by Judy Handley | Aug 11, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 294, Year 9: Another Fun Day in Quissett Harbor
Date: Monday, August 11, 2014
Weather: Same, Same–Beautiful Summer Day, Temp in the 80’s
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
It was another fun day in in Quissett Harbor. Sam’s friend Sebastian and his little brother Fofi joined us today and the five boys had a great time. A young woman named Meagan is doing childcare for Sebastian and Fofi this summer and she brought them to Quissett today. So Mark, Meagan, and I hung out on the beach together. Actually Mark was out in the dinghy a fair bit of the time keeping track of Sam and Sebastian as they explored the bay by kayak. Granddad also went out in the kayak with Ollie and took Ollie with him when he was out in the dinghy. It was a super high tide when we arrived in the morning and there was almost no beach, but as the morning progressed the beach reappeared. At one point we moved our things further down the beach to be near the sandbar. For quite some time Jonah and I played beach ball where I throw and he catches the ball in a net. And the boys collected moon jellies and sea stars in great abundance. We had lunch on the beach and then Meagan took Sebastian and Fofi home and I took Ollie to the boat for a nap. Granddad followed a bit later in the kayak with Sam and Jonah and the beach gear. The boys then fished for quite some time, but they didn’t catch anything today. At one point Sam asked what he could do to keep from being bored while fishing. I suggested pacing up and down the side deck and that helped a bit. But as both Mark, and later Jed, commented, there is a big difference between the act of fishing and catching fish. I’m with Sam on the boredom of waiting for fish to bite. And in fact, I don’t really enjoy catching and cleaning fish either. I just like eating them! And speaking of eating . . . at the end of the day we took the boys home and a dinner feast with Heather and Jed. We had kale, grilled zucchini, and fried green tomatoes from the garden and grilled steak. It was all delicious, but the fried green tomatoes were by far my favorite.
Tomorrow morning Mark and I are going to sail/motor Windbird to Fiddler’s Cove so they can repaint the bottom. We have decided to leave here at 6 am and hopefully arrive in Fiddler’s Cove around 8:30. Heather and Jed will meet us there and deliver the kids and the van to us before they go to work for the day. Mark and I will probably hang out in Fiddler’s Cove with the boys for a bit and then take them home for a relaxed day of playing in the backyard.
by Judy Handley | Aug 10, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 293, Year 9: Magical Moments
Date: Sunday, August 10, 2014
Weather: Another Beautiful Summer Day, Temp in the 80’s
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Tonight I was sitting in the cockpit talking to my sister Patsy when I looked up and saw the full moon rising. It was a magical moment as the moon was just spectacular. When I checked on the internet to see if there was a reason it was so special, I found out that indeed it is a supermoon. This means it looks a bit larger than other full moons because it is closest to the earth. Then I found out that there was a supermoon in July and that there will be another in September. But a spokesperson from NASA said, “This (the August full moon) is the supermoon, the ‘superest’ supermoon.” It is the closest to the earth of the three supermoons in 2014. Sure hope you got to see it.
We had some other magical moments this afternoon while exploring the sand bar at low tide. Heather, Jed, and boys came out for lunch and an afternoon of fun in the water. After we ate lunch on the beach, I suggested that we walk out on the sandbar since it was a very low tide. Jed and Sam needed to make a dinghy run to Windbird, so Heather and I walked out on the sandbar with Ollie and Jonah. The first magical moment was when Jonah started catching super tiny crabs, smaller than the tip of my little finger. They were so cute. Then Heather caught a spider crab and we decided to set up a ‘lab’ on Jonah’s bodyboard. I went back to shore to get the buckets and we filled them with all of our finds. The next magical moment came when Heather caught a big, beautiful calico crab. There were two little girls that were interested in our specimens and they filled one of our buckets with hermit crabs of all sizes. One of the little girls was quite adept at catching Ctenophores (moon jellies) and she put those in with the spider crab collection. She told me her secret to catching the Ctenophores was to look for their shadow on the bottom. Some other people were finding loads of sea stars and they built a rock pool for them. Just looking at all those sea stars was magical. About that time, Jed and Sam returned and Sam immediately caught a baby pufferfish. Another magical moment. It was about an inch long and it puffed right up when caught. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t capture these finds. But I know we all have vivid memories of the finds. All in all it was a very successful explore on the sandbar, but the boys were anxious to kayak over to the little beach that is exposed only at low tide and the tide was starting to rise. So it was time to go. This little beach is part of a rocky outcropping near our mooring site. It is totally covered at high tide, but the rocks and little beach emerge as the tide subsides. Cormorants and geese love to gather on the beach at low tide and today Jed, Sam, and Jonah joined them. Then they (Jed, Sam, and Jonah, not the geese and cormorants) took off in the kayak to explore other parts of the harbor. Heather tried to get Ollie to take a nap on the beach, but when it was obvious that he was not going to be able to sleep there, we took him out to Windbird. We still had no success, so Ollie went without a nap today. After the second time that I thought I had him asleep, Heather went to check on him and he had gotten up, gathered the two solar-powered lights that Sam and Jonah use for reading in the evening, and was sitting in the bed with the two lights on ‘reading’ a Magic Tree House book about pirates. Too cute. Jed returned with the boys and then Jed jumped in for a swim. Heather followed him and then Jonah and Ollie. It was a full afternoon of fun in the sun.
