It would be nice — really very, very nice — if the daily temperature always went from a low of 50 at night to a high of 68 in the day. It would be sweet if the wind always blew between 12 and 15 knots, year in and year out. (Read More…)

One item Robin needs that is not on her list is a device for playing music. The old radio/CD player mounted in an overhead port-side cabinet between the galley and the saloon hasn’t worked since the last Bermuda One-Two race. (Read More…)

On the outskirts of town, where the brown, winter-dead fields stubbled with chopped crops give no shelter from a southerly breeze, the stiff wind on today’s run came burdened lightly with sprinkles and sleet. Under a flat gray sky, two large turkey vultures rode the fast air north, then wheeled and, soaring with wingtip feathers splayed, began a parallel, hovering accounting of the day’s carrion below. (Read More…)

There is a small pile of papers on the saloon table, a larger pile on the port settee, and a monster heap on the chart table near the companionway. I have emptied every compartment I can think of, and still I can’t find the papers I want. (Read More…)

We’ve lost one of our liveaboard numbers here at the Boatyard. Buddy, the cat, slipped away a couple of weeks ago. I must have been walking with my eyes to the ground since then, because it wasn’t until today that I noticed Buddy’s big motoryacht was gone. (Read More…)

We’re heading north this week for a couple of days of skiing, an annual exercise in nostalgia, among other things. Before we immersed ourselves in boats, we skied a lot more. Then our vessels soaked up most of the skiing funds, as well as the time. (Read More…)

The sun was out long enough today to let the groundhog, which we always called a woodchuck, see his shadow and forecast six more weeks of winter. Right now, with a front moving over the Chesapeake, I am inclined to give some weight to that lumpy, waddling rodent’s prediction. (Read More…)