Dan and Jaye's cruising blog: Kumatage (reflections on the water)

Posted: February 12, 1:04 pm | (permalink) | (0 comments) [ photo: Members of Who’s Knockin’ Entertainment portray runaway slaves in “Flight to Freedom” event held yesterday at the site in honor of Black History Month .] Some people I know travel with the apparent objective of collecting photographs of themselves with various iconic landmarks in the background. A tour through their photo album might be like – “Here’s me in front of the Eiffel Tower; and here’s me at the Grand Canyon; and here’s me at the Washington Monument” – more like a giant timed scavenger hunt through life than a viewpoint-widening adventure. Here’s a hint: if the above describes your style, think about doing most of your traveling by car or airplane. Don’t travel by sailboat. It’d be waaaaay too slow. On the other hand, if you’re all about digging deep and discovering unexpected tidbits about the places you pass through, then traveling and living on a boat may give you the time at each spot along the way t...

Originally posted: February 7, 10:43 am | (permalink) | (2 comments) [ photo: Boats - lots and lots of boats, way more than 50 - anchored in Annapolis harbor to watch the Blue Angels air show in 2009 .] …it’s what they do when gathered. SB 127, regulating raftups – or actually any gathering of 50 or more boats, whether tied together in a raft or not – has run into problems as it should have. The article in the Capital after the hearing last week highlighted two valid objections legislators had. The first is the obvious: it’s not about the gathering per se, it’s about the inappropriate behavior when gathered. Yes, excess drinking in a large crowd begets stupidity and bad behavior (noise, littering, fighting, trespass, who knows what else) that reflects badly on all boaters. DNR has a crappy job to do here when this happens, and deserves our support. But. We have tools/laws to address these things already, as has been pointed out in the article and my previous blog post on ...

Posted: February 6, 1:25 pm | (permalink) | (2 comments) Now, I don’t know about you, but anytime anyone says “you can’t miss it,” when giving me directions, is when I start to get nervous … because it’s those directions that invariably get me lost. It’s like some kind of a jinx. The landmarks that one person notices just may not be important enough to another person to even make it onto their radar. We used to joke about it when we lived in Wyoming; people would always give us directions like “It’s easy – just turn at the second street after the big steakhouse.” Well, we are both vegetarians, so we’d just never have made note of the location of the steakhouse, it would not be relevant to us … and we’d get lost. Sometimes, though, even when the landmark is relevant, it can be trouble. We had been invited to a Superbowl party last night, and the host’s directions included this statement that sent my antennae up: “Just after you make the turn onto my street, you’ll see our hou...

Originally posted: January 15, 11:05 am | (permalink) | (0 comments) [photo by Tiger Lee; used with permission] Real pirates are bad guys. We all know that, right? So why are we so fascinated with pirates in popular culture? Modern Hollywood pirates are swashbuckling rogues... (What does that phrase mean exactly? And why do we always use it to describe these guys?) They are made out to be more rebels and adventurers than historically-accurate cruel pariahs, kind of a nice image of freedom and independence if you spend your days in a windowless cubicle, or are under about 10 years old. Anyway, we’ve also fallen prey to pirate-mania while we’ve been here, and options seem to be everywhere. We went for a New Year’s Eve party sail with the singing, storytelling, Disney-style pirates on the Black Raven on our dock. And for contrast, we visited a fantastic museum here totally devoted to real pirate history. I was particularly fascinated to learn about several women who dressed...

Originally posted: January 11, 12:36 pm | (permalink) | (2 comments) [ photo: a dock fender does double-duty as an accessory for core-strengthening exercises. Other parts of this workout use the mast and winches for arm muscles, and include balance exercises made more challenging by the boat's motion .] An article in yesterday’s Capital states that becoming more physically fit was the number one New Year’s resolution this year. That made me smile because, yep, I’m another one who has “working out more regularly” on my list. I’m a true believer in physical therapy. It has resolved a combination of back issues that left me with a limp; thank you Jen and Kari at Fitness Forum ! But – and this is a pretty big “but” – it only takes a few weeks of slacking off before the back spasms recur. Normally, when you’re discharged from physical therapy, they provide you with a set of exercises you can do at home to maintain your muscles, or come into the gym and work out on your own. ...