A small measure of success was recorded today on Robin. It had rained all night when I arrived this morning, and for the first time in memory, there was no water (after a rain) on the chart table. Last week, I had rebedded the portlight above the chart table. Thus, it seems, the fix worked.
It continued to rain off and on today, so I was unable to do any more portlights. But that left time for some carpentry, and I finished off the interior liners around the three portlights that were repaired last week. Then I put primer on, and were I not so sleepy, I'd paint the three tonight.
When this project is done, I won't be so ashamed to invite visitors aboard Robin.
It is supposed to rain tomorrow, and all I can do in the rain is put the finish coat of paint around those three portlights. But I have other work to do.
The final proofs are in for Eight Survived. I have to go through the entire proof and look for errors. That probably will absorb most of tomorrow. On Thursday, they are saying sun, and maybe that means I'll finish the work on the saloon and move on to the head.
Next week, there is teak to caulk and a splintered caprail to mend.

I have found it is possible
when you reach a certain age,
if you will close your mouth and listen,
to discover you know
just as much
as many of those who
insist on talking.

Today was one of those days that tears you apart. The wind on the Delaware River was from the northwest at about 15 knots, a perfect sailing day on a river that runs generally northeast to southwest. There were a hundred boats sailing on the river, many taking part in the race of a nearby boating club.
Bluebird, however, was still on her trailer, not yet able to sail.
With all the garden work done, Monica gave me the day off and I set about re-installing the steel centerboard. The job is done, for now. I need to waterproof it, and I should replace the cable that is used to raise and lower the board, but the boat could be sailed now, I think.
I have hopes that before May ends, Bluebird will take flight. I really should paint her, but my guess is that I will procrastinate, particularly if the wind is blowing as it did today.

A blue heron, on the dock,
night fishing with the help
of yellow dock lights, meant
to keep boaters from falling
into a slip or slipping on wet
planks.
A blue heron, not really blue
but gray, with a white under-
belly and with long, slender
feathers.
He stands on the planks at
the rear of Robin, looking
over the edge of the dock,
hoping for fish, little fish, but
the water is
way down, a blowout tide,
and it's a long way down
even if you have a long, thin,
elastic neck made for fishing
from docks.
There is a breeze, perhaps
ten or twelve knots from
the north.
The heron is facing south,
and the air tosses the narrow
feather ends so that the heron
looks as if he is wearing silk,
rippling silk or chiffon. He looks
like a she.
And maybe he is, gender being
not always apparent in heron.
He does not know he is being
watched.
Does not know I have opened
the hatch, am looking at him,
invading his night-time
foray.
He dips his arrow-shaped
head-beak over the planks
and looks hard
at the water.
Then, turning, he stretches
his elastic neck so that he
grows from three feet high
to four. Then, keeping his
head in precisely
the same place,
he moves
his body to the left --
to the west.
I don't know why. I guess
it's something blue heron do.

