by Judy Handley | Jul 9, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 248, Year 8: More Beach Time with Grandkids
Date: Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Weather: Yet Another Sunny Day, Hot and Humid
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Today Ziggy joined Sam and Jonah for Camp Oma and what a busy day we had. We started out in Falmouth at Goodwill Park for swim lessons. The instructors are very accommodating and they allowed Ziggy to join Jonah’s class. Jonah is not crazy about organized swim lessons, but Ziggy loved it and did his best to encourage Jonah to join him. We continued to play in the water for a while after lessons and then headed to Woods Holed to the Buzzards Bay Discovery Center. Jo and Coco met us there and we stayed for part of the introductory lesson in the Itty Bitty Bay Explorers program. The introduction was not nearly as exciting as playing in the touch tank so when the emphasis shifted from touch tank to sit on the floor story time, Ziggy was ready to go. The boys and I took Jo and Coco back to the boat and picked up Granddad for a trip out to Devil’s Foot Island out in Great Harbor. Sam, Jonah, and Ziggy were beside themselves with excitement. It was low tide so Sam walked the younger two across the shallow cut to a little rock pile islet. The current runs heavy through the cut, but the water was less than a foot deep so it was not really dangerous. They just felt like adventurers and they loved it. While we were gone, Granddad had buried the treasure chest left over from our Pirate outing on Sunday, so the boys dug for treasure. Granddad took them for walks out into the shallow bay to look for critters and when they had gathered a number of hermit crabs plus a little fiddler crab that Ziggy claimed as his pet for the afternoon, they decided to have crab races. But all good things must come to an end, and it was time to head back to Windbird. We went to Heather and Jed’s for dinner and after dinner the boys had a Lego building contest. Ollie and Coco got out the Duplo Legos and joined in the fun. I think all the little cousins are enjoying their time together.
by Judy Handley | Jul 8, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 247, Year 8: More Beach Adventures
Date: Monday, July 8, 2013
Weather: Yet Another Sunny Day, High in the Upper 70’s F—Beautiful!!!
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Let it never be said that we don’t take advantage of good weather. We have had a run of absolutely gorgeous weather and are getting in lots of fantastic beach time with the grandkids. This morning Mark, Ziggy, and I went out to Devil’s Foot, an island out in Great Harbor. Ziggy caught a baby Green Crab (but it did escape), watched some guys from Marine Biological Lab net and catch a huge batch of tiny fishes for research, and combed the beach for treasure. We then went back to Windbird, prepared a lunch, and headed out to Stoney Beach with Jo and Coco. Justin and Heather were both working today, but they took an hour off to join us at the beach. Jed drove to Woods Hole with Sam, Jonah, and Oliver, so the whole gang was there. We are all starting to look a bit like red lobsters, but we sure are enjoying the water time. Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco will arrive in England on Friday morning looking like they have been on a Caribbean vacation. Coco and Ziggy both have almost white hair and with their tanned little bodies are quite striking. I think they will have the best tans in the UK.
by Judy Handley | Jul 7, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 246, Year 8: Adventure on Treasure Island
Date: Sunday, July 7, 2013
Weather: Another Sunny Day, High in the 80’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Avast ye maties! What an adventure we had on Treasure Island today. With Captain Graybeard (the birthday boy) leading the charge, we sailed to Treasure Island, found a map leading us to treasure, and with great determination found the ‘X’ and dug up the gold. The grandchildren loved the adventure and even little Ollie got in on the pirate action. Coco slept under a make-shift tent much of the afternoon, but she did go out in the kayak with her mom, dad, and brother Ziggy. Mark had a wonderful birthday, but I think we wore him out. Mid-afternoon, he took a nap on the kayak. Jo took a photo and posted it on her Facebook page. It’s a classic! On the sail back to Eel Pond, we gave Mark his 70th birthday book—just a year late. He loved it. In fact, I think he was a little overwhelmed. Somewhere along the line, I had to tell him what I was working on, but I don’t think he comprehended just how the final product would look. All of the comments from family and friends made it very special for him. So Happy Birthday, Mark . . . Dad . . . Granddad . . . Captain Graybeard.
by Judy Handley | Jul 6, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 245, Year 8: Having Too Much Fun to Write
Date: Saturday, July 6, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day, High in the 80’s F—Feels Hotter
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
I’m having way too much fun with grandkids to take time to write a log. The short story is we spent the day the beach and then had dinner at the Captain Kidd here in Woods Hole with just Justin, Jo, and gang. Tomorrow is Mark’s birthday and we are preparing for our birthday sail to Treasure Island. Sam, Jonah, and Ziggy are especially looking forward to that.
