ROMARIN SAILING STORIES
A Rocky Mountain Adventure
copyright 2013 Edwin P. Cutler
We hope that Long Ago will become literature in that it will survive the ravages of time and remain in the hearts of our children, our grandchildren, and our greatgrandchildren.
Long Ago is to show that memory is a time machine: What happened long ago is often as clear what happened yesterday.
These stories, incidents in our sailing ventures, are little stories that we told people or people told us as we explored the waters where we sailed.
SB014001 Stories that we have written or will write about
- our greatest danger was that we didn't know it was dangerous.
- we were never really lost, we just didn't know where we were.
- playing hooky, out of sight of land, steer by the stars
- wet underwear brought to church
- Gerry went to the merchant academy, Wendy cried
- Paying the slip fee for use of the Sunriser
- Up the Rappahannock, off the chart, hit a rock
- Aground on every mud bank in the Chesapeake
- ice in the rigging
- The Romarin, too complicated, never made an offer
- no working man should have a wooden sailboat,
- every retired man should.
- 1988 BC started fish hatcheries for salmon
- Mammals have horizontal tail flippers, fish have vertical tails
- migrating birds eat insects, wintering birds eat nuts
- Porpoises signal off of Tampa, sleeping school jumps out of water
- Sail plans: never adhered too, reported missing
- a schedule will ruin a good sail, couple motored from Georgetown, Bahamas to (somewhere in the Virgins) while we sailed when the wind was right. (It's me or the boat)
- Grandchildren must be visited each year
- Boats with dogs island hop, seldom go to sea
- Dogs must be taken ashore each morning
- preparing to cruise away
- we took our list with us
- stop eating out, stop buying cloths, etc. save money!
- checking the rigging, Don't take this boat to sea.
- nothing went right in Solomon's Maryland.
- Police told us to go back to the dock, sticker out of date
- rounded top of mast
- bad fuel, learned to sail without engine
- fisherman saw our boat settling in the water
- almost sank, no stuffing box
- previous owner turned away
- rat on board, gun to shoot it!
- rat ate our wiring
- given gun to shoot it
- previous owner, (why didn't yard call us!)
- The day we disappeared (in fog in the mouth of the West River)
- eating outside on the dock in long underwear
- ran aground at mouth of South River
- dropped anchor and went to bed til tide rose
- another boat saw us and anchored there too.
- a friend dove to gather oysters with scuba gear
- sailed in extreme conditions
- because we didn't know enough to be afraid.
- ripped mizzen? at Cape Smith saved us from a blast.
- Chesapeake west shore squalls with hurricane winds
- now and then we asked what are we doing out here?
- Romarin sat contented, unaware she was about to go to sea with a crew who had never been out of sight of land.
- ran aground as we cast off with everyone watching
- got colder as we sailed south
- learned to trust our log
- our first serious sextant shots off Savannah
- Anchoring in the grasslands
- South against the Gulf Stream on mizzen only, NE wind
- Arctic frost off St. Augustine
- Fort Pierce: tide flow, musician at anchor
- crossing the Gulf Stream to the Bahamas
- sailing with roller skates
- Our first foreign landfall was a touching experience
- Around the Caribbean:
- we left in 1984, haven't owned a car since 1983
- sailed around the Caribbean 1985-1986
- Up the coast to Newport RI,
- Forgotten Swan Island
- Swan Island, TBA or SWA?
- where's the 25 mile light?
- onions, iguana, land crabs, but no escargot
- escargot in the Jumento Cays
collected by Spanish Wells fishermen
- goats in the Jumento Cays belong to the people
- canned tropical fruit
- eye glasses for a local
- (not) dredged channel into Ragged Island Cay
- The road to the airport, no cement left
- the airport restaurant, an old D.C.10(?)
- his outside family
- Jamaica Cay (Eden Island), the drunk, the religious book
- Jamaica Cay, two young men with dead radio batteries, no eggs
- an abandoned Haitian boat in the Jumentos
- Deadman's Cay and our broken outboard engine
- Man-o-war Cay, hauled, Wendy's hives, no blacks
- no cars, golf carts
- Customs checked boat permit, didn't check our personal visas
- Powell point golf course, overnight, globe
- depth sounder sensed whale in water
from Eleuthera to San Salvador
- San Salvador abandoned foundation, Hammerhead shark
- lady sea shell collector
- cold front arrived early off Conception Island
- Ed got seasick off Conception Island
- Reunions:
- 1992 45th high school reunion in Maryland
- Ed was only man there with a beard, red necks
- many school chums, lost track since
- Family reunion in Montana;
- less expensive to buy a car than to fly.
- bought a 92 Mazda Protege to go to family reunion in 2004
- drove across country visiting old places and friends
- sea lice on wild salmon in fish-farm rivers in B.C.
- Alex ______ started her research in 1991 or 82
- Norway responded to internet query
- B.C. Canadian government capitulated in 1991 or 1992
- Lake Superior, Canada side
- Owner can't evict renter until Spring up here(Superior)
- _____ are pretty but attach like barnacles.
- they break off and clog cooling systems
- they came in on ocean boats and cleaned up Lake Erie
- gets down to -35C w/ 4 to 6 feet of snow
- Our trip to the Hudson Bay