Down South in February

Ashburn, Georgia

Time to gas up. Should I wait the 10 miles for the big town of Tifton, Georgia or get off at exit 69 on I-75 going south to Florida. I get off. No fanfare of multiple gas and fast food establishments here. Just a Subway attached to a Speedway. Dilapidated is a good word for this conglomeration of buildings: wore out plywood and cheap paint.

I have smelt burnt carbon each time we stop or slow down and so, it is time to check the oil. I pop the hood but decided to fill the gas tank first. A sleek black Mercedes pulls in next to me. Its equally sleek owner jumps out and as I shimmy between the cars I see an alert coiffed pint size yorkie in its bed in the backseat. In the time it takes me to walk from the back to the front of the car I have alerted Charlotte to the dog’s presence, and invented a mythology about car, dog, owner, and his wife.

Back to reality, the oil is down ¾ quart since leaving Chicago. I search for signs of a leak and see a puddle of oil on a flat surface near to what looks like a sensor. It is a tight squeeze stuffing a paper towel down into the area when a young sheriff startles me. “What’s the problem”, he asks. I am not sure, I tell him. He thinks it is best if we confirm what type of fluid it is: anti-freeze or oil.

I cannot get the paper towel down far enough so the he hands me an odd looking screwdriver, but its not, it is an extended key for handcuffs. So he does not have to touch his clients he explains. Another voice surfaces from a gentleman walking to his pickup truck. “Yea”, he says, “VW’s and Subaru’s need the constant additions of parts to keep them going”.

We three agree it smells like oil. Wishful thinking on my part, as other smells would denote outcomes I did not want to contemplate in rural Georgia. Hurrah, when I pull out the towel it is confirmed — oil. I repeat my head-gasket-failing-in-the-West-Virginia-mountains mantra and we quietly speculate. Well, call us if you have a problem the sheriff says as he trots back to his lunch with an equally young woman in a bright orange shirt.

I go into the minimart in search of a quart of oil. I ask the clerk but she is busy in conversation with a large disheveled UPS driver so I go looking. “How is so and so . . . how did the [Superbowl] weekend go?”, he asks her. She responds with a sigh and a downward glance, “Drinking’s tough”. “Hope his liver holds out”, Mr. UPS says as he places various Miss Debbie products on the counter and fingers through the Mr. Peanut’s packets.

When she looks up, I am there with my $4.95 generic 10W-40. Before I leave, I ask if she has a paper funnel and she response, “Yes sir we do.” And with that polite “sir”, I know I am in the South

New Smyrna Beach


Oh Soleil, Oh Aten, Oh Helios, Oh Amaterasu — Hallelujah.

If I could worship you now I would,

At least ‘til Chi-Town is reacquired.

Land of Lincoln cold in his sarcophagus,

Land of gloom,

Land of dread,

Land of disappointment.

March and April and May

Will past before Lincoln’s land commits to the sun.

So no giddiness,

No false hope,

Until warmth.


2/7/2015

Easting

Holiday Letter 2014

Who said we could not go home again . . . Well, I am not sure who but I know that Carrie Rose has not. In a leap of faith, several years ago we gave up our summer “plot” at Montrose Harbor and stayed north. The first year in Mackinaw City, MI, the next in Alexandria Bay, NY and this year Carrie Rose is spending the winter on Grand Isle, Vermont.

Vermont is a lovely state. The people are genuinely friendly without gushing. The grass is emerald green. The sky is pure blue, as is the water. The vegetables are organic. The milk is GMO free. And there is the presence of civility. By that, I mean there is an intellectual fervor. The most striking example of that for me was the unique bagels shop a few miles from the harbor.

We are not in a harbor per say. More like a carved out portion of the island. Right after we pulled into our slip at Ladd’s Landing Marina and decided to stay, I looked to the NE and saw nothing but water. So, at some point, I am sure there will be hell to pay when the wind picks up but the time we spent there was peaceful.

Ladd’s Landing is a marina constructed out of an old quarry of metamorphous rock. A young and charming mom, dad, and daughter run the operation with the help of various other characters filling in the gaps. So, from the very beginning we felt right at home. They let me do what I wanted and I wanted to fix our dingy after we went for a boat ride and realized that Lake Champlain was leaking in the side of it. I wanted to winterize the engine and the generator and the water system and the toilet . . . well you get the idea.

You might be wondering how we ended up on another island this year like we were last year in the middle of the St. Lawrence River on Wellesley Island. A Nordic Tug friend or should I just say a friend boarded us at U.S. customs and directed us to his marina. He had even done the preliminaries down to the slip we spent the end of our boating season in.

Jerry and his wife Diane took us in their tug, Water Horse, to a local state park (on another island) and on a grand tour of the lake. Lake Champlain seems manageable being at most 15 miles across with much of its cruising destinations well within a days cruise. This is opposed to Lake Michigan where there is anywhere from 200 to 500 miles of open lake before getting somewhere worthy of a Nordic Tug.


This spring and summer, we did not cruise far miles wise but went through many environs. We traveled from the Thousand Islands of New York and Canada, to the rustic Rideau Waterway north to Canada’s striking capital Ottawa. Then eastward on the Ottawa River to the complex waters of Montreal where we turned NE onto the St. Lawrence River, and traveled with the current to Sorrel, turning south down the Richelieu River through the Chambly Canal and into Lake Champlain.

As varied as the terrain we traversed were the people. Entering Quebec was like a trip to Europe. The farther east we went the more French it became. The gastronomic level of the bread, pastries, cheese, and wine went up. As did the engaging personalities, it made me wish I had learned some French along the way. But then, with some of the mystery gone, the experience might be diluted.

Now onto 2015 with the knowledge that we will have no need for a schedule other than the one that nature imposes on individuals that find the watery world intriguing enough to countermand the rigors of a life floating in a hunk of plastic.

Happy Holidays and Happy New Year to all our family and friends who make the experience of living so special!

Charlotte & Dean

A Mix of Sun and Cloud

Holiday Letter 2013

In Canada weather is a relative thing. Here in the States we are more precise. It is partly cloudy or partly sunny, but up north they seem to frown on such precision. Up north it is perpetually a mix of sun and cloud.

The lower 48 is inundated with weather data. As of today 33 out of 39 websites bookmarked on my computer pertain to weather. It is the first screen I wake up to and the last I review before reluctantly going to bed.

There are sites for the jet stream; radar; pressure gradients; convection; visual, water vapor and infrared images from distant satellites; weather buoys in the Great Lakes; marine and land based forecasts. There are more. It is important to keep track of tropical storms and hurricanes, as they will throw a wrench into the regular weather patterns. And it is nice to know what the jet stream is up to as it gyrates across the Pacific Ocean.

This said, when in Canada we were back to looking out the window and tapping the barometer. Not that it mattered much this year. This year, for the most part, we spent in the protected waters of Ontario’s waterways. In its rivers, canals and small inland lakes only occasionally sticking our bow out into the bigger waters we usually spend all summer traversing.

I admit that when we finally snuck out onto Lake Ontario’s northeastern shore we did not have the heart to venture south onto the open lake. Instead Carrie Rose found herself working her way through shallow wetlands seeking refuge in the Rideau Canal.

Waterways are a different realm. We’ve been there before. Late one October many years ago we fool heartedly ventured 50 miles southwest from the Chicago Lock through the magnificent architecture of the Main Branch of the Chicago River, along the South Branch to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, the Des Plaines River and finally stopping a few miles short from the Illinois River.

We passed through two locks, which dropped us some 70 feet; went from city, to industry, to pastoral landscape and back again. There were shoals, currents, and gargantuan tugboats pushing their tows. There were bridges that needed raising and lock gates that needed opening. It was a slalom course done at 5 mph. We were so preoccupied with piloting the boat that barely a picture exists of the cruise.

But I am not sure why I am focusing on the past. This year we drove—and I mean drove—800 nautical miles through the rock strewn crystal clear waters of Lake Huron’s North Channel and Georgian Bay to get to the cottage and farm lined Trent-Severn Waterway into Lake Ontario and Kingston, ON. Then we took a short sojourn into the Rideau Canal, retraced our steps back out and cruised north into the Thousand Island region of the St. Lawrence River ending up in a shed at Alexandria Bay, NY.

As the waters changed so did the personalities. We went from the congeniality of the Midwest, to the magnanimous Canadians, to the feistiness of the Québécois, to the not unpleasant but abrupt folk of upstate New York. And all along the way people were drawn to us because of Carrie Rose’s irresistible charm and the cred that being from Chicago bestowed on us.

When our response to the inevitable question of where we are from sunk in, universally they said, “In that!” And to that we’d nod and smile, and slowly retreat into our wood lined sanctuary.

For a sanctuary, albeit a small one, it is. A refuge from the daily grind, from the wider worlds of culture and politics, from good things and bad into a life with the simple purpose to move on, to stay afloat, to keep off the rocks and to manage to anchor or dock without embarrassing ourselves . . . and in the end, for a job well done, collect a reward measured in scoops of ice cream enjoyed out in the mix of sun and cloud.