When Heather, Jed, and boys left to go home, I drove into Falmouth to pick Mark up from West Marine. Mark loves coming home from work and just sitting in the cockpit. But tonight he wanted to go out in the kayak and I went with him. We paddled out toward the entrance of the harbor and Mark said next time we could just keep going to Woods Hole. I’m not ready for that, but paddling about in the kayak can be added to the list of those magical moments.
by Judy Handley | Aug 9, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 292, Year 9: Joys of Summer
Date: Saturday, August 9, 2014
Weather: Just a Beautiful Summer Day
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
One of the boats on a mooring next to ours is a motor boat named Joys of Summer. I love the name. Summers are short here, but they are beautiful and there are so many joys. Today some of the special joys were watching Sam, Jonah, and Ollie kayak and explore in the bay in the early morning, watching a loon perform acrobatics in the water, following a Surf Scoter duck in the dinghy in the late afternoon, and having an afternoon nap—a rare occurrence for me. Mark headed to work at 9:30 this morning and the boys and I continued to explore the bay for another hour. They all had a great night on Windbird. Ollie was declared a full-fledged member of the Big Boys Club as he made it through the night without momma with no problem. He did wake up three times. Twice he went right back to sleep after saying, “I want momma.” The third time I had to pick him up and ‘rock-rock’ a bit, but he was back to sleep in minutes. We were awakened by the shrieking joys of the big boys at 7:30 am as they played in the v-berth and Ollie didn’t say a word about missing mommy. He just joined the big boys in having fun. But while he ate breakfast he was looking across the main cabin at a photo of the family and he looked at me and said, “I love my mommy.” So sweet . . .
Heather and Jed came to pick up the boys at 11ish to take them to the WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) summer picnic and I spent the rest of the day on Windbird editing photos and taking a nap. Mark works tomorrow and I’m not sure what I am doing. Heather and Jed might be bringing the boys here for a day at the beach, and if so, it will be another day of summer joys here in Quissett Harbor.
by Judy Handley | Aug 8, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 291, Year 9: Three Grandkid Night
Date: Friday, August 8, 2014
Weather: Sunny Day with a Bit of Wind
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
It’s a three grandkid night here on Windbird. Heather and Jed were invited to an all evening affair in Woods Hole and they asked us to babysit. Sam and Jonah wanted to spend the night on Windbird and this time Ollie insisted on joining his brothers. This is a BIG step for him and so far, so good. He said he wanted to sleep with ‘brothers’ but at bedtime he looked at me with those big eyes and said, “I sleep with you Oma.” He then put his head on my shoulder and I sang him to sleep. I guess the singing put Sam and Jonah to sleep as well. Either that or they were just completely exhausted, because once their heads hit the pillows, I didn’t hear another peep. Hopefully everyone will sleep through the night.
