2017 Life Logs, Day 244: Last Day of Camp Oma 2017

2017 Life Logs, Day 244: Last Day of Camp Oma 2017
Date: Friday, September 1, 2017
Weather: Beautiful Day with a Chill in the Air; High 69, Low 46 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Studio, Falmouth, MA

Today was the last official day of Camp Oma 2017. It has been a wonderful summer and we celebrated with a quiet morning in the neighborhood and then one last trip to the Wood Neck marsh with friends. Jonah’s friend Luke came with his summer nanny, Kailee.

And Cole and Leo and their mom Jeanne Harper also joined us. It was a sunny day with bright blue skies, but there was a lot of wind and it really was chilly as summer days go. As I drove to the Goldstones this morning, people that were out walking were wearing polar fleece jackets and winter hats. I was in my bathing suit with shorts and shirt. At that point, I should have questioned my sanity, But I persisted, in Goldpebble form, to declare that it was warm enough to go to the beach. Those boys never think it is cold, so that attitude must be rubbing off on me. Regardless, we enjoyed our afternoon at the beach. Jonah and Luke even worked in a little soccer practice. All summer long, the boys have been begging to buy a treat from the ice cream truck that travels all day long from beach to beach playing its merry tune selling nothing that is really fit for human consumption. But when the truck arrived right at the end of our afternoon at Wood Neck, I finally gave in and ended up with happy boys, even if the ice cream did turn their tongues blue!

Tonight I got a text from Sam on Windbird. Sam and Dawn, and Dawn’s mother from South Dakota, sailed out of Annapolis yesterday headed this way. Their plan was to exit the Delaware Bay this afternoon and arrive in New York City by tomorrow night. But as they headed out of the Delaware Bay into the Atlantic, they experienced transmission difficulties. Deja vu. It was in 2005 that Windbird was headed toward the Delaware Bay that Mark and I encountered transmission problems. Sam was able to get Windbird into Cape May and will start the trouble shooting process in the morning. Because of their limited time, this probably means they won’t make it to Cape Cod next week, as right now they are just hoping to be able to limp back to some place where they can get work done on the transmission. Cape May is not really the place for that. When Mark and I had this problem in 2005, we met a fisherman named Dwayne on the town dock in Lewes, Delaware, who gave us the phone number for the person that became our engine guru. As we sailed around the world, I often thought of David Laux as our guardian angel. He fixed the old transmission, but advised us to sell the engine and install a new one. Best advice we ever got. Plus, we learned so much from him and he was always there via email to give us advice when needed. I sent him an email tonight in the hopes that he might be available to once again come to the aid of Windbird. Stay tuned for the continuing saga.