Happy Holidays!
Charlotte & Dean

Topsy-Turvy

Christmas Letter 2012.

On occasion Carrie Rose turns into a washing machine and cleans our clock. Mostly she is well behaved. We trust our life to her each time we head across a great lake. It is hard to describe the feelings that lead up to leaving. As I write this I can see us from above, gliding out between the red and green towers like the stories from those fortunate souls that are brought back from certain death to describe their out of body experience, hovering over themselves in the real world.

To throw off the lines from a comfortable scenic mooring in Montrose Harbor and steam north with the thought, however far in the back of the mind, that we may not return requires, well letting go of an entrenched lifestyle. It was not until the first of August while still anchored in Canada’s North Channel that we decided not to travel the 500 miles back to home base.

We both sighed with relief. We could now relax for a few weeks and leisurely make our way to Mackinaw City, MI where Carrie Rose now sits nestled in a pristine shed deep in a pine forest. Our fellow cruisers had left us behind to attend to their grand children and relatives weddings. We wandered back through familiar territory that now with time we were able to explore.

Beardrop Harbor was ours alone for a morning and early afternoon. We floated at anchor and soaked in the silence. We motored in Rosie, the tiny wooden dinghy, past sculptural rock formations, beaver homes, water lily shorelines, and shallow rock strewn passages. We climbed ancient rock formation carved flat by glaciers. Looked out across at Whaleback Island which lent its name to the channel it dominants.

After several days of swaying in the wind and waves, with the weather window quickly closing in on us we left for points east, a little later in the morning than usual. We traveled fifty miles through a building chop with a simultaneous following wave until our destination was in sight. We crossed into the lee of a headland and somewhat raucously made our way into the marina at Thessalon, Ontario.

Thessalon was our first entry into Canada some six weeks before. When cruising we seldom venture too deep into the towns we visit. The grocery and hardware stores get frequented, as does the laundromat. In Canada the government controlled liquor stores are scoped out in hopes of finding a less than incipient wine. Alas, a fruitless task. Better to be a beer drinker in these small communities.

But this time we had time and so with the bikes unfolded, cleaned of spider webs and oiled, we explored the town. What appeared a dissolute town was actually a vibrant, thriving community. The best sunset of the summer that refused to disappear lead to a summer fest and, with all of Canada’s thousand of square miles of wilderness, the most congested camp ground/trailer/RV park I have ever seen. I suppose when you spend the winter in the dark and cold, the summer is no time to seek solitude.

Canadians truly seem to enjoy each other’s company. They revel in it. They are helpful beyond the call of duty. For a big city boy like me, who continues to lock the boat no matter how deep in the wilderness, their fellowship is hard to accept. I breathe deep and hold my sarcastic tongue. I am a better man for it. If Canada was further south I might even think of moving there.

South of Thessalon about ten miles we crossed the border into the USA. I went forward and took the Canadian flag down. We snaked our way towards the low dark green sheds of Drummond Island Yacht Haven to meet up with customs and declare that we had nothing to declare except for a summer full of fond memories, even if a few required being rung through the rinse cycle.

Happy New Year!

Charlotte & Dean

Wandering

Christmas Letter 2011

Charlotte retired this year and I took maternity leave, really a self financed sabbatical. After decades of dreaming and preparing we both figured it was time to go, and so we went to the North Channel of Lake Huron in deepest, darkest Canada. This time, not really. Canada was light from early in the morning to well after 9 o’clock. We spent about 12 weeks on Carrie Rose and were in no big hurry to disembark when we finally arrived home.

She proved a good friend and for other than the two weeks we were stranded in Little Current, Ontario awaiting mechanics and parts and mechanics (it’s a long story), she safely took us over 1200 miles up and down the east coast of Lake Michigan through the Manitou Passage, Gray’s Reef, the Straits of Mackinaw and under the Mackinaw Bridge. Then we skirted the northern border of Lake Huron and took a left up DeTour Passage into Canada’s archipelago known as the North Channel.

We were not alone, having connected with Sir Tugly Blue, Dolly, Jenny Jo and O Be Quiet. Better mates we could not have hoped for. We listened to the song of the white-throated sparrow, sheltered in pine and rock studded anchorages, spent days piloting through fog and more days surfing down waves. We also had cocktails at 5:30, collected rocks, road our bikes and lost 10 pounds.

What a privilege to spend a summer wandering on fresh blue water. The memory continues to keep me up at night and writing so if I have peaked your interest go to Chicagotug.blogspot.com to see a few pictures.

Projects

Holiday Letter 2010

I try to avoid clichés, but this year I bit off more than I could chew. Every year as summer wanes I find myself with a list of winter boat projects. It sits staring at me on a yellow post-it note just forward of Carrie Rose’s helm. Though different each year the length never seems to diminish. 2009’s was particularly long.

Of course it does not includes regularly scheduled maintenance; things like bottom paint, oil and filters, and maybe, if I have the energy, waxing the boat. These tasks are straightforward and require more grunt work than psychic energy. But the others are, well, unique and hopefully once in a lifetime projects.

How to begin? First mate (and purser) Charlotte advises plotting each project on a spreadsheet. Arranging the details neatly in little rectangular boxes according to start and finish dates, part numbers and cost projections. She assures me the process will then proceed in a logical fashion from purchase to installation. Alas, I cannot fit myself into little rectangles. Just looking at a spreadsheet causes my mind to go into hibernation.

Granted, over the years I have accomplish a lot, and I know if I were a little more organized I could have saved myself a decade over the last half century. I am as organized as I am ever going to get and I’m all right with that even if it drives my first mate nuts. One of the convoluted ways I ensure that a project will be completed is to spend thousands of dollars on hardware prior to knowing what I am getting myself into.

In Chicago, winter is spent going to boat shows and devoting hundreds of hours online or with my head buried in marine catalogs. Boats are peculiar entities in a world of look alike mass-produced items. They are individuals. Patience is required when working on them. Each project entails funding, logistics and consultation prior to picking up a wrench or cutting a hole. The old adage, measure twice—cut once, though not always followed, has deep roots in the marine community.

Before beginning I familiarize myself with the anatomy. I sit on Carrie Rose and stare at what needs to be repaired or replaced. I gaze into the void where something new is to be installed. Manuals are read and highlighted. Equipment is fondled. Consultation’s sought. I visualize the job and note the steps.

Sometimes, no matter how much study, I am stymied. This may seem obvious, but I know that if I do not start I will never finish. Caution is thrown to the wind and I begin, hoping the inevitable mistakes will not be too costly. This year I was blessed with several opportunities to put this approach into practice.

It started with the head. While not complex, plumbing can be frustrating. Installation is simply getting the correct hoses attached in the correct way without a lot of extra curves and of course, without leaks. An understatement if I ever heard one. To get the proper bends, so I would not have to cut more holes in the boat, I experimented with heating various hoses in the oven. Nothing much came of this approach other than stinking up the house. Then I discovered just the right hose and it all came together. Not without a few scraped knuckles and a kinked back, but that is the price you pay for not hiring a professional. This first project was miraculously completed before Carrie Rose was launched and worked splendidly all summer.

Now with the boat in the water, it was essential to install the autopilot. It is a complex device that encompasses the entire boat, so the first thing I did was to expose every hidden cubbyhole from the bow to the stern. It made Carrie Rose unlivable. Several weekend sleepovers had to be canceled. To make matters worse we had an early heat wave with temperatures over ninety degrees.

Every chance I got I rowed out to the boat and slaved. I’d get home, reread the manual and the next day find myself redoing what I had done the day before, only correctly. After 50 hours of uncompensated labor it was finally installed. I turned it on and nada.

I restrained from jumping in the lake. It would have been a fitting end to the misery, but the water was too warm to do much damage. Flashlight in hand I delved into the guts of the boat looking like Slim Pickens straddling the H-bomb in Dr. Strangelove. I waited for the next morning to push the power button again and sure enough it worked. Hallelujah!

Next came the propane cabin heater. It took me all winter to find the correct combination of fittings to connect it to the twenty pounds of propane at the stern. Then I tortured over the decision about where to locate it. Once decided the installation was straightforward, if you think drilling a four-inch hole in the roof of a Nordic Tug clear-cut. It worked perfectly during the premature cold snap other than for the leaking propane (quickly fixed!), but we won’t go there.

Now, already mid-August, it was time to enjoy the boat. I invited Charlotte to inspect my handy work. It was so exciting to be finished. To celebrate I planned a short cruise south to the casino and steel mill laden coast of Indiana when I discovered a leak in the exhaust system—back to the drawing board!

Gone

Well, mom died. The little pistol, as my father referred to her when he was warning me about some impending crisis I had or had not precipitated. She died at 9:15 PM on 12/9/10. A few days short of what would have been her fourth Christmas in captivity.

