an infrequent repository of mostly new stuff
Most of the reasons travel by train is so pleasant are also true of ship travel. Not luxury cruise liners, of course; but humble ferries and merchant ships. Same esthetic. Same qualities of time and pace and the people you meet.
Add weather and wildlife.
postcards from the road
The ferry over and back, with observations in between.
(Sorry, no music this time.)
There’s a welcome party on the docks at Isle au Haut. Families here to greet relatives, fishermen to collect gear ordered from the mainland, others just to see who or what the tide has brought in. I recognize the Mayor and Mrs. Mayor from the short film I saw a few years ago, the one that made me want to come here.
With the passing of the Small Reach Regatta I realize I never finished the posts from Maine over a year ago. Nice to be able to go back to it now.
A light rain is falling as we pull onto the town dock to board the ferry. Attendants wave cars to park out on the wooden pier over the water. Another cautiously directs us into a small slot, the cars packed in so tight T has to get out before I back in.
There’s a notable mix of vehicles: old rusty pickups, almost as old as I am, with Maine plates. Next to those a brand new Lexus or Mercedes with out of state plates. Repeat. Like much of coastal Maine, people with homes on Isle au Haut are either true year-round locals, people who make a living on or near the water, or wealthy summer people from away, their second or third homes out on the island.
I chat with the fellow who waved us in. He’s friendly but his accent seems off. Says he was born here but grew up away, a teacher. Now he comes back every summer and works odd jobs for the season to be near home, his parents aging. Says he misses it so much that he comes back every year.
We rent bikes there on the dock to take with us on the ferry. A dozen or so are arranged in a large empty warehouse once used for sorting and loading fish; it too is out over the water. We try the bikes for fit and finish, and I ride figure 8’s through the big echoing space that once was bustling with people and cod and lobster. It’s clean, the cement floor smooth for riding, and the walls smell faintly of fish. Light filters in through tall salt-crusted windows. Gliding in big looping circles, murmurs of conversation, rain pattering on the tin roof.
Went with Doug to help him pick up his new Marsh Cat, waaaaaay down in southwest Virginia. Marvin Spencer, of Brush Creek Yachts, did a beautiful job. I met Marvin many years ago at his shop in Plymouth, North Carolina. He had recently built his first Melonseed, and I had not yet started mine. When Amanda and I were driving back from Ocracoke I asked if we could stop in and have a look. Graciously, he not only said yes, but waited for us well after closing time.
He’s now built 10 Melonseeds, all beautiful, and many other boats, as well. When we went to pick up his latest creation, we invited him to come along for the first test sail, something he says he rarely gets to do.
Big fun, and great, drama-free first launching and sail. More photos and some video to come.
postcards from the road
Fripp Island, South Carolina
North in the morning.
South in the evening.
postcards from the road
Fripp Island, South Carolina
A consistent summer weather pattern:
Morning is still and damp.
An hour after sunrise, the breeze stirs, roused from a dreamy sleep between dunes and surf. Clouds, exhausted with an overnight rain, have flattened and dispersed, forming a haze over the sea.
By noon the wind is steady and strong, the sky clear. The overheated land, takes deep inhales, sucking cooler air off the ocean. Clouds accumulate inland over marshes and wet live oak forests.
Late afternoon those clouds, over-crowded, pile into towering pillars that wobble about the skyline. Finally too top-heavy, at sunset they topple over and collapse upon themselves, like Castellers de Villafranca, tumbling out over the sea with thunder and sparks of lightning.
By midnight, the dark sea glimmers with intermittent flashes sinking over the horizon.
postcards from the road