ArgoKnot – Page 77 – A journal of my weaving, spinning, and knitting life

An Almost Perfect Day!

September 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Not many days get better than this! ….
A walk through charming Chestertown….

In the mid 18th century Chestertown was a thriving British Colony and busy port. Who knew?? (Well, clearly, I didn’t!) It is so far up the Chester River it is hard to imagine this being such a busy port, but the number of stately brick houses and the depth of the river definitely attest to the town’s history of wealth. Even the sidewalks are brick!

I know most sailors love a bit of shore leave, but I sometimes wonder if they can possibly love it as much as I do. When I get ashore I sometimes wonder if it’s the shore leave I love most! Walking through a beautiful town like Chestertown, seeing all the lovely homes, doing my best to get a glimpse of the interiors in some of these houses and the equally beautiful private gardens seems to be my main goal. I’m always a little sad to go back on board. Embarrassingly, I had never even heard of Chestertown before our visit.

We left in the early afternoon to take advantage of an ebbing tide and winds that should have been behind us. Sailing back down the river was somewhat less than perfect, but the sights along the shore were still bucolic, in spite of a flukey north wind that caused me some discomfort when we heeled more than I like! At one point we heeled rather severely and I heard a crash, which was my computer flying off the nav station and sailing across the cabin. What a distressing moment that was! Kudos to Apple for making such a sturdy little machine. The only damage seems to be a tiny nick in the corner. I’ve learned my lesson not to leave it out anymore while we are underway.

We ended the day in another perfect spot, which makes me realize there are benefits to sailing that no land trip could ever match. We are anchored in a quiet cove that is so undeveloped only our boat gives away what century we are in. Trees and other fauna grow right to the banks of this little estuary off the Chester River called Queen’s Creek, and the banks are teaming with wildlife. We took the dingy to explore this little round bay and saw a number of blue herons each staking their claim on a bit of shoreline, patiently wading the shallows. Our dingy was ghosting along on a mirror surface with only the tiniest little rings of disturbance which I took to be insects landing on the water, which I imagined would be attracting the fish that the herons were anticipating. When I looked a bit closer I saw that each of these little rings was being caused by a small jellyfish, and there were thousands of them! The little bay was teeming with them. Are these the stinging nettles so famous in the Chesapeake? Further into the bay we saw a few deer drinking at the water’s edge, something we haven’t seen in many years. These days we are so familiar with deer wandering our suburban neighborhoods, eating right out of our manicured gardens. I’d forgotten just how perfect they look in their natural setting! Just above we noticed a bald eagle perched at the very top of a dead tree, surveying the bay. Wouldn’t you know we left the camera on board when we set out on this wonderful exploration??

This photo was actually taken early the next morning when there was a light breeze ruffling the surface and a morning mist.

Perfect day turned into perfect evening as we watched a sunset just like the ones that must have inspired Maxfield Parrish….the sky all ‘parrish’ blue and deep rose. Stunning. The bright half moon rose shortly before the sun set, so that as one light faded the other was ready to take its place. The large cumulus clouds that had filled the sky before evening made a dramatic setting for the moon’s travel across the sky. As things go on such rare, perfect days, we also managed to put together a marvelous dinner, which included another loaf of bread fresh out of the oven….wish you could have smelled it!

The absolute highlight of the day was getting in the dinghy to look up at the night sky. Bob cast off from Pandora and we drifted around this lovely bay, barely moving since there was hardly a breeze and hardly a current. We watched the Big Dipper slide down below the horizon and and then found the easily identifiable Arcturus and Polaris. And then I realized the autumn equinox was last night! The moon will be full in another week, and I wonder what that will do to the higher than normal tides we’ve been seeing the past few days….

Day 14, Sept. 24: Queen’s Creek to St. Michaels

Historic Towns

September 23, 2012 | Leave a Comment

What a lovely town Chestertown, Maryland is! Fall sure does bring extreme weather with it. To me the oddest days are beautifully brilliant days with high winds. Everything looks so lovely and gay even, like the trees are prancing in the wind….but being out in these conditions puts me in quite a state of anxiety. So when we left Rock Hall until we entered the Chester River was far too adventurous for me! Yet it made a pretty sight….white caps on the water, trees bending in the ‘gale’ (okay…honestly, about 25 mph), bright sun….

When we turned into the Chester River the wind was then behind us, so we were able to put out our smallest sail. In the river there were no waves and with the wind behind us the day suddenly became truly wonderful!

Doesn’t this look peaceful? And it was….you’d never know the wind was blowing over 25mph! What a difference wind direction and protected waters make! It was about 25 miles up the river to Chestertown, and I enjoyed the sights while working on the little baby sweater.

This sweater is a fun construction puzzle, made all in one piece.