If I could, I would have a monument in the shape of an ironing board made for her. It would be frivolous and thus an insult to her memory, but she did love to iron. Or maybe nurture is a better word. Though petit, only four foot eight, woe to the person who mistook her for a cute little old lady.

She was not cuddly. I only remember giving her a kiss that she returned in these last few years. What I do remember is that she was fiercely loyal to her family, in a Sicilian way. Nothing else mattered.

Though she loathed animals, I thought that her and dad would have made great dairy farmers. They had never ending energy. Dad wore out first, but up until the last six weeks of his life he was not allowed to rest. After he died she did not allow herself to either.

I think activity was her way of keeping the demons at bay. She had a tough life growing up, as I learned when she could only remember the past. The baby of the family, she protected her mother from our grandpa. There were never any specifics, just cold facts filtered through worsening dementia.

The above, the depression, the war and poverty made her who she was, take-no-prisoners serious. That said she loved to dance with my father. Something they did until a month before he died. She reveled in their newfound friends from the Moose club where they danced every Saturday night.

She could cook. I grew up blessed: pizza, pasta, bread and cookies, and baked Alaska for heavens sake. And when I betrayed her by becoming a vegetarian, she invented a new cuisine just for me. I admit to being a momma’s boy. I am not at all ashamed.

She insisted on doing the laundry and the ironing. She did not allow any weeds in the garden or the lawn. She did not tolerate clutter and hassled me about my room (too many books), my basement (too many boats) and my house (too much stuff). She threw out my clothes just when they were perfectly worn out. She did not understand how I could have gone to school for 27 years. I mean just how many diplomas did I need.

She and my dad loved the boys. It was great fun to see them interact. I never experienced the relationship between grandparents and grandkids. Theirs was textbook. To watch them after a day at Great America, I will never forget the sight of my dad and the boys soaking wet even after driving home from Gurnee.

Of course she managed, not participated. For all her spunk she had a fearful streak. It might be why dad and her got along so well. He was fearless in the natural world and she was fearless in the civilized one. They were a matched set. He adored her and would do anything for her. Granted he occasionally got frustrated, but at once a decade it hardly counts.

So what do we do now that the matriarch has died? We can’t kid her any more. We can’t piss her off just to try to calm her down. There will be no more aglio e olio with egg noodles, no more cannoli, no more breaded eggplant, no more …

I know this is the natural order of things. I know we are all chopped liver in the end, but I do not have to like it. Maybe it is that I am now on my own, totally responsible for myself. Maybe it is that I finally have to grow up. It is hard to be a momma’s boy with no momma.

Theresa’s gone. Look out God!

Stationary Front

Holiday Letter 2009


A low develops. It drops down from the Arctic or is born in the Pacific off the West coast of Washington State, and travels eastward across the continent. It stays in Canada due to the influence of the jet stream and sits unmoving, centered over Ontario.

Tendrils extend south past Chicago, but most of its venom is unleashed on northern Michigan and above. NW wind gusting to 25 knots, low clouds, cold and rain are what it contributes. Summer nights are not balmy while it spins counterclockwise above us, but a frigid fifty degrees.

On the West coast of Lake Michigan where I live, this NW wind would not represent a problem. Though the wind may blow, the surface of the lake remains calm. There is no fetch to allow the waves to build. We can usually travel without discomfort, vigilant not to be blown off course with our little ship crabbing into the wind to maintain the proper track.

But here on the East coast the waves have time to build and hit Carrie Rose on her starboard bow just aft of the forward quarter. The long keel, large diesel and equally large prop of our Nordic Tug keeps us moving in a more-or-less straight line, but does not prevent the inclinometer from quickly swinging 15 to 30 degrees either side of center.

Out on the lake just south of Charlevoix, MI we begin to think of options. No long trip today. I depressed the GOTO button on the GPS and alter course. Fresh blue water cascades up and over the pilothouse, and soaks our bed because I have neglected to secure the forward hatch. Either due to complacency or over familiarity with the process, I have stopped consulting my pre-departure checklist, wrongly thinking I will reflexively perform the appropriate tasks. Is this not the precise reason for a checklist?

Our new destination shortens today’s trip from fifty to fifteen miles. First we need to cross Grand Traverse Bay and then, once in the lee of Lighthouse Point, things should calm down. Soon after that all will be well except for a few shoals to avoid in Northport Bay, and then the ever-present anxiety about when to depart will begin.

If you look at a map of Lake Michigan you see an undulating coastline like the design on the blade of a fine samurai sword. On land these curves hardly matter. Most are sought after for their scenic beauty. On the water they are obstacles to surmount.

Grand Traverse Bay’s large opening alters the weather and waves surrounding it. Points of land also do this. More of a factor for sailboats, I also note the different feel and sound of boat and engine as we round the various headlands. This gets the hair on my neck ruffled and heightens my awareness. With good reason as many of these points have sent much larger boats than ours to the bottom.

Large lighthouses mark their farthest reaches. Big and Little Sable Points, Point Betsie, Grand Traverse and North Manitou Shoal illuminate the hazards to navigation. I do not follow the coast closely, preferring to stay off shore watching the beach as it recedes and then miles later, comes up to meet us. This habit of staying offshore is a remnant from my sailing days.

On our harried trip home we travel from Northport to Pentwater, skirting through the Manitou Passage protected from the NW wind by the North and South Manitou Islands. We hop-scotch from Sleeping Bear Point to Point Betsie to Big Sable Point, and then after 116 nautical miles (our longest trip yet) gratefully tie up at the fuel dock in Pentwater. It was the last and the best spot in town to watch the fireworks held on July 3rd in this quaint coastal village.

With the rising sun we maneuver between trolling fishing boats and once around Little Sable Point, head straight for Holland, MI. In Holland we sleep the extra hour we will gain by crossing the lake to Chicago. We venture out on a beautiful flat blue surface and are interrupted by only a few miles of fog and one equally lonely powerboat crossing our path in eight hours.

Two weeks on the water. Sixty-one hours on the diesel. A new radio won for being the boat that came the farthest to the Nordic Tug rendezvous in Charlevoix and five days marooned in Northport due to weather.

A cruise is made up of emotions: joy, mania, camaraderie, frustration, accomplishment, doubt and confidence, and for good measure throw in a little superstition. Success depends on consultation and debate. It depends on flexibility and on engineering. It did not need to be exaggerated by the counter clockwise rotation of the stationary front to be memorable, but there it is.

Serendipity

Published in The Good Old Boat December 2009 online newsletter.




Our boat, Carrie Rose, lives a solitary life on a mooring at the mouth of Montrose Harbor in Chicago for most of the summer. As we approached the middle of October and boats begin their fall exodus, the harbormaster asked if I would like to move to a berth. A berth is a nice place to be when doing chores: winterizing engines and plumbing systems, and once-a-year maintenance such as changing oil, cleaning the bilge and replacing fuel filters. It is easier to walk rather than row up to the boat with all the tools and the gallons of fluid necessary to complete the work.

I understand that these are mundane concerns, but for a mechanically minded boat owner (read geek) the process can be exciting. First we have to get the boat to the dock. Again, this may seem mundane. That is unless you have ever tried to put an inherently un-maneuverable craft into a tight space. It is like asking a suburban teenager to parallel park on the corner of Belmont and Clark. We who spend our time on moorings find parking in a berth intimidating. On the best of days, without wind and waves, things can go wrong. Many a relationship has ended at the end of a misapplied dock line.

And then, once we are firmly attached to the dock, there is another sobering realization. We have neighbors. Neighbors with kids and dogs and music systems playing the best of the 1970’s, neighbors that can walk right up and talk to us. On a mooring most conversations take place with one party treading water in their dinghy while the other sits comfortably on their boat. Such situations lend themselves to concise discussions of relevant subjects.

On a more uplifting note there is unlimited electricity. This comes in handy when the temperature drops to 38 degrees. We have two space heaters and a down comforter, but these only just keep up with the seeping dank cold. A dock also makes a good transitional space to acclimatize before spending winter on the flat stable earth, and in that, it is to be blessed.

The last several years we have tied up to pier M in a departed (for the winter that is) friend’s spot. It is conveniently located near the pump-out that sits at the far end, bordering the central channel of the harbor. This has not much to do with the story other than before leaving for the year, most boats have to pump their holding tanks dry, and in doing so I get to watch them come and go.

The diversity of the boats and their owners make for hours of cheap entertainment. I sit and watch from my pilothouse, and sometimes I am compelled to reach out and help. There are all types of boaters: from competent to incompetent to down right pathetic. I have been all of these at various stages of my watery career, so let’s just say I can relate.

On this particular Sunday a competent single-hander in a beautiful sailboat pulled up. Never being one to miss perusing an interesting boat, I put my book down and went out to help. Once I secured his forward dock line I complimented him on his boat and mentioned that I have always wanted to sail on one. To this he responded that he was going to sail out to the Harrison-Dever Crib and I was welcomed to join him.

