Vineyard Interlude


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Originally uploaded by dchurbuck

It was my friend Woody’s 50th surprise party this weekend on Chappaquidick, so the wife and I popped across Vineyard Sound on the Pied Piper ferry for a night in Edgartown. We arrived early Saturday morning, rented a convertible Mini Cooper, and headed directly for Aquinnah and Gay Head. A quick tour of my favorite village — Menemsha —

then up to Oak Bluffs for a burger and a beer before checking into our room at the Charlotte Inn in Edgartown. If there are better things than driving Middle Road in Chilmark in late June in a convertible, I would like to know (okay, pedaling down Middle Road in Chilmark in late June on a vintage Italian steel bicycle).

At the Inn I did not read anything into the presence of a painting of a woodcock over the bed, nor did I feel the Victorian lithograph of a lady lanquidly leaning on her suitor’s big brass machine gun was out of place. But I digress. The Inn was total Interior Designer Porn, so my wife was occupied analyzing the subspecies of wall paper and window treatments while I wished I had packed a fly rod and some Deceivers.

 

The party was literally a luau. Wife and I had to leave early as I am still recovering from what the doctor told is an official case of salmonella (which has also swept my wife and two eldest, leading us to believe we may be victims of the evil tomato plague sweeping the Nation).

Finished the trip this morning on the town pier in Edgartown, where we were treated to a most excellent re-enactment of the Rodney Dangerfield yachting scene when a gentleman in a large power catamaran blocked the Chappy ferry in order to board his guests and two pugs despite the vigorous complaints of the harbormaster and ferry captain. Unfortunately I was not quick enough on the ol’ FlipCam to get the better parts.

Hang ’em high




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Originally uploaded by dchurbuck

Today was varnish day — one coat of Epifanes on everything that needed varnishing.

Fisher helped me with the skiff, then we moved onto a new coat for the Shaw & Tenney oars, the boom crutch, the tiller ….

That big rhomboid thing is the centerboard. It needs its bottom half coated with anti-fouling paint.

A few more days and I should have the skiff ready for the water and the first race on Friday the 4th. Short week ahead, I’ll be on the Cape. Tempted to declare the whole thing a vacation week but I’ve got too many things on my schedule to churn things around.

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