A Sailor's Spring

"Our ship was now all cased with ice, -hull, spars, and standing rigging; -and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly bend it so as to belay it, or, still worse, take a knot with it; and the sails nearly as stiff as sheet iron."  (Richard Henry Dana from Two Years Before the Mast, 1840)

I feel cold just reading that quote. Luckily, I'm quickly warmed looking out the window here in early March and seeing budding trees and an absence of snow. Even after one of the mildest winters I can recall, it's still incredibly energizing to get the first taste of spring. 'Tis the season for maintenance lists to take shape and local chandleries and yards to start crawling with shoppers and workers. If the weather wasn't enough to remind me, the giant catalogs from West Marine and Defender that arrived in the mail would do the trick.

I'll be trying to stick with the two-blog-posts-per-week rhythm as sailing season quickly approaches. Here's what you can expect on the blog for the spring season:

  • Sailing shoe review (Keen, Merrell, others?)
  • "One Particular Harbor" (A look at my dream destinations and possibly yours too!)
  • Applying Interlux VC17m Bottom Paint (documenting my process)
  • Invasive Species in our Great Lakes and Favorite Ports
  • Top Ten Bluewater Sailboats
  • Sailboat Names that Make you Go "Hmmm"
  • And much more!
Spring sunset from 2010 (To balance out the chilly quote from Dana above!)


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