My wife Charlotte gave me leave (a little too easily I thought), and I grabbed gloves, stocking hat, sweater, and a heavier coat before I jumped aboard. He was already hoisting the main sail and soon we powered through a fleet of Rhodes 19 sailboats out into a southwest wind. This southwest wind, as southwest winds are apt to be, was gusty and strong. The lake was as blue as the sky and flat, with just the subtle ripples caused by 15 to 20 knot winds. Being so close to shore the wind did not have time to build waves commensurate to their strength. These ripples will gain height as they glide across seventy miles of open water, eventually pounding into the sandy beaches of Lake Michigan’s eastern shore.

After a quick tutorial, we let the genoa fly, sheeted it in and heeled some thirty degrees to the first of many strong gusts. I sat quietly on the high side letting my senses take in the transition between water and wind, and sail and fiberglass, and well … what else is there to say. This magnificently balanced implement for moving through water sprinted quickly and quietly to 6, 7 and then 8 knots. Wow!

A phone rang and I found myself, a little timidly at first, at the wheel. But you cannot be timid with such a thoroughbred. It pointed higher and higher into the wind, and now with her captain off the phone and back in the cockpit, a strong gust tilted us more and more. Sensing my trepidation he calmly instructed me to fall off some with the gust and then ride the acceleration higher into the breeze.

I would have to be a much better writer to describe the feel of my muscles as I held the wheel, the feel of the water rushing over the rudder, the sound of the windward rigging tightening to the forces acting on the sails and the feel of how this translates into forward motion. I lack the vocabulary to put these sentiments into words.

We flew out into the lake with Chicago’s muscular skyline off our starboard bow, and as the wind settled our tongues loosened and we talked of boats and planes and relationships, and the fact that there are two types of people in the world. The ones that get it and the ones that don’t; and on this day we were of the former.

http://www.goodoldboat.com/newsletter/09_decnews69.php#9

Pizza On Board

The following is a link to my article, Pizza On Board, published by PassageMaker Magazine in their September 2009 online Newsletter #2:
http://www.passagemaker.com/component/k2/item/1005-the-sea-of-cortez

Thunder

Holiday Letter 2008

Between the demise of my hospital, initiating and completing a job search, and my mothers worsening dementia our cruising plans were put on hold for another year. I did this reluctantly. You see, since passing fifty I have begun to feel a certain urgency to life: summers pass quickly and spring arrives reluctantly.

In a sudden urge to burn diesel, Charlotte and I hatched a plan to take Carrie Rose, our 32-foot Nordic Tug, forty nautical miles north to Winthrop Harbor on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin. Now in the annals of cruising literature this is hardly an epic voyage and Winthrop Harbor, though nice, is not a place where dreams are made, but in the truncated world of cruising around Chicago, it's not bad.

Winthrop Harbor was created in 1990 out of the last pristine wetlands of Northern Illinois. Upon viewing the plans of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources for the new harbor some years before it was built, we surely thought a hue and cry would surface and prevent the thousand-boat marina from ever being realized. None did and so there it sits, quietly isolated from the real world, surrounded by an incongruously green space in the company of toxic waste sites and a decommissioned nuclear power plant.

Charlotte has a connection to Winthrop Harbor in the form a retired colleague and a commuting buddy. Both have large powerboats: one enjoyed with two big lovable dogs and the other maintained in a state of Purr-fection, as its name implies.

A more tenuous thread to the harbor exists for me. I garnered from the Nordic Tug chat room that several tugs spend their summers there, so before we left Chicago I announced via email that Carrie Rose would be in Winthrop Harbor and left my cell phone number as a contact.

We had an uneventful ride north. In boating circles “uneventful” is much preferred. This is contrary to what most yachting literature purports. Of course sailors and power boaters will differ on what constitutes an adventure, but I believe most would opt for a beautiful day with steady winds, calm seas and billowy clouds to hellfire and damnation. Maybe this is just my middle-aged bias speaking, but so be it.

From the moment we secured our lines at slip B-3 we were surrounded by our new made friends. We invited them aboard and gave them a mandatory tour. They reciprocated and by the end of the weekend we had inspected five other boats ranging from twenty-six feet to over forty.

Carrie Rose was moored next to the main walkway and whenever I looked up from the pages of a book or from the task at hand, people stopping in cars, bikes or on foot would just be staring at us. Several even asked to see the boat. I strode up to the locked gate and ushered them into our world, but not before warning Charlotte of our latest intruder.

When we first investigated our boat, the couple we bought her from cautioned us that if we were not gregarious types we should look elsewhere for another little ship. They had spent two years living aboard her while traveling over six thousand miles around the Eastern United States, all the while feeling like an exotic bird on display.

Now, having assumed responsibility for Carrie Rose I can attest that they spoke truth. Because of her we had breakfast, drinks and dinner with different groups of the Winthrop Harbor boating fraternity all weekend.

Sunday afternoon came and suddenly we had the harbor to ourselves. After a quiet dinner and a glass of wine we were finally able to settle in and read one of the hitherto ignored books we brought with us.

Monday awoke with a literal bang. The sky opened up with rain, hail and thunder. This did not bode well for our trip home. We had had three beautiful days and that is really all you can expect from the Midwest’s tumultuous weather. When the rain lightened we scurried to the wi-fi of the yacht club with my ancient Apple laptop. There amongst the flags of local yacht clubs we reviewed the radar and seeing only red, determined to stay another day.

At times like this I try to fight the urge to get home. I understand, through hard won experience that worse awaits you on the water than whatever the repercussions a missed day at work might bring. That said we had gotten as far as standing by the boat with dock lines in hand and engine running before calling the trip off.

This tie to home must be why it is so hard to leave on a protracted voyage, but that is a topic for another time. With the quiet patter of rain on the deck we ate lunch and tried hard to read, but alas mostly napped. At about three o’clock the clouds cleared and I managed enough energy to check the radar again. I saw an opening in the weather large enough for the four hours it would take us to get home, so we left.

Nine miles south of Winthrop Harbor with Waukegan three miles off our starboard bow we listened to the weather radio again. The updated report sounded grim. The horizon ahead was clear. Simultaneously we turned and saw a darkening sky behind. Charlotte yelped, "Go faster!" and I obeyed.

Pushing the throttle to 2400-RPM Carrie Rose answered with a knot and a half more, and this shortened our time of arrival by twenty minutes. The sky was getting more biblical as we bounded towards Chicago; the overtaking clouds created shafts of light that radiated down, illuminating us with an eerie glow. Noticing I was grinding my teeth, I took a deep breath and concentrated on the path before us.

With what turned out to be twenty minutes to spare we roared around the east breakwater and into Montrose Harbor. After retrieving the dinghy we elected to head for our mooring and as Charlotte grabbed the first of its two lines the wind veered, rain started to pelt and bizarre sirens began to blare.

Again we turned the weather radio on only to hear more alarms and reports of 80 MPH “cyclonic” winds sweeping through downtown Chicago and coming our way. We closed the boat up tight and for the first time in my boating career donned life preservers while below deck. Being forever curious, and against Charlotte’s advice, I opened the door and looked south. There at the harbor mouth was a boiling ragged horizontal cloud that looked like it had our name on it.

Lets just say this was getting a bit out of control. I caught a glimpse of the chaos around us as the wind hit: sailboats swinging every which way with their bare mast severely heeling in the gusting wind. The rain hit, the water boiled as lightening struck all about us, and then it was over.

We had made it, but just barely. I know that you get in the most trouble heading for home, so I find it hard to comprehend why I did not heed my own advice. Lesson learned. . .I promise.

COOL TOOLS

Guide to sailing & docking
Single Handed Docking and Sail Trim with Captain Jack Klang


I have been on the water in one fashion or another for over 40 years and this is the first comprehensive presentation I have seen on how to dock in all types of conditions and situations. Captain Jack, in a mere 53 minutes, covers the main topics that drive sailors nuts: docking and sail trim, especially spinnakers. First he uses models to describe the maneuvers and then we see him on his own boat demonstrating in real time. He shows how to maintain control of your boat with the wind on the bow, on the beam or aft. He covers situations with adverse currents. What I found most intriguing is how he backs his boat into a slip to keep the bow into the wind. He demonstrates a few basic concepts, like prop-walk and spring-lines, and shows how to use a single spring line (a line attached slightly midship) to control the boat's movements. He does this not only singlehandedly, but without jumping off the boat. Much safer.

I had seen Captain Jack many times at boat shows and was actually looking for a book by him so I could review the information he provides during his condensed presentations -- I was pleasantly surprised to find the DVD. I wish I would have had this video when I was beginner. It would have saved a lot of hard knocks while docking and would have saved my having to unlearn many of the bad habits I picked up trimming sails.The interface between the land and sea is often the most challenging aspect of boating. This is especially true as marinas get tighter and tighter as they pack more and more boats into them. I still sail, but four years ago sold my sailboat and bought a Nordic Tug. Docking has always been a challenge and is even more so with the tug. The tug idles much faster, so everything happens faster. It is also much less maneuverable. Even if you are a power boater, the first half of the DVD concerning docking is still well worth the price. Just fast forward through the sail-handling parts or watch it and be inspired to go sailing.