Chestertown is a pretty town with Revolutionary War history. We may have afternoon tea today in an old inn and hopefully I’ll get some good photos! The river is full of duck blinds, edged by rolling fields of farmland, lovely old farmhouses and newer manor homes.

Day 11, Sept. 21: Lay Day in Rock Hall

Day 12, Sept. 22: Rockhall to Chestertown

Day 12, Sept. 22: Lay Day in Chestertown

My finished shawl for Margo! I’ll have a couple of her friends make their own prayers and wishes, along with mine, for healing when we get to Annapolis. Then I’ll pop it in the mail.

Migration

September 21, 2012 | Leave a Comment

The lovely sights in Chesapeake City….

Do you think they bought that red car to match their front door?

We are starting to see lots of migrating birds, and it seems to me that this year we are migrating with them. Each day that we haul anchor in the morning we are accompanied by the honking song of Canada geese in their V-formations, and as we travel south we find monarch butterflies alighting on Pandora for short breaks before fluttering away.

The bird life here is extensive! In the Sassafras River we were exploring the coast line, and we startled two blue herons off their nest! What a beautiful sight to see them take flight right in front of us! We had not noticed the nest because it was well hidden in a ‘bog’ of lotus! We have never seen lotus growing in such a temperate climate before. It looks like it has become rather invasive in the Sassafras River, and we wondered if the lotus will soon take over… I guess only time will tell.

We have been sailing along with three other boats since Cape May….not on purpose….but each day that we travel we see them sailing too. For several nights we’ve ended up in the same harbor, so naturally we’ve gotten together to re-hash the day and talk about where we’re heading. I know this is quite a common occurrence for boats heading south. Perhaps we are becoming a different kind of migrating flock! We saw Banyan, a 40 ft Juneau, from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in Cape May with David and Alex (short for Alexandra) onboard. In Chesapeake City we first saw Peregrine, a 42 ft. Catalina, with Dave and Libby on board with their dog Brody. And also in Chesapeake City we stumbled on Rick and Julie Palm, who live aboard Altair, a larger version of Pandora, and whom we met briefly a few summer ago in Maine. We have formed our own very loose flock and have decided to explore the Chester River together over the next few days. We will see both Banyan and Peregrine at the SSCA seminars that will take place in Camp Letts at the end of next week.

So I am settling into life aboard…. coffee and knitting in the mornings. I have finished the shawl and should have posted photos days ago. I have now started a little baby sweater for the brand new granddaughter who arrived last week to join the family of my oldest childhood friend. And earlier this week I made ‘poolish’ which will become my ongoing sourdough starter for bread while the weather remains cool enough to bake. I made the first loaf yesterday, and it was a success! I will make another loaf today since there is more poolish ready to use now.

2012-09-18 09.48.43 — Swatch for "Shadow Baby" sweater

I am feeling the pangs of homesickness, but it is balanced by the joys of living is this soft southern landscape. We’ve seen a number of bald eagles since arriving in the Chesapeake, and yesterday we saw one shag a fish right out of the water and rise into the blue sky with his/her catch! It was dramatic!

Day 8, September 18: Lay Day in Chesapeake City (#29)

Day 9, Sept. 19: Chesapeake City to the Sassafras River (#29 – 31)

Day 10, Sept. 20: Sassafras River to Rock Hall (#31 -34)

Day 11, Sept. 21…..we’re not entirely sure yet! We will walk into Rock Hall today for some provisions, and then we’ll think about sailing up the Chester River to Chestertown….

Destination: Vulcan’s Rest

September 17, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Have I mentioned that the main reason I agreed to doing the New Jersey coast was so that I could stop at the weaving store called Vulcan’s Rest in Chesapeake City? I kid you not that I was willing to endure almost any sailing conditions to get there, and luckily I made it there with almost no trauma!

Day 6, Sept. 16: Atlantic City to Cape May (#25)

Finally, a zephyr! We motored most of the day down the coast of NJ, and I actually got to knit a fair part of the day! This is a very good thing because no one, including me, likes to be around me after I’ve been emptied handed for a couple of days. I have to admit that my knitting was something on the order of knit one row, look at the horizon and breathe deeply for a few minutes…..knit another row. Still, it was better than not knitting. I do realize that this paints me as somewhat of a fanatic, or an obsessive person. Well, I’m officially calling the pot black.

We got into Cape May in the mid afternoon. I’d been told that the anchorage is no where near the town, and boy was that right! It was a long dinghy ride to shore, but both Bob and I were bent on having a walk to stretch our legs. My dear friend June is always visiting her sister in Cape May, so I rather wondered where she lives! I had also heard she has a boathouse right on the water for a summer cottage. When we got ashore I found myself looking across at a lovely row of about eight vintage boathouses. I had a feeling one of them had to be Stina’s. I did try calling Stina since June had given me her number. No luck….

