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We are sort of stuck in Greenport, which is a lovely place to be so I’m not really complaining. I am complaining about the wicked East winds and nasty chop.  It’s too rough for either reading or knitting at this point, and it’s very risky business for me to get on and off the boat in these rough conditions! 

Greenport, which looks like a ghost town on this last week in May.  Merchants have told us that Memorial weekend was ‘hopping’ but you wouldn’t know it now!

Bob and I did the self-guided walking tour of Greenport today.  I want a house like this when we retire!

The deserted marina.  We are the only visiting boat here.

The gardens here are so ahead of what’s in bloom at home!  The roses are full of flowers, the iris are at their height, and as you can see there are cranesbill and daisies blooming.  This must be a luscious climate for gardening!

Now and Zen is here!  It’s always nice to come ashore and find a yarn shop! I bought two skein of Blue Sky alpaca/silk and a coordinating Koigu to make a scarf. 

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These are the things I’ve brought with me to work on this week. When the weather is fine I get a lot of work done, and when it’s not I get cranky.  I don’t know how my husband stands me! 

This is a KAL (knit-a-long) from Goddessknits.  She’s giving one clue every Sat. for a total of five clues.  In this photo I’m probably midway through clue 1.  Now I’m a couple rows into Clue 2.  It’s fun!

This organic, ruffly bit of nonsense is a pattern from Brenda Papita (hmmm..couldn’t find a website for her) which I bought at Just Our Yarn at MDS&W earlier this month.  The concept is short rows which only work half the row at a time with a bit of lace right at the edge.  A 10-row repeat gives one section of ruffle and lace on one side of the scarf.  It’s easy to memorize and easy to do….but….I’ve now completed 50 repeats of the pattern which is only 25 repeats on each side and the scarf is less than 12” long.  I bet I have to do 500 repeats to get enough length to actually wear this thing.  Not sure I have the stamina!

And here is my soft corrie, combed and dyed by Misty Mountain.  Each time my little Golding spindle gets full I wind onto a bobbin.  I’ve divided my 4 oz. of top in half and plan to fill two bobbins so I can ply one long length of lace weight yarn for a shawl.  As I spin I dream about what type of shawl I want to knit with this!

When I bring projects on board I have agendas and goals for finishing whatever I’ve brought with me.  When the weather is fair I probably knit for about 6 hours a day.  I spin in the evenings while Bob reads aloud, or in the mornings while having coffee.  This week Bob is reading to me Treasured Islands, a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, that covers the period of his life when he sailed to Samoa on a 90 ft. schooner with his wife and her two children from a previous marriage, and his mother, as well as the boat’s crew. 

On my own I am reading Catch-22 and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, both of which I’m reading sections aloud to Bob and enjoying immensely! 

The weather these past two days has not been good for much beyond reading, and I can barely do that.  I am not of strong enough constitution to do much when the winds are howling and the boat is heeling, even at anchor!  Looks like we are in for this dramatic weather through tomorrow, which will be Thurs.  I will not meet any of my goals for finishing projects at this rate…

Cedar Point Lighthouse off Shelter Island.

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It’s open season for sail now, and we are initiating the summer with a sail to Eastern Long Island Sound.  Our next stage of summer sailing will be Narragansett Bay and the Cape, and our final sailing grounds will be Penobscot Bay area of Maine.  I always provision the boat with lots of projects, so I will continue to post about weaving, knitting, and spinning.

Middle Ground: literally halfway in the sound,both East/West and North/South.  We are headed for Mattituck Inlet, near the Hamptons on LI

We were virtually alone on the water Friday!  We saw one tug pulling a barge, but we did see lots and lots of helicopters heading out to the Island.  Some people still have enough money to travel in style!

Entering Mattituck Inlet, a long narrow inlet with lots of interesting bird life.

After anchoring and preparing dinner during sunset, we spent the next day ashore, taking a 2-mile walk to a local winery which took us through a neighborhood of modest, lovingly maintained houses and gardens (rhodies and lilacs in bloom).  We bought cheese at a local shop and had it for lunch with wine on the deck of the tasting room, amidst a Mediterranean style garden (pinks and nepeta in bloom and buds on the lavendar) overlooking the vineyard.

Goats at a small residence on our way to Shinn Vineyard.

Sod farm barn across the street from the entrance to Shinn Vineyard

Shinn Vineyard, the only bio-dynamic vineyard on the Island at present

Water front activities
We’ve seen lots of ospreys and babies in the nest (is there a name for a juvenile osprey?).  One interesting sight was a particularly aggressive osprey who chased an egret in flight all around the harbor.  The next day that same osprey chased a little plover all over the sky.  I’ve never seen an osprey do that.  Motoring back out of the inlet we saw a bald eagle sitting in a tree, and an osprey sitting on her nest with two swans in the water right below her.  Such bucolic sights!

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From my son Chris, who was on the roof of a building at school.  The tower is Riverside Church.  Click to enlarge, and you’ll get a good view of those interesting planes!