Tag: Outdoors

ON STONE CLEAVED FROM RAMPART

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Sometimes, in blogging, an intended post gets caught unposted. Here one of those finally appears. My, it was drafted long before I lived this close to the sea. 

 

however elegant, talisman bowsprits
cast gelatinous shadows
along shoreline and then blackened wharf
grappling irons of the hull or side gateway

expertly, the customs master inspects
postgraduate credentials in each captain’s script
and assesses the excise due

the crew, returning well-off in some dividend
of dexterity, superstition, and chance
fathoms contempt at the helm

some hauled fishing mesh or harpooned leviathans
or transposed merchandise from Shanghai or Liverpool
while privateers or warships are porcupines passing by

while on the other hand, coming downstream
through melting forest ignorance
deadly as any rip current, as any metropolis

with charts, rudimentary as
a canoe or kayak
traverse bitter

names for the same stars
argument or laughter, depending
on the embrace
in all that I found welcome

still, you know seasoned voyageurs
who will fear water

Gilkey Harbor memory

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The member ships of the Maine Windjammer Association are independently owned and operated, and apart from setting firm departure and return dates, each of them ventures at the will of its skipper and the elements each day.

Watching the others in the course of a cruise is almost a game, and sometimes two or three wind up spending the night in the same cove, as happened here on Islesboro. We had the Heritage, above on one side, and the Angelique on the other, and the atmosphere was festive.

For more schooner sailing experiences, take a look at my Under Sail photo album at Thistle Finch editions.

Square rigging

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When you think of a tall-masted sailing ship, it’s probably like this, one with squared masts and rectangular sails. This one does have a gaff aft sail, resembling the sails on a schooner.

Square-rigged ships did require larger crews than did schooners and sloops, and they weren’t as agile in the wind, but they could carry more cargo.

As for the bird in the nest atop the rock outcropping? I think it’s an osprey.

Welcome to Rockland Harbor.

A moment in the life

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Late afternoon at the former West Quoddy Coast Guard lifesaving station. The boathouse, lower right, sits at the edge of Lubec Channel, with Campolbello Island, New Brunswick running above it. A bridge, barely visible here, connects Canada to the United States, with the town of Lubec continuing along the water. You may even detect the “sparkplug” lighthouse sitting in the water. The city of Eastport, where we live, can be seen beyond the bridge.