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Boats of Guatemala: Lake Atitlan Launches

The Mayan crew, pounding the boat across Lake Atitlan, just ahead of a storm.

 

(to start of project)

I’ve started on the toe rails, and hope to have progress to report soon, once I get it figured out.

In the meantime, here’s some boat related reporting from our trip to Guatemala. Coming from such a car-centric culture, the widespread use of boats for transportation there was fascinating; not only the extent of it, but the types and their construction, as well. Continue reading “Boats of Guatemala: Lake Atitlan Launches”

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Home Port

Lake Atitlan from Casa del Mundo, after a storm

 

(to start of project)

We’re back.

A couple of times a decade we manage to take a nice trip somewhere. A few years ago it was the northern California coast. This time it was Guatemala, and what an amazing trip it was. A truly stunning landscape that left us literally speechless more than once. Continue reading “Home Port”

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Good Riddance

 Full Moon, bare trees

 

(to start of project)

The oaks are letting loose their leaves now.

Driven by the wind, they pour out of side streets and across the road like wash over a sandbar, sea foam scudding on a Spring Tide.

It’s a young wind, too, gusting into the 30’s toppled some trees, and knocked the power out for several hours earlier in the week.

Continue reading “Good Riddance”

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Transitions

Sunshine starts a second snowfall

 

 

 

There are things you do in your 50’s that you thought you’d do in your 20’s.
This is a given.

What you remember is often what you wished for,
not what really happened.

Some things you declined to say when you could have will ring in your ears forever.
It’s better to say them all.

There will be more joy than you expected,
certainly more than you thought you deserved.

You will continue to have conversations with people you loved,
decades after they’re gone.

You will often cry unexpectedly –
not when things are sad, but when they are beautiful.

These are some things I’ve learned.

 

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Tiller 2 and Mast Collar

Aeon’s tiller fitted and ready for finish

 

(to start of project)

Tried something a little different on the second Tiller. I have some brass knob handles to fit on the ends – something comfortable to hold that will keep a line from slipping off – but I’m not certain yet I’ll use them. In the meantime, that leaves an opportunity to play a bit with the handle ends and see what works. So Aeon’s Tiller got a carved knob end. It may just get cut off, but it was fun to try out.

Continue reading “Tiller 2 and Mast Collar”

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Rudder Number 2

Rudder ready for cleanup and shaping

 

(to start of project)

The second rudder went together a little easier than the first. On the first one, to save time, I tried to glue up the whole thing all at once. It came out okay, but it was a pain. With no reason to rush, this one went together in stages – the core was glued up first, then the cheeks and outer layers sandwiched on later. Continue reading “Rudder Number 2”

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Melville on Winter

Tending Fire

 

(to start of project)

“…I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country, now that the ground is all covered with snow. I look out of my window in the morning when I rise as I would out of a port-hole of a ship in the Atlantic. My room seems a ship’s cabin; and at nights when I wake up and hear the wind shrieking, I almost fancy there is too much sail on the house, and I had better go on the roof and rig in the chimney.”

Herman Melville – in a letter, December 12, 1850

 

It snowed again last night, big wet flakes that clung to everything. Overnight, a breeze blew the trees bare along the ridge line, leaving the forest frosted thick in the lee up the hillsides, so the mountains are stark white, outlined in black. Really striking.

Continue reading “Melville on Winter”