Sailing

Up early on Saturday for a drive to Norwalk, CT, where we met up with friends for a delightful weekend of sailing on the water of Long Island Sound. The boat is old and beautiful, and made of wood, such that people sail alongside her in order to bestow compliments. One basks in the glow of being aboard such faded glory. The sun shone and the winds blew fair after a blustery start. We ate lunch in Ziegler's Cove, next to America II, who seems to be idling there for no very good reason that I could see.

A sail across the sound to the far reaches of Huntington Harbor, gaping at all the mansions lining the coves. The Connecticut and Long Island Shores have great big houses with wonderful water views, and one wonders what it would be like to live in such a place for the summer with children and children's friends and houseguests and servants and events at the yacht club and the tennis club and drinks on the terrace. Very grand.

We had dinner at the yacht club and they really did know how to cook a steak.

Two swans patrolled the harbor and a flock of Canada geese voiced outrage over a dog on the sand. The swans made swan noises (something between a honk and a caw) as they sailed along, and the night was very quiet, with no parties anywhere, or else very subdued parties, and Sunday morning dawned even quieter except for one seagull with something on his mind.

We had a breakfast that couldn't be beat: eggs, tomatoes and spam, with some German rye, and a piece of home-made banana bread to top it off. Coffee, of course. The sun disappeared and the wind did likewise. A nip of rum before lunch. Another sail across the sound and then home thru the Bridgeport and New Haven traffic.

Bridgeport has spruced itself up. Part of the slum seen from the freeway is gone, and grass now grows where the derelict building once sat. New buildings and a look of almost prosperity.

Home to a gazillion emails, laundry and the prospect of a workday with ordinariness far removed from the mansions and the yacht club and the admiring glances of the other sailors. Back to technology and thinking about my book and maybe tomorrow even writing a few pages, which I hope will also be removed from the ordinary. Or maybe not.

Aloha (or is it ahoy)

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