We want to send a great big CONGRATULATIONS to Lee and Lynda Kaufman. They made it home to Little River, South Carolina yesterday in their new sailboat. It took them three and half weeks from Rock Hall, Maryland to Little River. They had never sailed a boat as big as Grace and they were naturally apprehensive. But all went well. Lee and Lynda, we are so happy for you. Can’t wait to come to Little River and sail aboard Grace with you.
by Judy Handley | Jul 5, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 244, Year 8: Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco Arrive
Date: Friday, July 5, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day, High in the 80’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco arrived late this afternoon. They are exhausted from moving out of their house in New Mexico just before leaving, but that is behind them now and they will recover quickly. Ziggy arrived with one of the worst black eyes I have ever seen. Yesterday he was with his best friend Isla and they were running down a ramp. Ziggy tripped over a rug at the end of the ramp and ended up with this shiner. But otherwise, he is the same exuberant Ziggy and ready to have some fun with Oma and Granddad. Coco is such a beautiful little baby. She will be a month old in just a month. She’s brown as a little biscuit and her hair is curly and super blonde. She’s a bit of an elf compared to cousin Oliver but they seemed to really enjoy playing together. We all had dinner at Heather and Jed’s and the little ones all enjoyed playing together. What a delight to have them all together.
by Judy Handley | Jul 4, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 243, Year 8: Happy Red, White, and Blue
Date: Thursday, July 4, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day, High in the 70’s F
Location: Anchored in Great Harbor, Woods Hole, MA
This was one of those days when things just didn’t quite go our way. This morning we had planned to go the town dock to fill up with water. That is usually an easy task, but not so today. The first problem was that there was a skiff on the dock whose owner had obviously gone somewhere. We were going to go move it, but then the Harbor Master came in and tied up. We decided we should go ask him if it was okay to move the boat. He was agreeable, but once we asked, we felt like we needed to take Windbird to the dock right then. I had planned to spend an hour cleaning the canvas on the inside of the cockpit before we went to the dock. You are only supposed to tie up there for a max of 30 minutes and that is just not enough time to do the cleaning. But we went and I cleaned like a crazy woman while Mark filled the water tanks. We were there for over an hour, but thankfully the Harbor Master didn’t say anything. When we finally left the dock and started to head back to our mooring, all of a sudden we were hard aground. We could pivot, but we couldn’t move an inch forward or backward. When we checked, we found that we were still a couple of hours from low tide, so we settled in for a long day waiting to float off—not exactly the way you want to spend the Fourth of July. It seemed like forever, but actually not long after we got ‘stuck’ a man in a skiff with a powerful motor came by and offered to try and pull us. He knew there was deeper water to port, so he pulled us that way. After two tries, he was successful and Windbird was free to go back to her mooring. It was after noon by the time we were back on the mooring and we tried to regain our day. I won’t bore you with details, but one thing after another kept going wrong. Just when we thought we had a plan for the evening that would be great fun for us and for Heather, Jed, and boys, a dense fog rolled in. We were planning to take Windbird out in the Vineyard Sound to watch tonight’s fireworks display, but even that got derailed. Despite the fog, we asked for a bridge opening and we got out far enough to see the full extent of the conditions, we made the decision to go right back into Eel Pond at the next bridge opening. Of course, when we got back inside, the fog started to clear. It was just that kind of day.
We did get to watch the fireworks from a land-based location, but that meant packing up all the kids and heading to shore to drive somewhere—not nearly as much fun as seeing the fireworks from the boat, but we at least did get to see them. Tomorrow Justin, Jo, Ziggy, and Coco arrive, so I’m really hoping it is a better day and at least a few things go our way.