-- Dean Raffaelli

Singlehanded Docking and Sail Trim with Captain Jack Klang
$25
Available from Captain Jack Klang
http://www.captainjacksailing.com/saleitems.html
www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/002688.php

NYC RUMBLES

Even when quiet (if it ever be so)
It Rumbles with the passing of the subway deep.

And Rumbles bedrock to the core
Disturbing the netherworld’s sleep.

But at the surface the Rumble sooth’s
With drooping eyelids,
Forcing feet to stand and Rumble.

Wet Behind The Ears

Good Old Boat Newsletter April 2008


I began my sailing career at the tender age of 11, Jerry, the father of a juvenile delinquent friend of mine, had a 26-foot East Wind named for a Vietnamese sea goddess. Due to his son's growing predilection for mischief, he asked me to crew on his boat. Not knowing what I was getting myself into, I quickly agreed.

It turned out that Jerry was to be feared once he set foot on his little plastic kingdom. A couple of his buddies, his deified girlfriend, and I made up the crew. For the first few weeks of our relationship, I rode my single-speed bike down to the harbor to go out on practice sails.

It turned out he was training me for my first race. The race would be off Jackson Park Harbor on the south side of Chicago, some 20 miles from our home port, Montrose Harbor. These training sessions, as I was to find out, were tame. The whole gang would have a couple of beers, go out sailing for a few hours, and make his girlfriend blush for the rest of the evening.

Times were different then. My parents did not drive me anywhere; they were too busy working. If I wanted to go somewhere, I got there myself. Nobody was too concerned about my whereabouts. Cell phones and GPS would not be invented for decades, so my location was not monitored, nor was I expected to call in. I never pushed my limits, so I never got limited.

After a couple of weeks of training, race day arrived. We drove south down Lake Shore Drive, past the Museum of Science and Industry to Jackson Park. For a Northside kid, this was exotic territory.

Down south, everything seemed different to my pre-teen brain. At first, I was overwhelmed, but not for long. I had had enough training so that — like any waylaid sailor in a foreign port once his ship is in sight — I had the comfort of knowing that home awaited me.

Even though Jerry’s boat was not a racehorse, he was very conscious of any extra weight. This meant that most of my possessions were relegated to the trunk of the car that had brought us. With the bare minimum on board (that is, except for the beer) and the skipper's meeting concluded, we threw off the lines and headed for the lake.

It was then that our captain’s true nature was revealed. The farther we traveled from the dock, the edgier and louder he became. Once through the harbor mouth, I was informed of two aphorisms: one hand for the boat and one hand for myself and throwing up on his boat would result in promptly being thrown off.

These revelations, together with the fact that a nor’easter was blowing white caps down the 300 miles of Lake Michigan, made my semicircular canals immediately revolt. Mal-de-mar was new to me and — as we ran the starting line, jockeying for position — I felt more and more like I had the stomach flu until finally, remembering Jerry's edict, I flung my head over the lifeline and emptied the contents of my stomach into the lake.

Due to his propensity for prematurely reaching the starting line, I did not have much time to ponder my fate. Being much more afraid of him than I was sick, when I was ordered to start tailing the leeward jibsheet, I jumped to the task and my illness was curtailed for the duration of the race. I remember sitting on the rail during the long windward tacks, feeling alone with the wind and the waves . . . until we approached the mark when suddenly we were surrounded by the entire fleet. The shouts of “Starboard!” during the tacking duels still ring in my ears.

I also remember the anguished cry of my fellow crewmate when a sudden lurch of the boat landed his derriere on the lifeline. Inquiring as to his well-being I learned a few new expletives and a valuable lesson about hemorrhoids.

Once the race was over, I reverted to my pre-race condition and turned green . . . and greener still when I learned we would be sailing, not driving, the 20 miles home. I knew not to complain and, maybe because of this, I was treated humanely. Pretzels and water were provided and Jerry took me below, threw me into a snug corner berth and instructed me to keep my eyes shut and get some sleep.

Time passed quickly with minimal discomfort and, now a fully vetted member of the team, I was summoned hours later as we entered our harbor. I sailed with Jerry for many seasons, until I grew up and he bought a larger wooden boat and hightailed it to Florida, never to be heard from again.

When I am out on the water, turning green or not, I often think about my time on his little sea goddess and wonder what my life would have been like had I never accepted his invitation to go sailing . . . depressing thought that!

A Year On Hold

Holiday Letter 2007

I am not much for wasting time. I mean there is only so much of it and so many things beyond our control interfere with what little we have. So this year when breast cancer stepped front and center, I was not prepared to put the year on hold. Charlotte took the whole process in stride, and cancelled our travel plans.

Diseases have a life of their own. They unfold in a progression of discovery, diagnosis and treatment. Each of the above can be broken down into steps and since this is what I do for a living I am intimately aware of the process.

First comes discovery. Some one takes your blood, exposes you to radiation and horrors of all horrors, finds something. You were fine before they found it and chances are you feel no different afterwards, but now you enter a different realm. Of course you can ignore it--what do doctors know anyhow--but deep inside you have changed.

When you finally see your dour physician and are informed of your fate, the end of speculation usually comes as a relief. After the initial shock, a plan of action is presented. Frustration, tears and denial may follow the pronouncement and you may go home and sleep on it, but pretty much most people decide aye or nay in fifteen minutes.

Diagnosis is the next step. This entails a visit to your friendly neighborhood surgeon. I have found that surgeons love their work and that they try hard not to lick-their-chops at your predicament. They love nothing better than to have the chance to sample whatever little gremlin may be residing in you.

Once the extent of the malady is known it is time to start treatment. Sometimes just the act of removing the offending agent may be the cure, but then again it may not, and this necessitates a trip to the “ologist”.

As I alluded to above, you are changed by the diagnosis and because of this, you are in danger of becoming overwhelmed by it. Pain, both physical and psychological, accompanies the disease. Some people fight, some are resigned and some get on with life. The latter describes Charlotte’s reaction.

Pain is shared, unequally of course, by the recipient, by family and friends, and by the community as a whole. Just think of the colored ribbons adorning lapels, and the walks and runs that detour us all summer.

Now on to treatment, and here I will be more specific to our case. By the time you read this, the drugs and radiation will be a memory. A year is a terrible thing to waste, but then it was not really wasted, more like diverted for another purpose.

Chemotherapy consists of extremely toxic drugs kept in check by only slightly less toxic ones. There is a certain pattern to the months of treatment. To me it felt like great swells on the ocean with an occasional breaking sea.

Thankfully our boat was never swamped. She rose to meet the peak of the waves and glided steadily down their backside. The period of the waves was three weeks, and three weeks times eight doses of varying concoctions adds up to six months on the high seas, quite an accomplishment.

Radiation resembles the choppy waters of the Great Lakes. Being a daily event there is no time for reflection, the time being used up in scheduling and commuting. Charlotte describes this phase of therapy as being abducted by aliens. Massive, weird machines sequestered deep in the bowels of the hospital, aiming unseen beams of exotic particles at tattooed marks on soft flesh. Pretty creepy I agree.

So where does this leave us at the end of a year, better I think. Certainly more focused on the finite world we live in, with an appreciation for all that we have and all that we have to look forward to, with a palpable sense of the fragility and the tenacity of life, and finally, not with a year on hold, but a year of inner discovery.

The Admirable Resident

First published in HOSPITAL PHYSICIAN as a Code Blue Story in January 2003.

As a newly minted intern, I was just beginning a month on 2700, the telemetry floor, which was populated mainly by cardiac patients. Although my first nervous week thankfully passed without major incident, my second week was not to end so calmly. Late in the afternoon on Friday, as I was trying to finish my notes and get out before something happened to extend my stay (I had finally managed to get a weekend off), I suddenly heard a series of piercing screams coming at regular intervals. The sound of multiple nurses yelling for me quickly followed.

I rushed down the hall, reciting the ABC's of advanced cardiac life support. I had participated peripherally in a few codes since starting my internship, but this was the first time things were firmly in my court. When I entered the room from which the screams came, I saw a 40-year-old woman sitting in a chair; she was intermittently convulsing, screaming, and then sitting quietly with a perplexed look on her face.

Although she was in a room assigned to me, I had not seen her before. It turned out that some of these rooms, when empty, were used for staging interventional cardiologist cases. Before I could begin my preliminary examination, she started convulsing again. The thought crossed my mind that if I were to grab her, I would start convulsing along with her, as if she were connected to some electric device.

