Samantha, left, and Lexi at just under 15 months. Monica says they are adorable. Then they come indoors, get their treats at the door and, like the hoodlums they truly are, run past the baby gate on the stairs up to the bedroom, where they gobble down Zippy, the cat's, dry food. Dr. Spock blames the parents, says I should have closed the gate completely. Says if I keep this up, they'll grow up to be obese and indolent. That sounds like a solution. Get them fat and lazy and I won't have to chase them around. Then I can get obese and indolent, too. I think I'll have another Ritz with peanut butter while I ponder thus further -- or is it farther?.

There was change in the air yesterday.  A southerly wind stirred the clouds in odd configurations and it reminded me of a day in June 2009 when I was alone on Robin, sailing to Bermuda. The sky that day was not precisely like it was yesterday. I recall two long, towering columns of white, extending off to the southwest. We were about 350 miles south of the Gulf Stream, I would guess. The air was warm and, although I'm not skilled in forecasting weather shifts, I sensed as I looked down the canyon between the columns, that rain was coming, perhaps a storm.
Out there, you cannot run from a storm or put into some convenient anchorage. You have to take what is delivered.
So I simply enjoyed the view and awaited the inevitable, whatever that would be.
On that occasion, there was a brief rain, no big winds, and then the weather passed.
The memory yesterday was a pleasant one as I looked up at the sky and then went indoors.

Tonight, I'll give a talk at the Red Dragon Canoe Club, our local boat club. I've called the talk: Cruising the Coast of Maine: The Fun and the Fear. I've assembled a Powerpoint slide show, and I'll ad lib for about 90 minutes.  I find that when you know a subject, it isn't all that difficult to wing it, as long as you have a general outline of what you want to say.
In this case, since Monica and I have made several trips to Maine aboard Robin, there is a lot to talk about as long as I stick to describing what we've seen and how we've gone about plotting and executing a cruise.
What I have to avoid is finding myself in a place where I believe I have some expertise -- that I actually know something. As soon as you think you are an authority, I've found, you're on the precipice of a great and painful fall.
So I need to enter the talk with a robust sense of my own ignorance and with a few stories to tell that demonstrate my fallibility. A few out of many, many. All the near-misses, and some of that calamitous collisions that were not avoided.

The wind was northwest yesterday on the Delaware River, the sky was a crisp blue and the foliage along the banks was electrified by some of the brightest oranges and yellows I've seen in this region, where atumn usually is a subdued tapestry.
So, of course, I took Bluebird out for a sail at two o'clock instead of going to Home Depot for a new garbage disposal.
There was quite a bit of water in the bilge and in the cabin, and that required using the electric pump to drain Bluebird of most of her burden. The pump always leaves some water, and I've learned to accept the everpresent sloshing.
With the sails raised, I headed with the current but against the wind, tacking downstream two miles past the little city of Beverly. I sailed until I reached a Pearson 28 that was sailing toward me. As if by plan, with both came about as we met, reversing our directions  and leaving each other behind. The sail upstream was with the wind, Bluebird at times was on a broad reach, at other times on a run, as we sailed the four miles to the Burlington-Bristol Bridge.
I sailed in close to the Red Dragon Canoe Club dock, where friend Bob was returning the launch. We exchanged greetings as Bluebird glided past in a breeze that carried gusts of about fifteen knots. I kept a good watch for other traffic. There were occasional powerboats, whose  captains waved as they sped by.
The sun was in the final quarter of its daily arc when Bluebird came about just upstream of the bridge and began sailing a saw-toothed track of long starboard tacks downstream and shorter port tacks across the stream.
Sitting low in the snug cockpit, I was content. Smug may be more correct, for I admit to feeling not only one with the wind but in some ways on an elevated plane compared with the rest of humanity.
Then, on a long starboard tack, I noticed a problem. The mast is supported by six slender stainless steel cables, one rising from the bow to part way up the front of the mast, a second attached to the stern and the top of the mast and, on each side, two called shrouds that keep the mast from falling  to the opposite side. On a starboard tack, the wind is pushing the sail -- and thus the mast -- to port, so the starboard shrouds have all the tension. The port shrouds are slack.
What I saw was that the "upper" port shroud was detached from its base on the deck, swinging gently out over the water. The shackle with which I'd pinned the bottom of the shroud to the deck fixture was still hanging from the "eye" at the bottom of the shroud, and its threaded pin -- which had worked free, allowing the shroud to detach from the deck fixture --was for the moment still held by one side of the shackle.
I had to laugh at my contenetment of a moment earlier.
I also had to do something or the mast would fall.
I let the sails flutter, making sure the tiller was pushed so that Bluebird wouldn't go on a port tack. Then I bent over the side and attempted to reattach the wandering shackle through the shroud eye and the deck fixture. Hard as I tugged, I was unable to stretch the shroud enough for the pin to reach the hole in the deck fixture. So I attached the shackle itself to the fixture and then, with a short piece of line that I use to tie up the mainsail when it's not in use, I put a rolling hitch around the shroud and passed the other end of the line through the shackle and tugged and tied it tight. For the time being the shroud was now stabalized and I could  sail on a port tack.
With that, Bluebird made it to the dock, where I fashioned a more stable connection between the shroud and the deck fitting, not a permanent solution but one that should keep the mast upright until I can get a proper pin.
What I learned is that you should never have a threaded  pin holding up the rigging because there is always a risk of that pin backing out, as this one did. And that reminded me that Robin, our ocean-going boat, has always had some of its shrouds held in place by bolts and nuts. I'll need to replace those with proper pins, too.              

