Click photos to view sequence! I crew Wed nights on Lightfoot, an Olsen 30. Round Bay Sailing http://www.roundbaysailing.com/ is a truly Corinthian group - cool sailing with cool people on interesting subtle waters in a very beautiful place. Rather than challenge LeeAnne for the inside berth rounding the mark - our skipper Ken just sailed around her ...! Love it!
7 am Monday morning - rowing out to Lark
Original mahogany coaming ... fifty years old this year.
Two different paeonies this morning basking in the May sunshine ... click photo to view gallery
Haulout - not bad for 2 years on her moorings
Three days of hard work - scraping, painting ..ready to go back in the water ... the red deep waterline paint is hard copper for the Chesapeake water which leaves iron stains on the waterline ... new antifouling looks gaudy!
amazing quiet tiny mold patterns
Quietly over the winter in my studio ... one gourd still creamy, with impacted tendril ... the other covered with delicate patterns of tiny mold ....
What a difference a day makes ... 24 little hours and some elbow grease - more to come!!!!
Lark's dinghy ... battered after a hard winter ...
Winter has truly gone at last - with the help of a good friend, Lark's dinghy is now at the cottage, ready for maintenance and repainting ...
Rescued before spring thunderstorm
quietly, magnificently ...
blessed rain
BVI in May .... any May!
I grew up with the sea, and poverty for me was sumptuous; then I lost the sea and found all luxuries gray and poverty unbearable.
: Albert Camus
Color at last! How did these crocus bulbs escape the squirrels? and pansies waiting until after the snow to brighten the doorsteps! and managed to overwinter geraniums and lemon verbena, snuggled in the laundry, reaching fro afternoon winter sun even in the worst snow.
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Lark swings alone in the ice ...
First day of February ... in Ireland the first day of Spring ... I would raise my sail now, head west .... (Mise Raifteiri an File ... ) ....but soon, soon ....
"Cill Aodáin" English translation below
Anois teacht an earraigh
beidh an lá ag dul chun síneadh,
Is tar éis na féil Bríde
ardóidh mé mo sheol.
Ó chuir mé i mo cheann é
ní chónóidh me choíche
Go seasfaidh mé síos
i lár Chontae Mhaigh Eo.
I gClár Chlainne Mhuiris
A bheas mé an chéad oíche,
Is i mballa taobh thíos de
A thosaigh mé ag ól.
Go Coillte Mách rachaidh
Go ndéanfadh cuairt mhíosa ann
I bhfogas dhá mhíle
Do Bhéal an Átha Mhóir
Now coming of the Spring
the day will be lengthening,
and after St. Bridget's Day
I shall raise my sail.
Since I put it into my head
I shall never stay put
until I shall stand down
in the center of County Mayo.
In Claremorris' family
I will be the first night,
and in the wall on the side below it
I will begin to drink.
to Kiltimagh (Magh's Woods) I shall go
until I shall make a month's visit there
two miles close
to Aghamore.
Click on photos to view Gallery images :
Valentine Creek - Lark's dinghy ... Lark swinging her open water space in the ice ....
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save. Mary Oliver
As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
C.P. Cavafy
Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard
wind picking up and blowing the powder snow
Last night, quiet, quiet, bitterly cold this morning and the Northwest wind picking up.
The sunrise shone in to Newgrange this morning ---
photo courtesy of NASA