She obviously had an airway and was breathing; her screams proved that. As for her circulation, her face was red enough to show that blood was perfusing all her tissues. Not knowing exactly what to do, I called a code. I ordered an electrocardiogram, oxygen, and a chest radiograph and then shouted for the medical resident. My yell must have been fairly loud, because the resident suddenly appeared without being paged. A general practitioner who had spent approximately 15 years working in an emergency department, he had decided to do an internal medicine residency to become board certified in the managed-care world. He was a blessing to a new intern.

Nothing seemed to faze this resident. Walking quickly over to the patient, he carefully but firmly took hold of her shoulders. He managed to calm her and to stop her convulsions, reassuring her (and me) that everything was all right. At that point, we heard a chuckle behind us and turned to see the cardiologist. We learned that he had been on the telephone all afternoon with the patient's health maintenance organization (HMO), trying to get approval to replace her defective defibrillator. The HMO denied care at our institution, so she had been waiting for transfer at the time her emergency occurred. Because of the episode, she was subsequently taken to our catheterization laboratory for a quick remedy to her predicament. Later that night, the patient explained to me that this was the second time she had had a malfunctioning defibrillator.

Thinking back to my internship and the whole of my medical training, I feel an incredible depth of gratitude to all the teachers, fourth-year medical students, interns, residents, attending physicians, and patients that make up the life of a physician-in-training. But most of all, I am grateful to that one resident. I have tried to emulate the calmness and certainty of purpose he showed that late Friday afternoon whenever I find myself in a crisis situation.

Norway Stories

NORWAY STORIES -- INTRO-
DUCTION


Thirty years ago I slung manure, buried bloated sheep, pull apple tree roots on a 45 degree hillside, gained twenty pound and woke up every morning to the most incredible scenery framed by my cold bedroom's window.

I picked fruit, bailed hay, and cut grass to make the winter's silage; built roads and ate lovingly prepared food.

I hike up a steep trail to the tundra every weekend and gillnetted trout on an alpine lake in a locally built wooden skiff with the farmer's daughter. We ate them pan-fried with a little butter in an ancient wooden hut above the tree line.

I drank export beer in cold wet bottles cooled by a glacial stream with other young vagabonds from England, Ireland, Holland and the U.S., and out of desperation I read the complete works of Shakespeare.

I climbed and almost topped the local mountain called Vasfjoro. This I did against the wishes of my hosts, who in retrospect were well founded in their concerns for my safety.

I smoked the meat of calves and sheep slaughtered in the barn and almost succumbed to the sweet smoke of the apple roots I had ripped from the hillside.

I guided, though maybe was lead by, the dairy cows coming down from their summer pasture to begin their long winter internment in the warm red barn.

I stood in trees picking fruit as large snowflakes blew off the mountain, melting in the warm autumn sun before ever touching the ground. I harvested potatoes with a plow meant for draft horses and now pulled by diesel.

I worked hard and enjoyed the simple honesty of the farmer and his wife. And I left with much more than I came.

I left with an appreciation for natural beauty. I left with calluses on my hands and a sense of the unforgiving sanctity of tradition.

I left understanding the fragility of life on the edge of a fjord and of the abundance of food that backbreaking work and fifteen acres can provide.

I left understanding the consequences of war and the German occupation. I left with my heart in my hands and all the produce that could be stuff into a 1960 blue VW beetle.

And now I am returning, thirty years hence. Spending as much in a day as I spent in a year. I am returning sleeping on 400 thread count sheets, and not old feed sacks and rocks.

I am returning with my wife Charlotte and not my traveling companion in 1973, Curt. He has disappeared into the Everglades to spend a life riding out hurricanes.

As we drop into Oslo I wonder if Norway can live up to my expectations: it seems hardly possible. Is it Thomas Wolfe that said you cannot go home again, but then home is the only place they have to take you in, so we will see.





WATERFALLS…


Global warming makes a lot of sense to me, heaven knows Chicago has gotten warmer. As a kid I spent the entire winter outside. Winter lasted from November to April, and I was able to sled, skate and freeze for the majority of that time. Quite a bit older now and on a flight from Kirkenes, Norway to Oslo, back-tracking the entire six day trip up the coast on the Kong Harold, one of the coastal steamers of the Hurtigurten line, I finally have the time to contemplate this trip.

Norway is spectacular – sounds trite I know – but around every bend I am forced to take three or four more picture and the road is very curvy. At one point I swore not to take any more photos of fjords, but this proves impossible. Now with five gigabytes of images stored on my hard drive I am wondering if they will all look the same when I finally get to review them.

On my first visit to Norway water was everywhere. It was overhead and underfoot. Rain gear, complete with rubber boots, was a necessity. I do not mean any of that namby-pamby Gore-Tex stuff. I mean real rubber coated cloth guaranteed to bake you alive if the temperature rises above fifty degrees.

Rushing streams of water were everywhere. I walked through them, drove through them, drank from them and never bored of watching the torrents fall from the sky over dauntingly high cliffs to be absorbed without a hint into the deep blue-black briny water of the fjords. Every crack in the rock was another excuse for a waterfall. Another excuse to revel in the majesty of it all. To contemplate the forces necessary and the time, time, time to wear the rock into submission. For it is not the rock that rules in Norway, it is the water.

At first glance Norway is nothing but rock, but on closer inspection it is the water that moves the people and freight, that provides the cod and the herring, that the oil platforms are built on, that makes the moss for the reindeer to eat and the sweet hay for the cows and sheep. It is the water that the Vikings sailed on and it is the water that inspired the people of Norway to build the wooden craft they take to sea in, once to conquer and now to fish and recreate.

There is a flat out cropping of rock that I have been privileged to trod upon thirty times in the last thirty years. It is half way up to Jonstal, the summer cabins of the farmers of Lekve. It is an open area to gaze on the farms and the fjord of Ulvik, the town that Lekve is part of. It is also the spot to refresh on the steep trek up or down the mountain.

Off to the side of the cairn, inconspicuously trickling, is a rock and moss laden stream with clear, cold, dark glacial water that flows out of the rock. Water so sweet I gorge myself on it; making my head swim and my insides ache. This water is the true soul of Norway. Ask any farmer or fisherman, they will agree with me.

And this brings me back to waterfalls or more precisely the lack of waterfalls. I remember them every where, gloriously streaming, careening down the side of massive cliffs or bubbling over moss covered rock, no more. There seems to be a deficit of water these days: less snow in the mountains and less rain in the valleys.

Tore the farmer is busily irrigating his hay fields and fruit trees. Tour guides are busily chasing retreating glaciers. And all this leaves me pondering, not so busily, green house gases and global climate change.




LIGHT…


In 1973 I arrived in Norway during the summer brightness and left in the gloom of an early winter. Never fully experiencing the zenith or the nadir of the sun’s passage across the Northern sky, but none-the-less getting a sense of the immensity of the procession. This short trip is meant to exploit the midnight sun, being more interested in light rather than darkness at this point of my life.

I get a sense of the light in Oslo. It is 10:00, 10:30, even 11:00 PM before the light begins to fade. Every one is out parading around the town and you have to convince yourself to get ready for bed. I watch from our vantage point at the Grand Hotel as brightly painted 1950 vintage American cars drive past to stop and party at The American Club just down the street; their beautiful paint gleaming in the late evening sun.

The first mistake southerners make is not drawing the curtains in the hotel room to get some sleep. The light makes you feel invincible, like being eighteen again. This behavior has dire consequences days into the trip. I am sure Rick Steves mentioned this in his travel guide to Norway, but I was too preoccupied to pay it any heed.

From Oslo we travel north to the farm country and it only gets worse, well brighter actually. Ulvik is our destination. It is a dead-end branch of the Hardanger Fjord. This area is the orchard of Norway. All the brochures show spring’s blossoming fruit trees intermixed with tidy red farmhouses and barns. The fjord is always in the background, more often than not pictured with a cruise ship hovering in the bay in a misguided attempt to give the scene more cachet.

As if it needed it. Ulvik is the equivalent of New England, the Rocky Mountains and the Northwest coast of Canada wrapped up in one small hamlet. In Ulvik we sit in our own little garden provided by Sjur and Helen, the farmer and his urban wife, who run Uppphein Farm B&B where we are staying. The farm is located one shy of the highest tier of farms as they snake their way up the mountainside from the fjord below.

When we should be having our after dinner nap, we are deciding where to eat. And when we should be dressing for bed, we are sitting in the garden looking out at the fjord below. Farmers are tractoring by, sheep are bleating and I need to force myself to get under the covers and dream about sleep. At 3AM I awake to see the light glimmering on the water hundreds of feet below and wait for breakfast.

I will not bore you with the splendor of our boat ride up the coast. I do not possess the literary skill to do the description justice and after all I am writing about the light. We venture north on the mail ship Kong Harold at a touch below fifteen knots till the light becomes more pervasive and finally never disappears beneath the horizon.

