Summer sailing and Corona

[5monkeys]

Hey Mas!
  Gonna be in White Stone 8/7-8/16. Not too sure of the schedule but let me know if you?ll be down there. Maybe we meet up!

Regards

[Mas]

Hey Mas!
  Gonna be in White Stone 8/7-8/16. Not too sure of the schedule but let me know if you?ll be down there. Maybe we meet up!

Regards

Will have to see how the items on our plate look in a couple weeks. Much served up right now but timing may work. Be glad to reach out and hook up if doable.

[Mas]

Well, Rick- you sure know how to live! I had a similar thing happen to a friend of mine who I gave a small plastic kayak to that I found. He's got a home on a lake in Maine and when his daughter was out, the dang thing did the same as yours did-headed for the bottom!  Seems the prolonged exposure to the sun's UV rays deteriorated the plastic! Who'd a thunk that?!

  Maybe that's what happened to yours, too. Glad you are safe! I'm sending down a case of PBR to help nurses you back to health!!
Cheers,
Bob23

Ok Bob, know you promised this quite a while ago and with the postal service working overtime, thought you should know the PBR never made it. At this point might just be best you drink any that you may have considered sending or replacing if lost in shipment. We have found that consuming ETOH helps with most everything! Hmm..I guess we shouldn't be surprised that our garbage folks left an AA flyer on our recycling bin.

Sorry to hear that BBB has gone virtual this year. Will lift a glass, or two, or three, at the appointed time.

...obtw guess you have heard Pedro (actual name withheld out of respect) now has a sailboat again. I have actually laid eyes upon her in case he denies it!

[Mas]

Ok...where has the summer of 2020 gone? It was not long ago that the first day of spring and hopes for sailing season here on the Chesapeake began to fade in the face of 'the Rona' with restrictions in all of the states that share our nations largest estuary. Restrictions eased and the season, though compromised, saw renewed interest in boating from folks who may never have considered it. Sales of sailboats hit record levels not seen since the age of classic plastic decades ago. Stores everywhere sold out of kayaks, paddle boards and the like as more people were trying to salvage a sense of normalcy. This was only a sense of normalcy as many events were cancelled, businesses struggled to accommodate the new reality and as the hurricane season sent us some storms we hold our breath that fall will bring some relief to a summer that has set records on many levels.

Not sure what the rest of our sailing community is seeing out there, much the same?  What's the fall sailing season with 'the Rona' looking like? I do know some of the folks from our marina who do the 'cruise south' thing every year, find themselves stranded other places.

[Mas]

So.... what's everyone seeing?

[Tim Gardner]

Hey, MAS!

Around the SML area, the used boat market finds the inventory very low.  Boats, kayaks PWCs are all gone from the dealers.  Sailing season begins just after Labor day.  This year, Vicki is in good enough relief from back pain from her latest (and hopefully last) round of spine fusion surgery last October to go with me as we ply the waters with the 19.

If you hear of anyone selling a trailer for a 23 out there in the Chesa area, let me know.  I need one.

TG

[brackish]

I guess nothing different from usual.  Not a big sailing area, there are about 15 sailboats at my marina, and to my knowledge most of them just sit there and never go out.  Nothing to do with Covid-19. I missed the normal three year August haul out, wife's cataract surgeries took up the whole month.  Different for her some preexisting conditions, had to go to Germantown, TN for consultation with a retina specialist, then to Vanderbilt for a consultation with her glaucoma surgeon, then back to Tupelo for the actual cataract removals.  Will probably haul out in Sept. The sailing season begins here after labor day and the haul out usually takes a couple of weeks to do everything I want to do, so we'll see. 

[Mas]

Well fall starts next week and frankly am glad to see a summer with record freezing and frosts in May, record drought and heat for June into July, and the monsoon season for August into now finally go away! Throw in the weather holding up having a family business move along with the continued impact of 'the Rona', I am frankly ready to kiss the summer of 2020 goodbye! Many good things have happened as well with a new home for the family business now finally completed, sales recovering, a productive garden, and the gratitude of our health, our home, and our family safe and sound.

