Underway Finally

We kicked away from the dock yesterday at 13:00. Fuel and water are topped off. The holding tank is pumped out. Libations and food are in the refer (boat talk for refrigerator). It was a sunny day with a high of 67 which, once out in the open Chesapeake Bay with a west wind of 10 mph, felt like 37.

We sailed north for a few hours to an anchorage that has become a favorite for us. The anchorage is called Swan Creek. It offers protection from wind and waves from all directions and scenery beyond description unless I use the word bucolic and I hate that ugly sounding word. ("Grandma had bucolic again last night!").

You can locate Swan Creek on any online map by typing in Gratitude, Maryland and looking further north for a creek that turns in from the bay at the town of Gratitude then dog leg's to the north. The map might incorrectly call it the Chester River. We are anchored near the small marina a ways up stream. Today's agenda is to re-disorganize. We have bags and boxes of summer and winter clothes, canned food, and sundry items. "A place for everything and everything in its place" we sailors always say unless we get started drinking.

Our neighbors and friends, Chris and Beth, rode along with us from Columbus to drive the van home to spend its winter resting in the parking lot. The four of us and dock neighbor Phil hit a few waterside bars on Tuesday and Wednesday. Beth had a cute little 20-something interested in her at "The Jetty". She graciously discharged his testosterone charged, love-struck cuteness and sent him gently on his way.

We didn't get to see any of our other dock neighbors since we arrived on a weekday. We had hoped to see Tom and Barb whose powerboat is berthed next to our Foxglove. Even though Tom and Barb are older than us, we find them to be enormously interesting people. They live as full of a life as any rich couple but they do it on meager terms. Tom is a master with his chain saw. He built their home in Lost River, West Virginia and their cabin somewhere in the mountains of Pennsylvania. He felled the trees, notched them for construction, and gathered local stone to build the fireplace. Tom is an outdoorsman and has hunted with every kind of weapon possible; some that he made himself. He affords a nice boat by caring for it himself and when he goes fishing ,the tide always seems to be going his way which saves on gas. After Barb cleans and cooks the fish Tom saves the inedible parts for chum which he sprinkles around the marina. After a while, bait fish come around to feed on the chum and Tom catches them to use for bait to catch larger fish when he takes his boat out later in the day.

One day last month, Tom and I sat around the swimming pool at our marina watching Barb and Mandy swim. Tom told me about hunting and preparing raccoon. "Tastes like lamb if you fix it right," he told me. "And you can take in some good money by selling the pelts." Meanwhile in the pool, Barb and Mandy were carrying on like sisters even though they are a generation apart.

Tom told me about the time that a few of his coworkers came to him asking to take them hunting. "Mr. Tom! Will you take us coon hunting?" Tom said, imitating their voices. Tom told them to meet him at the gas station after work and he would bring his dogs for a hunt. I guess all Mayberry sized towns have a gas station where the men gather. Lost River is probably no different.

The hunters met at the gas station and the hunt was on. The dogs treed a number of coon and the hunters brought them down to feed their families and profit from their pelts. As dusk came on them, the dogs had lagged behind a few hundred feet, barking and playing instead of hunting. Tom, a man who stays aware of his surroundings, suddenly noticed the outline of a raccoon against the fading blue of the sky as the critter perched on a branch high in a nearby tree. Tom decided to have some fun.

"I'm tired of waiting on those dogs to sniff out a coon. I'm gonna do it myself," he told his companions. As the huntsmen stood watching in awe, Tom began sniffing one tree after another. When he sniffed on the tree that he knew had a fat coon lazing above, he whispered, "There's a coon in this tree, shine your lights up there." Tom's companions shone their flashlights up into the tree and to their amazement a pair of beady eyes reflected back down at them. The huntsmen stood frozen in time, awestruck by what they had witnessed. But while they stood, Tom already had the butt of his gun to his shoulder. A blast of gunpowder brought the animal to the huntsmen's feet. They turned to each other then turned toward Tom. Their eyes were as big as a harvest moon. "Mr. Tom don't need no huntin dogs," they said to each other. "Mr. Tom can sniff out a coon with his own nose."

The next day at work, the huntsmen told everyone about how Mr. Tom can tree a coon without dogs. I suppose soon after the word spread throughout Lost River West Virginia that Mr. Tom was the greatest hunter since Davy Crockett.