I stand bundled in my new sweater and stare, as the sun never drops below 15 degrees. At first it seems to be darkening, then an instant pass midnight it begins to rise and morning begins, warmth reappears and a certain mania takes over. The ‘night’ this first occurs the boat is infused with energy. The entire compliment of passengers and crew are up and celebrating.

The second night, after a cold day of wind and rain, the clouds clear just prior to midnight and the few souls that are up feel the heat of the rising sun as it reflects off the surface of the Barents Sea. I resist pointing my camera at the hovering sun and try to not to stare, but cannot help myself. Little red orbs cloud my vision as the sun’s photons change the chemistry in my rods and cones.

On the last day of our journey the light has a smoky, fluorescence quality to it. It streams sideways like a million arc lamps lighting up the southern face of Europe’s northern most cliffs. As we stream along a succession of glacial valleys, mountains and villages are bathed in it. Finally I draw the curtains to put the North behind me.

Now as I write this we are chasing the sun back across the North Atlantic. I expect Chicago to be dark and although jealous of the midnight sun I leave behind, I take comfort in the familiar glow of mercury vapor that perpetually baths the city in light.

Norway Story - Manure Bucket

Holiday Letter 2006

Thirty years ago I was handed a plank that moments before was holding back a great dammed up river of, lets just say, very ripe manure. Not knowing exactly what to do, I grabbed it knowing that Lars Brandstveit, the Norwegian farmer I was working for was all business. More planks followed and more manure flowed. We proceeded to fill the large rectangular steel bucket on the back of his 4-wheel drive tractor, and then Lars drove the bucket and me to the upper pasture.

Little did I know I was to spend the next week, pitch fork in hand, spreading bucketful after bucketful of sh-t in circles radiating out from the center of the piles that were regularly delivered from the barn below. My amazement at actually standing in piles of year old manure was tempered when I realized I was fertilizing next years hay crop and somehow that mollified my tormented soul.

Why am I telling you this, because this year on July 3rd, 2006 Charlotte and I were riding in that same bucket up past the high pasture in Norway. We used it to travel half way to Jonstal, the name for the summer cabins at the base of the local mountain call Vassfjora. This time Charlotte rode next to me with the late farmer's son Tore at the controls. His six-year-old grandson Lars, grandpa's namesake, was perched behind him in the cockpit of the rugged Italian four-wheel drive tractor.

It turned out that this was Charlotte's first tractor ride and you would think we were on a speeding roller coaster at Great America for all the hoop-and-hollering she was doing as we made our way up the steep rock strewn road. In 1973 we would have started at the back of the barn and climbed some 1000 meters up doing a fast Norwegian jog through fruit trees, deciduous forest, towering pines and firs, into larch and short scrub. Finally emerging on the mossy tundra above the tree line.

In forty-five minutes of relentless walking we would leave the well-manicured farms along this branch of the Hardanger Fjord, and walk high into the greenery, rocks and snow of the high summer pasture amongst the thirteen huts that belong to the farmers of Lekve. Though we are in Ulvik proper, every small grouping of farms has their own title and Lekve is where the Brandstveit's farm is located.

Once we reach the top we are surrounded by mountains, valleys and trout filled alpine lakes. It is here and in other similar areas that the citizens of Ulvik rode out the German occupation. And it is here that I spent every weekend but one of my three month stay on the Brandsteivt's farm in 1973.

The cows and their by-products are long gone, so the bucket is as clean as a farm bucket can be. Tore, with the urging of his wife Karin, has made us a comfortable seat of old pallets and cushions. It was a bit like riding in a Model A's rumble seat except we faced backwards. Once hearing protection was donned we started on our climb. Tore engaged the hydraulics of the tractor decisively lifting the bucket, and us, a meter into the air. This should have enabled us to clear most obstructions, but due to the severely rutted road did not.

I had been exhorting Charlotte for months with threats of Jonstal. We were to have started getting in shape for Norway at the first hint of spring, but as it worked out we were less active. To make matters worse Charlotte's ankle mysteriously swelled, turn blue and painful the beginning of May. Sticking to the adage to avoid treating one’s family, I directed her to the local Urgent Care facility with instructions to request an X-ray. Five hundred dollars later, not including an eighty-dollar ankle brace, a fracture was ruled out, ice applied, Celebrex swallowed and disaster averted.

I could count the cylinders firing as we slowly made our ascent. We passed through three or four fenced off areas: first rocky fields, then deciduous and coniferous forests that delineated the various pastures. Our Midwest sense of grazing land is turned on its head and as we break out of the tree line onto the tundra Charlotte exclaims, “The Sound of Music” and right she is.

But I am getting ahead of myself here. I have skipped over our final forty-minute hike up where no tractor could go. The rock out cropping where we drink sweet water from a glacial stream filtered through miles of rock and moss. Looking out over the Hardanger fjord and hiking past two special boulders: one named for an alcoholic berry that grows on its top and the other called the “Bride’s Chair” due to its distinctive shape.

Walk simply does not describe the slippery moss covered boulders, the stream beds traversed, the horse fly’s nipping at our heels, the cool of the dark canopy, the heat of the open mountain sun, and the effort we extend trying to follow the long stride of this tall Norwegian farmer with the new titanium hip and his skipping grandson.

For two out of shape, car addicted flatlanders we do not embarrass our country or ourselves. We arrived intact and were fed sunny-side up eggs with thin slices of smoked salmon on thick whole grain bread spread with sweet butter and washed it all down with quarts of instant ice tea.

We discussed gillnetting trout and skip stones while little Lars skinny-dipped in a clear glacial lake. To get there we walked through moss much drier than I remember. There has been little rain or snow in recent years. This is evident in the sparsely covered mountaintops and the disappearing waterfalls.

The decent, while more torturous and hurtful to feet and knees, was anticlimactic. If that can ever be said while catching views of Ulvik’s bowl shaped valley as it cradles the terminus of the great Hardanger fjord. As if the walk to Jonstal was not enough for one day, Tore peeled off at the upper pasture to turn the hay he cut earlier in the morning, leaving Lars to guide us down the steeply graded road to the homestead.

Below awaits a meal of whole baked salmon and boiled parsleyed potatoes that we ladled a delicate white sauce onto. We drank apple juice frozen since last years harvest and ended the meal with fresh strawberries covered in clotted cream and sprinkled with sugar.

Other than the coffee, all we needed was a crisp Riesling to top off this meal, but alas it is dry on this Norwegian farm. After dinner the four of us sat on the veranda over looking the orchards of the Hardanger valley and waited for the sunset that never came.

Cultural Connections: Connecting Cultures Through Kimono and Sari

This article was initially published on the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society's website: www.cjahs.org.

Why do we live in Chicago? It is not for the weather, traffic is not a big selling point and as far as the government, well I think enough said. We live here because of a word that I fear is quickly becoming a cliché, diversity. Living in small cities while working my way through school, I quickly became bored with the lack of diversity in those towns and grew to love Chicago’s people and food, music and architecture, art and though I am not a devoted fan, sport. The constant variation keeps my mind (and stomach) stimulated and entertained.

So to this end, on a February morning when a faint hint of spring was in the air, a diverse group of Chicagoans gathered at the Indo-American Center on North California Avenue to discuss how attire and appearance impact the Japanese American and Asian Indian American communities. Present were representatives from the Field Museum, Indo-American Center, Japanese-American Cultural Association and the Urasenke Chicago Association, a group of Japanese and American tea enthusiasts; the group that I am affiliated with and the reason I had been asked to participate.

This was the first planning session for Cultural Connections, an event sponsored by The Field Museum’s Center for Cultural Understanding and Change. The center brings the museums anthropological mission into the neighborhoods of Chicago by partnering more than twenty ethic museums and cultural centers. The theme for this year’s programs -- The Language of Looks.

Though we are here to organize the event, I find myself in the midst of one of the best history classes I have ever attended. My fellow attendees comment not only on history, but demographics, anthropology, theology, philosophy and no less important, fashion design.

I learn that Japanese history in the United States begins with the Meiji period, some 150 years ago when Commodore Perry's Black ships forced Japan to open its doors to the West. These first immigrants to America were farmers and agricultural workers. Their history in America is complicated by import quotas, exclusion laws, picture-brides and darkest of all, forced internment and resettlement.

This contrasts with the more recent history of an urban Asian Indian culture that migrated to America in the 1960's during the Cold War in response to a need for professionals, mainly scientist, engineers and doctors. They had the advantage of speaking English and being able to settle wherever the jobs took them. There was no need for them to be segregated into towns as the Japanese were on the West coast.

Their disparate backgrounds have seen the Japanese strive for inclusion while the Asian Indian's inclination has been to blend and reshape American culture. To think of this in real-time, count how many women you have seen in sari versus kimono, it will be thousands to one.

The title of the program is “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…How Am I Perceived By All?” As the afternoon proceeds various presenters discuss how history, politics, economics and culture all play a role in dress, as does social status, gender, group affiliation, profession, values and taste. How the resources available to us, our communities accumulated knowledge and creativity, combine to affect how we perceive ourselves and how we are perceived by the culture at large. And you thought dressing for work in the morning was simple.

