FOCUS: 5th graders on the Bay!

Fifth graders from Stratford and Stewart schools are participating in a new initiative this year known as F.O.C.U.S. (Fifth Grade, Outdoor Education, Community, Unity, Service). On September 16, 2009, F.O.C.U.S. began with a kick-off event at the Garden City Middle School. Members of Garden City's Class of 2017 posed for a group shot before embarking on their marine biology trip: a boating adventure on Long Island’s Great South Bay.

While on board, BOCES naturalists guided the students in a plankton tow and a dredging of the bay floor. Many different specimens were collected and examined under microscopes and in a touch tank. Water samples were also collected and tested for salinity, clarity, and temperature. The captain and crew of The Miss Freeport and The Dolphin taught the students about navigation and boat safety. A perfect ending to an already perfect day came when the crew led the students in a fishing session where many of the children even caught their own fish!

(The above was rephrased from today's Garden City News." See link.)

This is pretty cool. One of the guys I race against is the captain of a fishing boat (not mentioned here), who has been doing this in the off season for a few years. He loves it, and it's a good way for the fishing boat to make some money when it can't go fishing. And, of course, any time schools, clubs, or sailors can get kids on the water we should take it.

BOCES, in case you don't know, is a program run by the county that gives kids opportunities to do things outside the classroom. And it's especially great for kids who haven't been successful in traditional school settings. I often wish I had gone to BOCES for to be a carpenter or electrician.

a new neighbor...

Jack moved his boat down to Babylon for the winter, and it turned out that they gave him a slip right in front of our house.

The Lightship Nantucket

The Nantucket Lightship, officially known as the LV-112, guarded the shipping lanes near the deadly Nantucket Shoals for nearly four decades. Built in 1936 at the Pusey & Jones Shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware to replace the LV-117, the Nantucket Lightship was the largest lightship ever built for the Nantucket Shoals. It replaced the LV-117, a lightship that was split in half and sunk by the RMS Olympic in dense fog in 1934.

Last week the Nantucket Lightship was sold for $1 to Robert Mannino of New Hampshire. "We are looking at moving the ship in late November, early December and restoring it," said Mannino, who formed the nonprofit U.S. Lightship Museum for the purpose of saving the vessel. "We plan to open it as a public museum, get it fully operational and take the ship out a couple of times a year in the New England area."

(The above was rephrased from the Nantucket Independent. See link.)

When I took that US Sailing Keelboat Instructor class last Spring it was held in Oyster Bay, where the Lightship has been hanging out, waiting for a buyer. Definitely read the article. Good luck, Nantucket.

There's another Lightship Nantucket out there, as it turns out. And, from the same great blog, tugster, is the restored Nantucket Lightship (not the one in OB).

Thanks to Soundbounder for the news. If you live on the islands of Long, Block, Nantucket, Fishers, City¹, or Manhattan, or you live on the mainland that borders the Sound, you should be reading Soundbounder!

¹: yeah yeah, I know.

50,000 clams in Mt. Sinai Harbor waters!

Although this has nothing to do with sailing, my boat, or even the great Great South Bay, I thought it was important enough for all two or three of you.

"On a bright October morning, 30 students from Mount Sinai High School and Comsewogue High School waited eagerly at Mount Sinai Harbor to discover the results of five months of work raising clams for the Town of Brookhaven."

Sweet! A Redwing in action!

Ode to the North-east Wind
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875)


WELCOME, wild North-easter!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne’er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black North-easter!
O’er the German foam;
O’er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired we are of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day:
Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dyke;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild-fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snow-flakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! The brave North-easter!
Breast-high lies the scent,
On by holt and headland,
Over heath and bent.
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can over-ride you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest to-morrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O’er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious South-wind
Breathe in lovers’ sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies’ eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
’Tis the hard grey weather
Breeds hard English men.
What’s the soft South-wester?
’Tis the ladies’ breeze,
Bringing home their true-loves
Out of all the seas:
But the black North-easter,
Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come; and strong within us
Stir the Vikings’ blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!

23.

Alli has been wanting to take a friend of hers and his GF out for a sail, and we finally got it together today. We left about half an hour before sunset, sailed toward the bridge in the vanishing sunlight, turned around by the bridge and headed home.

Tonight was one of those September nights that I love: light breeze, warm and then cool, and just enough clouds to make a killer sunset.

22.

21. back to school eve

NY Harbor School

I interviewed at the NY Harbor School three years ago. They offered me a job teaching Social Studies the day after 'Pequa gave me an offer I couldn't refuse (teaching English). I was convinced that NYC would not do the right thing and put them on Governor's Island. They were in Bushwick! It's about 40 minutes by subway from the Harbor.

The school, the principal, and Murray Fisher deserve recognition. Harbor School deserves the 10k. Can you imagine the dedication it takes to run a maritime-based high school that is almost an hour from the Harbor?

Vote early and vote often in this GQ poll.

20. a light breeze as the sun sets

Another quickie on the Going Back to School Eve.

Mega-Millions

If one of you wins the Mega this week (I think it's at about 300mill), I'd like a Hinckley Bermuda 40, please. I'd prefer the yawl rig, not the sloop.

Surely you can spare 250k for a brother in need. Right?

I always think of the B40, but I think of it right now because the new issue of Good Old Boat magazine has an article profiling this great, great boat. Check out the article and the magazine right now! And, if you have a good, old boat, you should subscribe. Every issue has something for you.

19. Ode to the West Wind

How I hate thee, West Wind!

Out with Allison and her brother Rob: steep, fast waves that made lots of spray.

I thought there would be enough South to it that we could sail to the bridge and back, but when we got out there it was mostly West. So going to the bridge would have been an absolutely lovely, brisk sail. Coming back, well, gentlemen don't sail to weather for a reason. It would have been ugly.

So we went near 9, turned around and came back in.

And then! mmmm...Kotobuki!

18. another evening excursion