We encounter a number of characters each morning when I drive Monica to the bus stand at 7:45. There is the couple out for their morning exercize: he with shoulders back, chest out, arms swinging  with the drama of an old veteran in a Memorial Day parade; she, shorter than he by a foot, head down, lips moving  or at times hidden behind a white dust mask, eyes intent, lost in some message -- a lecture, it would appear -- she's delivering. We see them while we're heading for the bus. On the return, on the same street, I often pass the bald and bushy-bearded mechanic at Jim's Auto, riding his mountain bike to work, even on chilly mornings wearing but a dark T-shirt with his dark blue chino work trousers. He leads with his hairy chin, assaults the morning with elbows out, knees pumping, perhaps imagining the first stubborn nut he will work free amidst the smells of old anti-freeze and worn rubber.
At the bus stand, several women who've worked the night shift at a nearby medical supply warehouse await home-bound rides. They wear the uniform of their jobs -- dark blue polo shirts, tan chinos -- and they engage in constant, greatly-animated conversation. Monica and I sit in the heat or the airconditoning of our car and watch  these ladies and the other passengers, all of whom we've given names in order to be able to comment on their behavior.
"Well, the Smoker's here," we might say, referring to a middle-aged man with a sour disposition (according to Monica) and the smell of stale tobacco smoke. Or, "Wonder if Tips will make it today." Tips is a middle aged woman who, for some reason, bleaches only the tips of her neck-length hair.
"The Twins" are two of the warehouse ladies, whom we first named because we noticed their matching wardrobes well before we realized they wore uniforms. "The Passenger" is another warehouse lady who used to wait for the bus in the passenger seat of a co-worker's car until one of the twins would motion to her that their bus -- which is also Monica's -- was coming.
(The one who motioned could be, by virtue of her features, the sister of former NFL player and football commentator Tom Jackson, whose pontifications Monica absorbs before the Sunday games. Both this lady and Jackson have a pleasing, low-keyed counteance.)
Until The Passenger lost her ride, the Twins would hold forth at the curb in serious dialogue, during which the Jackson Twin would listen and respond to her taller co-worker, who seemed to lead the discourse, accentuating her points by jabbing the air in front of her with two straight fingers between which was clenched a lit cigarette. There seemed to be little mirth in the conversation.
Then the Passenger lost her ride and now merriment is the order of the day. The Tall Twin has been relegated to a minor role. Her brusque jabs return only when the Passenger is absent.
Of all the characters who populate our morning, I like the Passenger and the Jackson Twin best. Sitting in the silence of our car, we can feel the good will being exchanged up there at the curb. In the place of Tall Twin's vehement gestures, we see the flutter of the Passenger's hands as she shapes the funny story or, perhaps, joke she's telling. Her hands are in nearly uninterrupted motion, and when there is a lull, the Jackson Twin's hands fill the void, drafting her reply as, often as not, both ladies bend in convulsive laughter.
The Passenger and the Jackson Twin draw in new arrivals with their behavior. One younger woman whom I'll call The Apron -- for she always wears a dark-blue apron with pockets, apparently signifying her employment -- at first stood on the periphery of the discourse, smoking and swaying  her stout body from side to side. But over time, she has been welcomed into the fun, and her comments seem to have been embraced.
I told Monica this morning that on Monday, when we next visit the bus stand, I'm going to take up a place at the curb so  that I can hear what's transpiring. I'm imagining that beginning the day with the Jackson Twin and the Passenger has to be better than listening to shock jocks on the car radio or the news on NPR.

We spent two weeks away, most of it in Maine, despite my aborted sailing voyage. Nine nights we were in rented accomodations -- from a bed and breakfast to housekeeping cabins -- and five we stayed with relatives.
Maine by land is quite different from Maine be sea. We prefer the latter, having now sampled both.
The highlights of the trip turned out to be the people we visited. My cousin, Bill, who shares a birth year with me and whom I hadn't seen in 29 years, was our host in Machiaseport, a very remote fishing village near the Canadian border. He was  the same wonderful person as  the kid with whom I spent time duirng childhood.
At the other end of the spectrum were Astra Haldeman and Lou Gallagher, a couple whom we met when, as kids, they attended, and then were instructors in, our local sailing school. Astra now works in the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Lou is captain of the Helen Brooks, a charter Friendship Sloop, seen below, and they live in Northeast Harbor aboard a 33-foot wooden gaff-rigged ketch, the Evelyn, which I was privileged to visit during a fog-bound downpour. I'll post a picture of the interior of the Evelyn. It was raining too hard to take photos of her exterior.

Monica and I are sitting on the wrap-around porch of a housekeeping cabin in Lincolnville, Maine, gazing out at a blue wedge of Penobscott Bay, most of which is hidden by a wall of green trees catching the 6:15 P.M. falling sunlight. The heat of the day -- 85 degrees Farenheit at one point -- has seeped from the air, and we're sitting in shadows. The sounds of traffic on US Route 1 can be heard coming from behind our plastic chairs. All else is tranquil.
Without a boat to call home, we're having a new Maine experience. I do regret not bringing Robin north, but now we're learning to enjoy this great place in a different way.
Not ten feet from my right shoulder, the nearest branches of a woodlot reach toward us. Some of them have green berries along with their leaves. We can't identify the trees. We're hoping that in the morning, they'll be filled with berry-eating birds that we can identify.
I would guess that the cottage is about 100 feet in elevation above the bay. There is a gravel road passing 100 feet or so in front of the cabin and that road descends through a field toward the bay. In time, we'll investigate to determine how close it goes to the bay and whether, should I locate some bait and some fishing gear, it is a good place to cast a line.
With some luck, I might land a fish. There is a charcoal grill about 50 feet from the cabin. Maybe grilled fillet of bluefish is in our gastranomic future.
Or, more likely, another restaurant will be our fate.