It is seven o'clock on a Wednesday evening and all is quiet aboard Robin. She rocks gently, and the laundry hung in the saloon sways, but there are few sounds. The refrigeration, which cycles every few minutes, just stopped running. The thunder storms that drenched Cambridge an hour ago have passed. My dinner of Dinty Moore stew escaped from the sauce pan and into my mouth. Now it's time to work on the book.
Today there was significant progress aboard Robin. I removed, cleaned and replaced two heavy bronze portlights, replacing the quarter-inch plywood liner surrounding each which had rotted due to leaks in the portlight caulking. (I'm using the word portlight because But Taplin, the Westsail guru, does. I really don't know if that's the only thing they are called, but I'm a conformist when I have no better information.)
I have not finished any of the three portlight replacements because I haven't taken the time to install new moulding around the edges of the wooden liner and to paint the raw wood. Rather, my emphasis has been on stopping leaks. I make no claims as to the effectiveness of the repairs, even though we just had rain. I'll wait and see.
Yesterday, while I did not get much done on the boat, I got something done for the boat. I contacted a man who makes "tong shafts" for oyster tongs -- long poles attached to a wire mesh scoop that "tongers" use to harvest oysters from shallow, muddy oyster beds. This has to be some of the hardest work there is. Makes your rotator cuff scream in terror. You stand on a boat all day with the tong shafts -- maybe twelve or sixteen feet tall -- one shaft in each hand and you plunge the scoop into the mud. Then you bring the shafts together and lift -- at least that's my concept of how it's done. It would have to be done over and over. The more oysters -- their shells like baseball-sized rocks -- you scoop, the heavier the tongs.
Anyway, I called Wilbur Messick, who had a sign advertising his tong shafts taped up in the dockmaster's office. I asked if he could make a replacement handle for our beautiful boathook. The eight foot long wooden handle got snapped when it got caught on a piling while we were docking last year.
He said he lived in a remote eastern shore village about an hour south of Cambridge. He asked if I could come down.
I brought my splintered old boat hook with me and followed his directions to a really beautiful part of the country I'd never visited, along the Nanticoke River.
Messick Bros. has been making oyster tong shafts since 1859, according to a sign in their shop, an unadorned barn-like structure. Inside was the aroma of pitch, a sweet fragrance oozing from stacks and stacks of long leaf yellow pine, a nearly extinct species.
When Mr. Messick began cutting a plank to craft my new boat hook handle, in the very instant the saw teeth cut into a piece of pine, the resins burst into the air and made my sinus sting. That's potent pitch, my friend.
It took him an hour and a half to create a handle that fit perfectly into the old bronze boat hook head. All the while, we talked about lumber and oystering, about his service on a Coast Guard icebreaker in the late 1960s and about the tools of his trade. Messick Bros. has some antique machinery, cast iron with big electric motors, that are used for one purpose -- shaping tong shafts.
The only other product that may come out of the shed -- a flat bottom skiff that Mr. Messick is in the process of building. He might finish it, and he might use it or, if someone wants it, he might sell it.

It felt good to get back aboard Robin for a few days and to dig into some of the work that was waiting.
I arrived in Cambridge shortly after noon on Monday with a plan. My priority was to find the leak or leaks that had caused the headliner in the V-berth to rot. Then I wanted to begin removing and resealing all of the nine leaking bronze portlights that I still hadn't touched in two years.
Equally important, I wanted to keep writing on the youth novel, which my plans had me completing (first draft) next week.
As soon as I had my stuff unloaded from the car, I climbed into the V-berth and, on my back, began prying the plywood overhead with a flat bar. It was easy work removing it, but messy. I used a circular saw to slice the large slabs of 1/4 inch plywood into pieces narrow enough to pass up to the deck through the forward hatch.
The job involved removing a wooden cover that had been fabricated to hide the wiring for the windlass. When the cover and the plywood were gone, the four bolts anchoring the windlass were exposed, as well as the heavy wiring.
Next, I brought a garden hose forward on deck, tied it to the sampson post and turned on the water. I expected to see water weeping around the windlass bolts, but it didn't. That shot my quick theory of the root of the problem and made me begin to rethink the source of the water.
Some times, thinking is the problem.
I went topside and moved the hose forward about four inches. Down below, a stream began flowing through what apparently was a bolt hole for an earlier windlass. The hole was plugged somewhat, but the water came in relentlessly.
Back on deck, I discovered why. The caulking in the teak deck was missing beside that old, plugged hole. The water was running between the teak planks and across the fiberglass deck beneath the wood until it reached the old hole.
I have applied fresh caulk to the problem spot and will check it again next week to see if the leak has been plugged, or if there are more villains.
Interspersed with that work, I began removing the portlight above the galley range. (It's the one seen in the top photo in the prior blog.)
The bronze portlight came out easily to my surprise. Using a circular wire brush in an electric drill, I got all the old caulk off so that the bronze shone like new. I used a Dremmel tool with a tiny wire brush to get the debris out of the gasket channel.
Yesterday, I completed rebedding the port over a new section of wooden liner in the galley that replaced the rotten one we'd been staring at for five years. It still needs to be painted, and I'm in the process of ordering new gasket material, so the job is incomplete.
As for the writing, I almost entirely failed. I wrote one chapter instead of the five or six I had planned.
S0 today, at home, it's back to the book.

Robin has a new bonnet. Skip Lippincott got to her and left before I arrived in Cambridge. He did a wonderful job. Finally, we can see forward while standing in the cockpit.

But I foresee a problem. There is so much glass and so little canvas, there is no place to hide from the sight of an appraoching monster wave!