Day 293, Year 8: Flying Kites and Having Fun on Windbird
Date: Friday, August 23, 2013
Weather: Unexpected Sunshine with Lots of Wind
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Sunshine that is unexpected is always welcome. When I checked the weather just before going to bed last night, the forecast called for a totally overcast day. But after a partly sunny morning, we had a beautiful afternoon. I was keeping Sam, Jonah, and Ollie for Heather and we had planned to stay at home. But with the sunshine, I tried to talk them into going to the beach. No one was interested, so we stayed home and did water play on the deck and then walked to the neighborhood elementary school to see the playground construction and to use their huge playing field for flying kites. The construction crew bringing tons of sand to fill in around the new playground equipment, but that didn’t interfere with our kite flying. It was quite windy, almost too windy for flying kites with little guys, but we did it and had a great time. The field is wide open with nothing for the kites to get tangled in, so I just let them go. Sam got the big kite up all by himself but was worn out after a few runs up and down the field. He was able to reel the kite in and felt very proud of himself. Jonah’s kite is a small one and not as easy to get aloft, but it is easy to manage and that made it fun. Even Ollie gave it a try. After Sam was finished with the big kite, Jonah wanted to give it a try. It was going up and down, so one of the playground workmen came over and got the kite up for Jonah. It went up and up and up. I have never flown a kite that high in such strong winds and Jonah didn’t feel like he could control it, so we reeled it in which took almost 15 minutes—but in the meantime, we enjoyed watching the kite flying and the boys chased the kite shadow on the ground. As we were winding up (literally), Heather called and we met her at the corner store for lunch.
I then turned my attention to food shopping and getting ready for our weekend sail. Heather, Sam, Jonah, and Ollie arrived at sundown and we had a fun evening together. Jed is helping his parents drive back to Washington, DC from Maine this weekend, so he won’t be joining us. We are going to sail to the southwest side of Martha’s Vineyard to the 300 year old fishing village of Menemsha. We have been there by bus from Vineyard Haven, but we have never sailed there. So it will be a fun exploration for all. But before we leave in the morning, we will visit the WHOI dock to see the deep sea vehicle Challenger. This one-man underwater vehicle was built by explorer and film maker James Cameron who this year gave Challenger to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). In 2012 Cameron made the solo dive in Challenger to the deepest place under the sea. Tomorrow morning we’ll get to the see the vehicle up-close on the WHOI dock before setting sail for Menemsha.
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| 130823 Day 293 Cape Cod, USA–Flying Kites and Fun on Windbird |
