Out of Focus

When I forget to take my new camera out of close-up mode, it can ruin a perfectly good scene. Here's an example for you.

So I went back and did it all over again, see?

Much better.

This is D dock at the marina. I love boats and water so you'll see quite a few pictures from there. I promise no more fuzzy demonstrations. The only fuzzy pictures I'll inflict on you are those I can't replace.

Such as the little praying mantis.

Til next time!

Boat in Transit

My husband is an experienced sailor. He first crewed aboard a 50' Morgan regularly off the coast of San Francisco at age six, with an old sailor who believed in assigning duties to everyone regardless of age. Over the years he's sailed in various lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. He is, however, unfamilar with the Chesapeake Bay.

The little sailboat was in Seaford at Mills Marina, which is located on a large creek. There are sailboats there. I wonder if they trucked them in. What I remember of the charts is that the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay is shallow. REALLY shallow as in two to six foot deep. Our boat's draft is only 3'2", but considering that sailboats can't be sailed in a nice straight line down the middle of a channel what happened next is not surprising.

It ran aground; the motor pulled it free of the drifted sand. Again. Two groundings later attempting to make it out of the channel, he came aground on rocks, rather than shifting sand and called for a tow. The man who towed him to Dare Marina a bit further south in Yorktown, informed him that the sand bottom does considerable shifting, is extremely shallow in spots up to five miles from shore and is not adequately reflected in the charts.

That was a big "Ouch!!" It didn't go anywhere for two weeks.

There were however, priceless moments including several minutes when a pod of dolphins accompanied the boat.

A Big Surprise!!!

I fully expected my first post to be a "how to" article on quilt binding. After all this blog is named "Shilo Quilts". However the second part of the name ".....and Stuff" is how I'm starting.

Because I have exciting news. My husband bought a sailboat! So I foresee quite a bit of "...and Stuff" on Sundays this summer. He has been talking about wanting to buy a boat, an airplane, build a boat, an airplane, doodling designs for both for years. I'm calling it his surprise of the decade. He doesn't understand why I'm surprised, since he's been looking at boat ads for the last six months waiting for the right opportunity. True, but when he said he was planning on buying a boat two days hence, it changed focus to "right now" rather than "some day" and qualified as a surprise.

We used to own a small sailboat and that was a surprise too. Mostly because of the way we acquired it. We wanted one, but couldn't afford to purchase a boat. As we were driving past a boat dealers, we spotted a 17' Venture (MacGregor) sitting on a trailer. He traded a computer for it! Can you believe that??!!

Sailboats look much larger on trailers with the keel hanging under them when you are standing on the ground looking up at the deck, than they do in the water when you are standing on the dock looking down at the deck. I was surprised how small it was when we put it in the water.

Here is a picture of the new one. Yes it is in need of lots of TLC of the elbow grease variety, but it's not as dingy as it appears. This was taken on a rainy day with heavy overcast. It looks much better when the sun shines through the clouds.

This is a Columbia 22 built in 1969 locally, which is kind of cool. It has a 30' mast, 7'9" beam and a 3'2" draft.

He found it in Seaford southeast of Yorktown. There's a marina less than a mile and a half from us that is one of the top rated ones in Hampton Roads, and is $65 less per month in slip rental then the one in Seaford with much better amenities. AND no bogged down tunnel traffic. It took 2 hours to make a trip of 33 miles to look at it.