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“Is that you?”

“Barry Up Early” by Curt Bowman

 

 

An email from Steve contains the above subject line and not much more, other than a weblink. Following the link brings me to a page, which contains only the photo of a beautiful painting of a sailboat, with the title “Barry Up Early”.

My first thought is: “It can’t be me; I’m never up early.” Terri, who knows me well, said the same thing, Very skeptical of anything that uses the words “Barry” and “early” in the same sentence.

But it’s on Curt’s blog, and Curt is a friend and a very talented painter. He never said anything about doing a painting that contained either me or early in it as a subject. I tried to think of when he might have seen such a thing. Steve and I sailed with Curt on Annie last year, making a fine day of it circumnavigating Gwynn’s Island. But neither he nor I brought our boats that day. And I was late.

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Deltaville Maritime Museum ~ Chesapeake Float 2016

 John England’s Chesapeake Deadrise under construction.

  

The rain moved in overnight. However, “rain” does not adequately convey the phenomenon of water falling from the sky at the rate of 3 inches an hour. It’s like there’s a crew overhead bailing out the clouds with 5 gallon buckets.

Good news is the boom tent is keeping the interior dry. So there’s that. People slowly venture out in foulies and wellies, collect on the front porch of the old store with hot coffee to watch.

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Night Lights ~ Chesapeake Float 2016


The Green Monster 

 

It’s already growing dark when Doug gets my attention, says the crabs and oysters are ready and I’m missing them. Indeed, people are seated around long tables under the trees. Sounds of laughter and conversation, and crickets. Shadows seep from the woods and collect in pools beneath the sycamores and cypress. Fireflies lift off from the lawn, scribing arcs above the grass.

 

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Morning at Freeport Landing ~ Chesapeake Float 2016

direct Youtube link 

 

Some video from the first morning. Land critters raising a ruckuss, and some seafaring riffraff return. It’s pretty rough; wanted to get it posted before leaving town for a couple of days.

Kevin B thought it was hilarious when I told him about the rooster. In the video you’ll hear why I wasn’t laughing.

 

 

 

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Chesapeake Float 2016 ~ Mermaids, Crabs and Other Edible Fishes

 

Still more to do on the Lightning before she could sail. Raising sails for only the second time, for instance, it became clear the halyards were going to be a problem. While attending to that I broke a few more things, so had to fix those, too.

Like other older racing boats, Lightnings have two-part halyards. The half you haul away on is conventional line, fat and comfortable in the hand. The other half is thin wire. The idea is when fully raised and cleated off it’s mostly the wire under tension, which doesn’t stretch much. Makes sense: Set it once and it’s good for the day.

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Off Center Harbor

Passing Like a Dream

 

Most of you who follow this blog probably already know about these guys. They’ve been making and posting boat flavored videos for almost four years now. Really great stuff. They cover everything from detailed how-to’s to ride-alongs on some really wonderful boats, whether a beautiful classic sailing yacht or a little homebuilt dinghy.

And the five guys who founded OffCenterHarbor.com have the chops to do it right. Steve Stone worked in the film industry for years. Benjamin Mendlowitz is the classic wooden boat photographer almost everyone knows, as his Wooden Boat calendar hangs in offices and boat sheds all over the world. Maynard Bray was head of watercraft preservation at Mystic Seaport and has been a regular contributor to WoodenBoat magazine. Bill Mayher has had a career as a maritime writer. And Eric Blake has been building boats all his life, along both coasts, and is project manager at the Brooklin Boat Yard.

This site is subscription based, so there are no ads. (Yay!). This means that not only do you NOT get bombarded with sales pitches when all you want to do is relax and learn something, but it means they have the freedom to give their honest opinions about things without concern for which paying advertiser it might piss off. That’s both crucial and really rare when doing research, and you need to find out what really works.

In celebration of their success, they’ve provided the video above for free. You can share it with friends, post it on Facebook, whatever. And if you want to spend $40 a year to get access to more, take my word for it, it’s well worth it.

 

 

 

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Chesapeake Float 2016 ~ Cocks Crow

 Sunrise at Freeport Landing

 

Dawn is very noisy. There’s a rooster. A rooster very near, like next to my head. The sun is barely up, and he is hard at work. Also, something else making a racket I can’t quite place. A sheep? No sleeping through it, rise and shine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lightning #2833 with the boom tent

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