April 15 to 22 -- Three "Other" Days: Days Off From Boat Work

Don't worry friends. I have been working on ILENE and she will be ready to launch soon. When she does I will report on the winter season's work. But this post is about non-boat-work days. 

A three day weekend in the Berkshires with good food and conversation, a string quartet concert and rest -- but no boat work except a visit to the local hardware store for stainless bolts and brass screws (which I count as inadequate to call it a working day) -- came first.

Monday was the memorial service for Estelle, a lady of my Congregation, who served as head of the nursery school and on the board as social action chair in addition to being a physicist, an IT worker, a liberal humanist, a Yiddishist, a conservationist , an all around good person and -- wait for it --  a passenger on my boat. She was 89 and will be missed.

Friday was an all-day (10:30 - 6:00) conference at the CUNY Graduate Center titled:

 

I wondered what that could have been about. In fact ten curators and professors of American Art History gave papers, illustrated with slides, on aspects of American Landscape (and Seascape) Art. In fact it was great fun and quite interesting. Eight of the ten talks involved the watery side of things. Two of the talks were about Winslow Homer's "The Gulf Stream", which we viewed during

the Harlem's winter excursion to the Met in February. One of these talks contrasted Homer's  painting with one that was given the same name by a modern Black artist, Marshall, showing a group of black people out for a fun sail in the tropics instead of one on an out of control boat in extreme peril. Both show the boat's port quarter aspect, heeled to port, but in Homer's this is caused by the tumultuous waves of the Stream, and in Marshall's by the graceful effects of the breeze.

Another talk dealt with nautical charts and another with the riverine area of St. Augustine, which we have come to love after ILENE's three stops there during our southern cruises. Only about fifty people, good refreshments, and I was able to contribute to these Ph.D's educations by filling them in on aspects of sailing, of which they were unaware.

Saturday, after setting up for brunch for eight folks from Lene's HS class, I went to the Harlem for a meeting to discuss plans for the summer cruise. Both a nine day and a five day option had been prepared, which would required either a full five consecutive days off from work, or only three. I expected a debate about the relative merits of these two alternatives, and had called about twenty of our newer members with boats 25 feet or longer, for whom these shorter duration cruises, with shorter passages, had been designed. I like planning cruises, even ones that I'm not available to attend.

But the meeting was quite frustrating. Three families of experienced cruisers, PCs of the Club, attended, along with a new member, Mike, who has a 33 foot Scandinavian boat. They designed a cruise of about two weeks duration with five lay days in Block Island; that's what they wanted to do. Others may join them. Mike plans to detach from the others and return to the Harlem via Montauk Point and the south shore of Long Island.

None of the five day protagonists attended. I will flesh out details for the five day itinerary and serve as the contact point for connecting those folks, if any, who wish to attend. Hopefully someone will agree to provide a bit of leadership or coordination during the five days, if anyone at all takes part in this second of two Club cruises.

Back to work; my mistress, ILENE, beckons.