Fair winds and following seas to you, Belle

Belle is on her way to South Carolina with her new people. She is going to be a freshwater girl. They arrived almost two hours early. We scrambled to get ready. We pulled her out into the driveway. Chocked the wheels. Trailer check. Centerboard check. Locks and keys gathered. Her new owner is so excited about her, excited as my Dad was when he brought her home.

Dad found her at a nearby TVA lake in Tennessee, so even though she was designed for the Isle of Wight, she is fine with freshwater too. They are keeping the name Belle, which is good because the winds and waters know her already.

When they pulled out the driveway with Belle and rounded the corner, I felt good about it. Her new owners were so excited. Even the dog was excited. They put him in the boat and he looked like he had been in boats all his life.

We sat on the porch at lunch, remembering some moments. Dolphins, turtles, puffing along with no breeze and shallow water over the turtle grass on hot summer days. One time a big bonnet head shark ran in front of the bow as the dolphins like to do. The big storm she got us through safely-- my husband kept a clear head. Fishing from her was awkward with all the sheets and shrouds. One day with little breeze, Bob had the tiller between his knees catching trout after trout. 18 years with Belle.

More deer

This picture was taken Friday morning through a window. Two male deer were browsing their way across the back yard. They seemed to be eating Virginia creeper and grape vine leaves. We had seen one of them before, but now we saw two males at the same time. One of my neighbors said she has seen four deer all at once in her yard-- male, female, and two fawns. My husband thinks these might be two brothers, perhaps two years old, since they are keeping company together.

It has been a challenge to keep them from eating the antique roses this summer. I spray with Liquid Fence every weekend, but the daily rains, sometimes very heavy, have been washing it off. We have had two dry days since I sprayed on Thursday, so the roses have been able to put out some new growth. Years ago, I planted the roses to have some variety of plants. They don't attract butterflies or hummingbirds. The songbirds sometimes eat the rose hips. So I keep growing them and spraying them. But with the number of deer in the neighborhood increasing, the roses are under constant attack. I might not have planted them in the first place if I had known they would just be nibbled down to bare sticks by deer.

Belle

Belle was my father's sailboat. We brought her to Florida when he died and sailed her for 18 years. When I realized we had not sailed her in two years, I felt it was time to let someone else sail take her out on the water. I posted an ad on Boat Trader a week and a half ago. The first call seemed hopeful but he decided she was too small. The second inquiry was mostly concerned with trailering her with a small car. While he was mulling it over, the third call led to a sale over the phone. Early this morning I sent more detailed photos, and by mid-morning I had a down payment and arrangements for a pick up in three weeks. 

Our favorite place for boating, Cedar Keys, is not particularly easy for sailing. The way the prevailing winds, keys, channels, currents, sand bars, and oyster bars are laid out meant that we usually took down the sail and motored back to the dock. Still we had many happy days of sailing with her, and I always thought of my father's dream of being sailed around with his children crewing the boat. It was a reasonable enough dream, except that the physics of sailing had me absolutely stumped and I'm not much of a sailer. So Dad and I only had one sailing adventure together on Belle. My husband is the one who deserves credit for keeping her in repair and understanding how she runs. 

At first we seemed to have all the bad luck in the world. We put a lot of time into new sails, rigging, mast, motor mount... too many things to recount. After a couple of years we realized we had made an egregious error. She had never been properly renamed. So we bought champagne and put her in the water in a lake, at a friend's dock. We loaded her up with friends and christened her properly. After that, the winds and waters knew her again and things went much more smoothly. 

Belle was perfect for turtle spotting at Cedar Keys. My favorite place was up on the bow, wedged on one side of the jib. Dolphins loved to run in front of her if she was going fast enough. She wasn't the best for fishing, with all the rigging and shrouds, but the quiet of a sailboat is like no other quiet. 

One of my most cherished possessions is a pair of wind tells that my husband gave me. I considered keeping them, to help me figure out which way the wind is blowing when conditions are puzzling. Instead I will be sending them along with Belle. If I haven't learned how to read the wind by now on my own, with my father's and husband's guidance, the little flags won't reveal anything I can't calculate with some hard thinking.