The gathering wasn't large -- maybe 30 people in all -- but considering that the temperature up on the highway was at one point 102 degrees Farenheit yesterday, it was surprising that five kayaks and two canoes actually came to the waterfront at the Red Dragon Canoe Club for the Summer Solstice Paddle for Cash Race.
Every boat paid a $10 entry fee, and half the money went to the club. The other half was to be divided amongst the top three finishers in a race, boat-for-boat, no handicapping, around a triangular course through the club's mooring field.
The first heat of three boats started at about 6 p.m. on this, the longest day of the year, lining up along an imaginary line in front of the dock. Race Director Bill Van Keuren waved each boat close to the line, the fleet facing into the current of a falling tide. When he was happy that all the boats were close to the line, Bill sounded an air horn and everyone sprinted for the first race marker, a large yellow sphere attached to a boat on a mooring.
An entire lap round the three huge inflated markers took six to eight minutes. There were two qualifying heats and then a race between the first two finishers in the respective heats.
The winner was a member of a nearby boat club, paddling a western Greenland replica kayak that he had built himself. (Or was it western Iceland?)
On shore, a cookout was underway, with burgers and dogs. And the meteorological gods favored us with a breeze off the river, so that no one was sweltering ashore or on the water.

Work aboard Robin is nearing an end and the day that she heads downstream is near. The electrician finished rewiring the mast yesterday. The windlass is mounted on deck. Today, in the continuing heat, I begin removing tools and trash and anticipate the day that our lady will be pretty, clean and ready to voyage once again.

Success! Robin has refrigeration. I kept a couple of cans of ginger ale cool this morning while I worked on the roller furling. That project was half done when I had to leave, but we'll be back at it tomorrow. The wind is blowing now perfectly for heading down to the sea -- an east by northeast breeze of about 12 to 15 knots that you could ride all the way to the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic. It has me dreaming!

The evaporator -- which is the ice-making part of the refrigerator -- is installed in the box and the lids are ready to be closed.

Today, I make the final connections to the compressor and, with a turn of the switch, everything should be cool aboard Robin.

Some may think our work is play. No, this is play.

The paddlers of the Red Dragon Canoe Club visited the New Jersey shore at Barnegat Bay on Saturday. Monica, in her flashy new life jacket, paddled almost as much as she talked with our companions. As always, she was, I'd venture, the life of the party.
There were 17 boats -- 2 canoes and 15 kayaks -- and 19 paddlers. Some were in their 20s, some may even have been older than we. The weather was sunny with a gentle breeze to keep us cool. The currrent was mild.
This was not a strenuous voyage -- only a few miles in protected water -- but it was completely pleasant and was followed by a cookout for luch at the beach house of one of the paddlers.
Another fine way to spend time on the water.

A wistfulness overcomes me when, crossing a set of railroad tracks, I pause to look, to see as far as the rails are straight -- to the next bend or the crest of the grade --and the disappearing tracks leave a question: What's beyond?
The same thing happens when I walk down to the river. Where we live, the river runs from the northeast upstream to the southwest downstream. In one sense, I know what's beyond: The mountains upstream, the ocean downstream.
But there is a pull nonetheless. I want to follow the water downstream, always and immediately, and when I cannot, I"m not fully at peace.

This is the mess caused by working on the refrigerator.

This is the new ice box, awaiting installation of the refrigeration.

We're crossing our fingers, hoping that it gets, and stays, cold.

Robin's refrigerator stopped working last year. We resorted to using blocks of ice to keep things cool. The ice melted, filling the bottom of the ice box/refrigerator with often-gross water. There was no drain, and the only way to remove the water was with cups and sponges.
One of this spring's projects has been the replacement of the refrigeration machinery. But while at it, I decided there was no better time to redo the whole thing -- insulation and all. That would give me a chance to build in a drain that we sorely needed.
The liner of the refrigerator was made of fiberglass covering slabs of foam insulation that was layered over the original, factory-built ice box -- another fiberglass liner, coated on the outside with spray foam. This original liner also had a drain that I discovered when I'd torn off the newer insulation.
The first liner -- the non-factory one -- had failed. There was a crack in the bottom, and that meant that beneath it,  all the foam was soaked with melted ice water that had collected there for who-knows-how-long
So with various tools, I scraped out all the old insulation until I was down to the bare wooden cabinet that houses the ice box.
For much of the last week, I've been rebuilding the insulation. Nothing is completely square, so each slab of foam must be cut oversized at first and then trimmed to leave a minimum of gaps. Where there are gaps, I've been injecting spray foam -- not a great solution, but the only one I can think of.
My selection of tools to do the cutting has evolved. I started with a utility knife that uses razor-like blades. I added to that the multi-tool and a pocket knife. Today, I discovered that a cheap, long bread knife works better than those other blades.
I have now cut all the pieces of foam -- making at least two layers with a total R-value of 21.4.
Next step -- creating a fiberglass liner from an 8 x 4 foot panel, the sort used to line showers. The ice box is now about 32 inches deep, so making paper patterns of each side is difficult. I have to literally dive into the ice box head first, feet above me. There right now is a maximum of 9.5 inches of width in which to work.
I'm praying an unemployed contortionist will stroll down the dock and volunteer his services. I'd even pay him to take over.