12/9/15   Wednesday

Making love while Waiting for the Tide to Change - the title of a book? Metaphors? Which? Making love? or Waiting for the Tide to change? Making love is always a pleasure. But there is something intriguing about "waiting for the tide to change." The tide always changes but there is the waiting.

Another book title possibility - Starboard of the Magenta Line. The magenta line on the chart is, supposedly, the best (aka deepest!) water in the ICW. This is not always the case. Often there are instructions in Active Captain or other interactive sites to stay one side or the other of the magenta line. Or when I get really nervous about the lack of depth I'll noodle around to see if there is deeper water a little to the left or right of that sweet line. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Walk (navigate) the line!

And then there is the idea David and I've been kicking around about a children's book about a pirate alligator (with a patch over one eye, of course) who steals dinghies, chomping the painter and making off with them in the night or when the sailors are making love while waiting for the tide to change. Clearly the alligator must sell the dinghies but the proceeds must help someone, not just greed. Not sure who/what the someone (something) could be. Suggestions, please?

We're "on the hook" for a 4th night (can you smell us?), this time around the corner from Brunswick, GA, at Lanier Island. After 3 nights in the boonies - the lovely, quiet, rural boonies with bright stars overhead (or rain clouds but, hey!) - we're next to a city again. Kitty is distressed by the road noise and helicopters overhead. Her humans are noticing the road noise, similar but not the same as the white noise of the ocean surf, and the lights of the bridges and cars. Fewer stars tonight.

Sitting in the warm darkness, post dinner, as the night fell we were thinking about first memories of being around/on water or at the beach. Then another round of remembering the most memorable times of being on the beach or water. I was at the beach really a lot from early childhood but my memories are from about 8 years old, going to the Outer Banks of NC fishing. Earliest was living for a week's fishing vacation in a little one room... shack, really, right on the beach with my mom and dad and two other couples...falling asleep to the sound of the surf, cooking and refrigerating with propane (a first for me but, of course, I didn't cook). Privacy was an interesting challenge as it was really limited. Shower on the "porch" just outside the kitchen area of the one room. There was a 2nd room which was the "garage" where the "dune buggy" - the island car - was stored...and un-stored to turn the garage into additional sleeping quarters. I cannot remember, exactly, the sleeping arrangements except that I was the only child so got my own bed. Think Mom and Dad slept in the "one room" with me and others shared the garage. Roughing it, for sure.

David is distressed that often there isn't easy access to food stores along the waterway and that there is no "indicator" in the Active Captain information for food stores. We have to rely on the "comments" section or our google search. It IS a challenge. And we're getting bored with our current food selections. We might have to eat Nabs - those peanut butter or cheese crackers that come in orange or yellow colors, our meals for the next two days. That is a total exaggeration. We are not starving nor are we without food options on board.

I grow impatient with David's engineer mind, always thinking about the better way or fixing so that the thing functions better...or at least talking about how to make it better. Somewhere I learned to "make do", "live with what is available". It's tiring always looking for how to improve, make stuff better or easier. Just buck up and do the work or like and appreciate what you/I have. But then when he suggested I use the winch to haul the sail in, rather than totally straining my back, I thought his engineering mind was a good idea. His "make it better" attitude and my "make do with how it is" attitude do create friction and snarky comments sometimes. And then we each have to go to another room....or hug....or snarl...or sigh heavily...or just ignore. Ignorance is sometimes as blissful as it gets. We probably balance each other pretty well.

Today we had a wonderful twilight conversation with wine, saw these wonderful sights and waited for the tide to change.

Left Sapelo Island just past high tide

Trees full of white spots.....

...are snowy egrets and pelicans