a little light from down under

There was a light rain for this morning's predawn walk, warm with a touch humid air and a south wind carrying up memories of winter on the gulf coast.  By mid-morning it was a steady rain with temperatures dropping.  Cold and dreary all afternoon.  Now clear and cold with a full moon for the evening walk.  

The winter day was brightened when I found these images of a sailing trip on Richard Schmidt's Navigator "Bootstrap."  I found them by way of Arwen's Meanderings, a navigator blog from my friend Steve across the pond in England.  Steve was looking into boom tents and made a reference that led me to these photographs here.  Thank you, Steve.

Richard is in New Zealand.  I do not know anything about the cruise other than it was done a little less than a year ago.  I have mention Richard's boat and cruising before, and at the time he had given me permission to borrow his photographs, which I hope still holds.  Richard is not in any of these photographs, but you can see him here in the photo album from the sail.    

I like the beautiful beaches and clear water, not to mention the well built and well sailed Navigator.  Bootstrap reminds me of David Perillo's Navigator Jaunty, which led me first to John Welsford and then to John's Pathfinder design and Spartina.  David for a long time maintained a website called Open Boat which showed photographs of small open boats from all over the world.  I don't believe the site exists any longer, but I do remember poring over those pages of great photographs and dreaming about sailing a small open boat.

On the way home this evening I dropped by the boat ramp to see what shape it is in.  That's the dock, in bad shape, and the ramp is not any better.  But it is convenient and I have figured out how to use the ramp and dock with fairly consistent success.  I hope to be using the ramp in a matter of weeks.

steve