hey, get out of the way so I can see the boat!

I did not make it up to the Mid-Atlantic Small Craft Festival this year. Kind of hard to explain to the family that I needed to go out of town to look at boats when I had just come back from eight days on my boat.

The next best thing to going there is looking at Barry's photographs of the event. When I saw that he had uploaded a gallery of images I scanned through trying to find a picture of his melonseed skiff that is in the final stages of completion. At first all I could find was this photo with these people blocking the view. That's ok, I guess, because that is Barry, and (I'm guessing) wife and daughter, with beautifully crafted boat right behind them.

Later I found a better view of the boat (below). If you want to see some great photos of Barry's melonseeds - he is building two of them side by side - check out his blog. (It also looks like he is starting a series of posts on the festival.) If you want to see some of his wonderful photographs of nature, boats, landscapes, check them out here. I know I spent a long time enjoying his selected images. Great stuff.

Bruce and I met Barry very briefly at last year's small craft festival. Barry was in the thick of a conversation with our mutual friend Kevin B when we walked by (that's Slip Jig, Kevin's Navigator at left in the photo below). They were in the middle of a discussion. We were in search of a couple of beers. It was one of those "hi, how are you".. "nice to meet you"......"sorry to interrupt"..."see ya later"... kind of things. Too bad. Barry and I have since become friends over the web through blogs and emails. I wish we had taken some time to visit that day. We'll connect one day on the water.

What I do remember best about the festival was great sailing - I did four sails that day, one by myself, one with Pathfinder builder Seth, one with our good friends Mary Lou and Fred from Rock Hall and one with my neighbor Jim and his buddy Jim. It was sunny day with a nice breeze, kind of like the day in Barry's photo above.

I also remember some good food. Either Bruce or I shot these photos, don't remember who, fresh steamed crabs and roasted oysters. Yes, that was a pretty good time. Maybe Bruce had the camera because I was too busy eating. I'm not sure.

Barry, thanks for sharing the photos and bringing back some memories.

steve