Fire on board

Wooden sailing vessels traditionally had only one fire onboard, the cook’s stove. I can’t imagine how cold sailors, much less passengers, were through most of the year.

Windjammers hew to that tradition.

a wooden sailing vessel
with a wood-fired cook stove
and kerosine lanterns

two iceboxes

Smoke from the cookstove goes
into a T-shaped chimney vent

don’t get too close

“Smokestack,” not “chimney”
maybe “noble Charlie”

A sense of Lake Meddybemps

Sunrise County is laced with big lakes. In fact, 21 percent of it 3,258 square miles is water, including streams of all sizes, bogs and flowages, and ponds.

The largest lake, Meddybemps, covers more than 27 square miles within four towns, reaches a maximum depth of 58 feet, is dotted with islands, and is famed for its smallmouth bass fishing.

Light on winter ice provides a unique clarity in perceiving the lake’s profile, seen in part here from State Route 214.

Wyman

We recently had to flee our house for 24 hours after spray-foam insultation was applied to our second-floor renovations. That meant heading to an Airbnb in town.

This attractive wooden plaque above the stove caught my attention. Good use of a serif typeface in green ink.

And then it struck me: this was from the end of a blueberry-picking crate. I’m sure it’s been rendered obsolete.

Hoisting the sail

perfect weather, sunny, 60s
a knot = 1.1 mph

a little more up
meaning into the wind

luffing, meaning chuffing in the sheets

no sea legs yet
wobbly

even on calm seas

bit queasy
edge of mal de mer?

slow lull

slow sun

will I feel a late-season burn?

“all on the bowline, we sing that melody
like all good sailors do when they’re faraway at sea”
a song our Dylan doesn’t know
in his impressive repertoire
a generational gap

116th Street Blues, starts out with Captain Ahab
then more nautical lines

find your own style

it’s an active experience
just relax