Sailing took a hit early with Rona restrictions and then weather and a crazy multi month schedule keeping us from our boat, but fall is soon here and if I can remember what all those rope things do might just finally start tricking the wind into moving our boat a bit more. Our little yacht club has been having on water events and is now planning a marina seafood festival this October....dare we believe things might at least appear more normal?

How is the summer's end going for all of our Compactonaunt friends? Know the BBB was Rona'd out but also know Bob will not let it die without a fight! Also know Tim G. is breathing a sigh of relief now that most of the tourists have departed SML. Pedro was last seen sporting his Rona beard while working on his sailboat. So how is everyone?

[Bob23]

Hi Rick!!
  While it's true that the BBB did not happen this year, there are sill rumors of a pop up Bash dinner at a local waterfront joint. And if I sail my 23 up, in my small mind that counts as a bonafide Bash!!

   As you might expect, all rowing events were cancelled including the famous Blackburn Challenge. I shudder to think of what Howard Blackburn would think of all this! Anyway, a rowing friend from RI and I were discussing the  hijacking of this and other rowing races. One thing leads to another and before we knew it, 8 of us from different states converged on Gloucester, MA and rowed the course with no support, no coast guard, no marine police. We prevailed and we each now proudly wear Blackburn Bandits t shirts!! After, we plopped ourselves down under a shady tree, drank beer and subs which was supplied by the Famous Blackburn Bandits support team!

  Fast forward a few months and most of the same Band of Bandits converged on Providence, RI to row the Narragansett Regatta, a 10 mile row on the Providence river.

  So take that, Rona! No cases, no sickness, lots of smiles and great rowing!!

Bob23

[Mas]

Alright Bob you sound ready for the Tangier row! We might even get Pedro to help me provide support vessel duty (read we eat and drink while you row!) Wuddaya think? Might be a good feather in your cap and we promise to take lots of pictures including some of you too!

All kidding aside it seems like it has been a lifetime since we all got together. We should fix that.

[peterg]

Eat?  Drink?  Sign me up!!  In fact, we'll let Bob row and we'll meet him at Crockett's on Tangier!!

[Tim Gardner]

Ill sit in Bob' "rowboat" and yell STROKE at him for the duration of the ordeal. (while drinking stark and dormies)

[Mas]

Sitting up here at Wintergreen pondering the upcoming ski season and the remainder of sailing season. Gunna get a final bush hogging done when I return home later today and then early next week have planned a trip down to the 'Rivah' to see if I can remember what Interlude looks like and what all those rope thingy things do!

We sooo.... miss the world BC.

[Bob23]

Back now...was absent for a while.  Did someone mention Stark and Dormies?
I haven't dismissed the idea of rowing to Tangier. But being a dry island, I'll need to pack my own rum. Would that make me a smuggler?  This trip could take place next summer but I need to do some research. The distance isn't too far, but crossing some shipping lanes means some planning is in order.

Rick- I was just talking with someone about cross country skiing in Whitegrass this winter. Hmm...maybe!

Koinonia is still in the water and to my shame, she certainly hasn't overworked herself this summer. But it ain't over yet- fall sailing up here is so nice..assuming our beloved guvna doesn't try to tax the wind, which wouldn't surprise me in the least!!

Cheers to you mates! I raise my glass of Evan Williams to you!!

Bob23

[brackish]

At the risk of jinxing this, I'm targeting Wed. for an overnight trip, sailing up to five fingers or maybe Crows Neck.  Steaks on the Magma, full moon, first hint of fall with highs at about seventy, low around fifty, some of the early hardwoods turning.  WNW wind on the sail up which is a close reach, NW winds the next day which would be a broad reach, both at 10MPH.  Admiral as crew and company.

No I did not get to the haulout, but one more cruise with a scuzzy bottom is possible, just a little slower kinda like me.

Will it happen? Can I pull it off?  Who knows, but I'm beginning to believe in long odds, after all Mississippi State just upset National Champion LSU in Baton Rouge. 

Skiing? not even going to talk about it other than to say I won't have to tune or wax my skis again since I didn't get to use them last year after the Governor of CO shut down all resorts on the day of my departure. We'll wait till spring to see where that goes.