Opua: owl
Opua: owl
Low overcast this evening. A complicated low is moving onto New Zealand from the Tasman. I think this means I won’t be able to sleep with the hatches open tonight, though thus far no rain has fallen.
I rowed ashore this morning and walked up the hill for the exercise and the view, despite threatening clouds. I reasoned that it wouldn’t matter if I got wet before my shower, but it didn’t happen, and much of the day was sunny.
I’ve just come below after eating a dinner of a pasta salad bought at the takeaway place next to the general store and a glass of wine. I watched a gannet dive and catch his dinner, and a young man start his outboard to dinghy from his boat to another fifty yards away. The noise of his motor briefly destroyed the quiet. There is no honor, no pride, no style, no grace in crouching in a dinghy clinging to the throttle of an outboard motor.
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The photo is of a new local boat named unimaginatively, WILD, which was tied to Ashby’s dock when I was there two weeks ago.
Twin steering wheels are a relatively recent fad. I’m not certain that they have any real value beyond ego.
THE HAWKE OF TUONELA had a wheel when I bought her. I lived with it until I had sailed the boat from New York to Florida, where I removed the wheel, pedestal, cables and quadrant from the rudder post; and reinstalled the tiller, which made me happy.
When I first walked past WILD I thought the twin carbon fiber steering wheels looked like eyeglasses, but now I think they make WILD look from the stern like an owl, which would have been a much better name.
Saturday, March 29, 2008