. Jed also got a new zinc put on the prop and Ollie did a fantastic job of wire brushing the prop.
If I sound like I am rambling, I am. I am too tired to organize my thoughts. But the bottom line is that the boat is ready for launch.
There are more things we want to get done tomorrow, but if they do not get done, the show will go on. The work can be done once the boat is in the water.
Jed, Jonah, and Ollie will be in the Memorial Day Parade tomorrow morning. Sam will be in his second day of driver’s ed class. I think I am going to skip the parade in order to clean the stainless on the boat. But I might change my mind and go the Memorial Day observance. I have to go into town to West Marine, so maybe I’ll see the parade and slip away before the program begins and then get myself to the boat.
Not long after, a dinghy manned by Sam, Jonah, and Ollie came to pick me up.
What a strange feeling it was to be headed out in that harbor to a boat that was not my own Windbird. But at the same time, what a wonderful feeling to be headed out to a sailboat that I have ‘adopted’. I was invited out to the boat for dinner and as we ate, the light of silvery ‘almost full’ moon shone down on us through the companionway.
And we used the light of that moon to get us back to the dinghy dock at the end of the evening. Eider will be moored in Quissett Harbor until mid-month when her mooring in Wings Cove back across Buzzards Bay in Marion is available. Hopefully the Goldstones will be able to enjoy sailing the boat out of Quissett during the next two weeks, but if this weekend is any indication, they will have very little opportunity. Tomorrow Heather will attend the Falmouth High School graduation ceremony as a School Committee member and in the afternoon Jed flies to Washington, DC to help his mother close her home there for the summer and drive her to Boothbay, Maine to her summer home. He will return home on Monday. Sam has two more full days of Driver’s Ed class this weekend. So maybe Heather and the boys will get out to the boat on late on Sunday afternoon, Busy times, but hopefully they will get in a few after school and work sails while the boat is on this side of the bay.