What is dress after all but cloth? It is just there, unless drawn attention to as in couture. It is what grandma and grandpa wear, and what culturally aware youth use to play off of: sari with jeans and high heels, coats and accessories made out of antique kimono fabric. For most, ethnic dress is only brought out of the closet for important milestones: birth, coming of age, marriage and death. It is not a comfortable part of life.

We think of ourselves as sophisticated and some how distanced from the natural world, but as Darwin's finches have evolved their coat of feathers in response to natural selection and isolation, so has our dress. Many years ago I spent three months on a small farm in the town of Ulvik, Norway. During the summer, at festivals and weddings, the locals came dressed in traditional garb and depending on where the revelers hailed from their dress differed slightly. It was very regionally specific to a trained eye. Trying to figure which towns were represented at these events was a bit like bird watching.

Another aspect of dress not often considered is technique. You do not just throw kimono or sari on−you dress. There are multiple layers and acres of cloth to wrap yourself in. There is extravagant jewelry and demur sashes to be adorned with and then there are the knots.

I have become intimately aware of this since acquiring my first kimono in the 1980’s. In Western clothes knots are not much of a consideration. Most men learn to tie their shoes and neck ties early in life, usually instructed by a patient grand parent. Women have scarves to master, but these pale to the knots involved with wearing kimono.

Having sailed on Lake Michigan for forty years and practicing marlinspike seamanship for much of that time, I still find securing my kimono a daunting task. Most knot tying is done in front of you with the proper orientation, but when dressing you are at a disadvantage. If you are lucky enough to have a mirror then what you see is backwards and if not, well it is like tying your shoe laces with your foot tied back behind you.

But what does this have to do with ethnic dress, simply it was all designed before that little machine we seldom think of, the zipper. I am not sure when the zipper was first developed, but I know a lot has changed in the world since then and our specific cultures have had to adapt to the changes.

A perfect example of this was the story told by a young college-aged Asian Indian women concerning nose piercing. Her mother was shocked to find out she had gotten her nose pierced while away at college, but her grandmother was so happy that she bought her multiple nose rings. It was as if her ethnicity skipped a generation before reasserting itself. Her mother had done what she could to fit in and her daughter had found a way to blend tradition with the fashion of the day to make a strong personal statement.

So in the end what are we left with? Some one at the end of the program commented that the topic should not have been the Language of Looks but the Calculus of Looks because dress is the outcome of multiple variables. It is an adaptation, over hundreds of years by millions of people, in response to the world they find themselves in. Sometimes in favorable circumstances and sometimes in dire ones, but always looking to the future and to what will be the best for them and more importantly for their children, though they seldom realize this until they themselves are parents and grand parents.

Gunkhole

Holiday Letter and Messing About in Boats 2005

Most people have a vague idea of what a gunkhole is. The best description of one is a snug, secluded and safe anchorage. It is the type of place that Captain Kid would hide out in.

For boaters the word conjures up thoughts of tropical paradises that the likes of Conrad and Melville wrote so convincingly about. It brings to mind the famous cruising grounds of the Bahamas, the Chesapeake or the San Juan islands in the Pacific Northwest, but here on the southern most spot of the southern most Great Lake we have to settle for what we can get.

The Great Lakes do offer several world class cruising grounds: Door County in the northwest corner of Lake Michigan, the Apostle Islands of Lake Superior, and probably the most herald, the North Channel and Georgian Bay on Lake Huron; some 400 miles of open water north of Carrie Rose's mooring in the mouth of Montrose Harbor.

I have never made it to any of these Great Lake's treasures. A lapse in my forty years of boating that I find hard to forgive myself for. Time and again I have heard of the wonders of cruising in the North Channel and Georgian Bay from yachtsmen that have sailed the world, but on my first futile attempt to reach the gunkhole of gunkholes last year I petered out about a 100 miles short and headed for home.

This year though, this year of a new pope, continued war in Iraq, Michael Jackson's acquittal, rising gas prices, terrorist attacks in London and Hurricane Katrina, Charlotte and I started out with great expectations of a leisurely journey up the western coast of Lake Michigan to Trawler Fest. Yes, I said Trawler Fest. Who in their right mind would think that any self-respecting wife would consent to such a trip let alone accompany her husband on it, but off we went.

By now I think you all know we have a Nordic Tug 32 called Carrie Rose, named after Charlotte’s grand mothers. She is number 32044 to be exact, a very important factoid for all Nordic Tug owners. The last boat built at the old facility and one of the last to be built with lots of teak as opposed to lots of aluminum. This makes Carrie Rose distinctive, but a challenge to maintain. After much preparation and sweat we were ready to head out when I noticed an odd occurrence. The tachometer would not move when the engine was started till I goosed the throttle a bit.

I have trained myself over the decades not to ignore the little voices that talk to me. You know, the gremlins that sit at the back of our craniums and as the oracles of old, predict the future. Predictions that, like most of Greek mythology, consist mainly of dread and not useful recommendations for which stocks and mutual funds to buy to help pad our 401K's.

During my Internship I learned never to disregard these subtle hints, but admit to ignorance this August 13 of 2005, the day we departed. After pumping the head and filling the water tanks, we motored out early in the morning into a northeast wind with white caps and spray crashing over our bow heading for Racine, about a five-hour trek racing along at 10 mph.

Somewhere out on the lake, an hour in route, the gremlin's predictions materialized as my voltmeter drooped and the tachometer started doing the jig. Unable to ignore this obvious tomfoolery on the part of the boat, we headed for the first viable harbor up the coast – Waukegan. We altered course because any thing on a boat doing the jig, except maybe the captain and the first mate, is cause for concern. Weighing our options we decided to head for Larsen Marine, a large boat repair and storage facility.

Please bear with a little background information here. When you begin to consider where to pull in for the night on a boat there are various references that are studied listing types of accommodations and amenities available. In boating circles this refers to transient slips numbers: gas, diesel and pump out availability: service, parts, and in dire circumstances haul out facilities and lastly how to contact the marina.

It once was when you were just outside the harbor entrance, you'd call the marina using the VHF radio on Channel 16, but as with every thing else in life these days this simple task has become more complicated. The Coast Guard recently reserved Channel 16 only for emergency and official communications, and Channel 9 for hailing other boats and the marina as in this case. You are still to monitor 16 at all times in case of an emergency, but if you only have one radio and are to be getting a call from a boating buddy you would be listening to 9 not 16. Needless to say it has caused some confusion.

At this stage of my life I am blessed with not one but three radios and hence monitor all channels. This means I get to listen to all types of dribble while waiting for one caller in distress. But it also means I have been able to rescue a few folks in my time after hearing their cries for help.

To get back to contacting marinas, we would in the recent past hail the marina on 16 and then switch to another channel to talk, but now in many cases we find that no one is minding the store. Our tactic is to try 9 first, then 16 and if both garner no answer start the search for the phone number. Of course to complicate matters further all the area codes have changed several times since our references were published.

A cell phone is a remarkably fickle device out on the water and should never be relied upon to save one's skin, but seems to be the only thing reliably answered by marinas these days. Once we get through to the harbormaster and our slip (33 feet with starboard tie up) is reserved, we head in.

Harbor entrances with their “red-right-returning” light to the starboard and green light to the port are simultaneously comforting and disquieting. Comforting to go from rolling in the waves and being prey to the hyperactive weather on Lake Michigan to the quiet protected water of the harbor and a drink. Disquieting to suddenly have waves, currents and trolling fishing craft converge with unfamiliar shoals and rocks.

So as we carefully approached the entrance to Waukegan Harbor with the tachometer wildly fluctuating and cross the boundary of the harbor mouth that separates the watery world from a land focused one, the miscreant gauges assume their proper place, but are never to be trusted again.

Remember this is a story about gunkholes and a gunkhole we inadvertently stumbled upon while waiting for the parts to fix our ailing diesel. Granted it was within spitting distance of the first Super Fund site, in the midst of large boat moving equipment, enormous grey work and storage sheds, and what seemed like an infinite supply of golf carts, all in constant motion and named for their drivers.

We floated there, tied to a working pier watching all sorts of expensive craft being lowered or raised into and out of what had become our home. We waited in relative peace while hoping for one of the aforementioned carts to veer towards us bringing news of delivered parts from far away places. After 4PM we shared our world only with Dan, the night guy who lives in a trailer perched in the middle of the asphalt parking lot that seemed to be baking even on cool days.

This was our world for the first four days of our summer vacation this year. Not a friends apartment in the Latin Quarter of Paris, nor anchored in a bay off the Bitter End Yacht Club in the BVI, not in a traditional inn in Takayama looking up to the snow covered Japanese Alps, no not even in the Tuscan hills out side Florence sleeping in Alberto's ancestral home guarded by Penny, his handsome German Shepard...but not bad.