The boys had a big day on the water. We met Heather and Jed at the Quissett Beach at 9:30 this morning. We went by dinghy and towed the kayak and everyone had multiple turns paddling around the harbor in the kayak. Sam found a sea star on a sand bar and adopted it for the morning and Jonah carried around a ‘pet’ scallop. We had hoped that Sam’s friend Sebastian and his little brother Fofee were going to join us this morning, but they didn’t make it. Sam was disappointed, but he managed to have a great morning despite Sebastian’s absence. We went back to the boat for lunch, took Granddad to shore to go to work, and then it was back to the boat for Ollie’s naptime. In the late afternoon, Heather jogged from Woods Hole to here and joined the boys for more kayak time on the water. After Heather left, it was time for dinner. We watched an episode from The Blue Planet while we ate and then it was time to read to the boys and tuck them in for the night. And now it’s time for Mark and me to join them.
by Judy Handley | Aug 7, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 290, Year 9: Slow-down Day
Date: Thursday, August 7, 2014
Weather: Mostly Sunny ‘til mid-Afternoon, Then Thunderstorms
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
I’m calling today a ‘slow-down day’ as that is just what we did. There were no special activities, no trips to the beach—just a day at home. The boys needed this, and in fact, I think we all did. Mark and I picked Sam up from his last class at the Children’s School of Science and headed to Heather and Jed’s. When we arrived to take over the child-care duties, Jed headed to work. We played in the backyard and then I enlisted help from the boys in cleaning out the storage shed. It had gotten so you couldn’t walk in the door without tripping over things, so we took everything out, swept it, and then put things back in. This happened over a period of hours, and sometimes I had my little helpers and sometimes I didn’t. But we got the job done before the late afternoon thunder showers. Sam used the push lawn mower to work on cutting the backyard grass this morning, and after lunch Ollie went down for a nap and Sam and Jonah went to play at a neighbor’s house. This gave me the uninterrupted opportunity to get things back into the shed. Between thunder storms, we played baseball and caught a big toad. The boys put him in a fish bowl and set him on the dining room table as a center piece. I love boys!
This was Heather’s Thursday in Boston, so Mark and I stayed late to help Jed with the boys through dinner. I steamed clams and Jed made pizza for dinner—clams on one, barbequed chicken on another, and Italian sausage on the third. Heather got home around 7 pm, so Mark and I headed for Windbird. It felt almost cold coming out to the boat. I think we’ll need a fleece blanket tonight.
by Judy Handley | Aug 6, 2014 | Cape Cod USA, Sailing Logs Year 9 |
Day 289, Year 9: Successful Overnight, Then on to the CCMNH
Date: Wednesday, August 6, 2014
Weather: Mix of Sun and Clouds; Thunderstorms in the PM
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts
Sam and Jonah had a super successful overnight on Windbird. They made their own little ‘nests’ in the v-berth and giggled themselves to sleep. And then they slept, and slept, and slept. Sam always gets up early, but today I had to wake him just before 8 am to get him ready to go to his School of Science class at 8:30. Jonah and Granddad were both still sleeping like babies when Sam and I left. I took him to Woods Hole and then met Jane Woodin and friend Terry Smith to do our weekly Wednesday morning de-stress walk. Then it was back to Woods Hole to pick up Sam and get on with our day. When Sam and I got back to Windbird, Granddad and Jonah had been out for long kayak ride and were eating second breakfast. We took off as fast as we could, but unfortunately the fire truck came to the Woods Hole Day Care Summer Camp early and we missed out on that fun. But Heather and Jed made it there with Ollie and he was playing happily when we got there. We put him in the van with Sam and Jonah and we were off to the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History (CCNMH). We had planned for the older boys to do the inflatable whale experience and then all of us go out marsh mucking. But Sam and Jonah decided that they would rather stay in the museum and muck about inside. When we did finally decide to go outside to have a mid-afternoon snack and walk along the edge of the marsh, it started looking very stormy and the thunder started. We did a little walking, but it became obvious that we were going to get very wet if we didn’t head back to the van. We made it with about 30 seconds to spare and then the heavens opened. It rained most of the way home, but just as we entered city limits of Falmouth, the rain magically stopped. Sam was elated as we were taking him to Woods Hole for his School of Science Open House—and he didn’t want it to be raining for that. Mark and I dropped the kids off with Heather in Woods Hole and headed back to Windbird to fix dinner for the whole gang. After the Open House, the Goldstone crew arrived for dinner and late evening kayaking and dinghy adventures.