Then Bob and I took a walk through a residential area that put us on the road right behind these boathouses. The one I’d imagined Stina living in had a bright red Volkswagen bug parked behind it, and I imagined Stina driving this very car. It seemed to fit with my image of her, even though I don’t know her at all.

We stopped and had a drink on a fake schooner-turned-cocktail bar in the harbor and then got back in our dinghy to head out to Pandora. But as we left we just took one little turn by the boathouses. There were two couples sitting on the deck of the one I had dubbed as Stina’s, and wouldn’t you know one of the women looked about the right age (80s). So I decided to give a yell, “Are you Stina?” And she was! We were invited into this lovely boathouse that has been beautifully renovated to look very Swedish. It was really wonderful! My huge regret is that I never thought to get a photo of all of us together! Stina is June’s fireball older sister and is almost 89 years old. She has far more energy than even my 28 year old son, and she makes my energetic husband seem positively unconscious…. yes, I know what that means I look like in comparison to her!

Oh! Wouldn’t you know that Stina’s boathouse is the very next house to the right that didn’t get included in this shot! Could I have had worse luck?? And hers is even quainter than these….sigh…

To totally top things off, Stina asked us what we did when we came ashore, and when we mentioned getting a drink at ‘The Schooner’ she asked us if her granddaughter might possibly have been our waitress. Of course we had no way of knowing, but Bob thought to check the receipt which showed our waitress was the granddaughter. Pretty serendipitous! We were meant to meet!

Day 7, Sept 17: Cape May to Chesapeake City (#26 – 33)

In order to get the tides just right we got up at 4.45 this morning. Ugh! We left Cape May and went rather far out due to the shoaling around the tip of New Jersey, and then found our way into the shipping channel for the Delaware River. That was when we got the big payoff of a stunning sunrise which made me thankful for getting up today! It was 50 miles up the river to the C&D Canal (Chesapeake and Delware). Today was truly zephyr breezes, and I finished the Flower Basket shawl!

I really don’t like how lace looks when it comes off the needles, before being blocked. It’s so spongey and amorphous. I will tackle blocking it on 0ur bed tomorrow!

The C&D Canal was a lovely ride, with lush greenery all the way to the water’s edge. It had the feel of another century, when farms were all along both banks. Some of the old farmhouses are still sitting along the banks, and some new suburban looking developments have also cropped up. Everything was very verdant and peaceful. Beautiful! Very southern feeling. I can only imagine how much more ‘southern’ its going to get in a few more weeks!

I got my stop at Vulcan’s Rest! This was my much anticipated destination on this first part of our journey. I bought yarn….no kidding!

Lovely Chesapeake City….

A ship going down the canal right in the backyard! Pretty amazing!

The Fickle North Wind

September 16, 2012 | Leave a Comment

Day 5, Sept. 15: Atlantic Highlands to Atlantic City

Zephyr is my favorite word related to sailing, and I’ve been saying this years. Zephyr….bring it on. A particular word related to sailing that I detest is gale.

The Greeks had many words for wind, and if I had better internet coverage here I’d try to find out just how many words there are for wind. Anyway, that is a sure sign that they have a lot of wind.

I imagined myself making peace with sailing down the New Jersey coast on a zephyr, relying on our motor to get us down the coast. No such luck…. Bob is using a well respected weather router named Chris Parker, and if you are a sailor you will know that Bob has chosen well. Chris Parker said it was a favorable time for us to tackle the New Jersey coast because even though there was a north wind which is highly fickle with lots of gusts (reaching gale velocity….my least favorite sailing word!), the wind would be behind us. You know that famous blessing: “may the wind be always at your back…”

Well, this landlubber thought today sucked! I dealt with it as best I could by taking half a stugeron at 7am and again at 2pm which insured that I slept about 6 hours during our 12 hour slog southward. I still hated it.

But at last we came into Atlantic City as the sun was setting, no easy feat with the sun right in our faces and the buoy lights not on yet. It was nerve wracking to me, the land lubber. But at least I can say it’s a fairly quiet anchorage, in spite of the insane night lights of this gambling city.

I remember when Stitches East was held in Atlantic City for a couple of years…..now it’s held right in my new backyard (Hartford), but I won’t be there to attend this fall. If only I could have done some knitting today….. not sure tomorrow will be any better. We have to get to the C and D Canal (Chesapeake and Delaware) by Monday evening because Tuesday’s wind is going to be off the charts. I need to find the appropriate word for that. We plan to be in Chesapeake City, and I hope to be snug inside Vulcan’s Rest, a weaving/knitting shop, rewarding myself for enduring this fickle north wind, even if it is at our backs.