..."to the vagrant gypsy's life"... WHERED THE SUMMER GO?

yes , little shrimps from the german bight (called "krabben" ) and bacon bits - sidedish looks like little mushrooms - a bit unusual .

and here " dover sole on bubble "

£9.99 no doubt.

you cant serve flatfiswh in any way that is bad (except maybe breaded and deep fried)

do they have pictures of smoked flounder in the fish'n chips ?



they taste best still warm , just out of the smoke-house .

we had some cold smoked salmon at breakfast today. Just some soft boiled eggs and the salmon, toast and jelly and a potta nice lapsangh souchong. Bekress of champions.

I dont know what wed do with smoked flounder , its not exactly a bite sized snack. We catch em over 7 pounds.

the "german" ones usually don't even reach a pound - barely enough for a meal - often one is served two for a meal .
btw plaice are usually considered best in may - before the shallow waters of the german bight warm up - and may make the plaice taste muddy .

Drove out to the middle river and the East Quoddy Head Light to take some folks on an early AM picture takin ride. It was nice and calm and the fog lifted nicely to reveal a neat curtained glimpse of the Lighthouse at East Quoddy.
All of a sudden I got a jarring slam on the bottom and discover , Id just hit a series of lines from a drag liner who had lost a rig. I had to get towed and now were unspooling several miles of about 300 lb test monofilament. I have a diver pullin the **** from around the props and the tubes. What a ******* mess. I hope I find the nake of the sunofabitch so I can send him the damn bill that this divers gonna present me.

No fishin today, and were all sorta set for a trip out into the Gulf and down to Kittery and Portland. I hope the damn transmission isnt hurt. The shafts and the fuzz box looks ok so the only thing that can be affected (at worst) is the clutches and tranny

who made the trans?

(just kurious)

I warned you effemm. And that was a minor happenstance where boats are concerned.

I once bought a boat sight unseen. Cheap. When I went to the dock to inspect my purchase I sold it. Even cheaper.

It was a unit on the Yanmars. Im assuming that the tranny is a Simplicity or a Marine Inc. These are used almost exclusively on the Lobsterboat fleet.

Thats why I dont feel bad by ignoring anything you say. Youre just an old fool to buy a boat in a poke. Either that or youre just a chronic liar whose only boat experience is riding the porcelain frigate.

I just checked the specs on the rig and I see that we have a real unit. The tranny is a YD Yanmar that is meant to link twin engines . I saw this AM that we have a minor leak in the hold. This can be fixed , I have a marine tech coming over this AM and he can take er down to the RR at the boat school and do the repairs in time for our shove off on Sat or Sun

Assuming all goes to plan.

Were all fixed up. The repair was minor and the old mama just cuts the water like a knife. The outer bouys are reporting winds and some wave height . Itll be a brisk start so we are going to begin sometime after lunch tom orrow and we should be back maybe by Mon 9/14. We want to trip our way down through Mt Dessert and SW Harbour while the tourists are all back home with their larvae. SInce SChools have begun in most of the Eastern US states, everyone has left the area last weekend and its really nice not having to be a nice guy to tow some asshole whose piloting beyond his (or her) skills.
Im going to try to get some shots of the slightly turning leaves along the coastal areas of MAine on the way down to the CApe.
This will probably be the last entry of the voyages of the little boat IAPETUS. After were done with this trip we will put the boat back in storage, winterize her and put er back on the market for sale.

so, which is better, SW or NE Harbor? great down in there isn't it

well, my boats hull is made by Hinckley and they have a major marine center in SW harbor. We will do both anyway. SW has a better refuge if it blows a bit. Both of these areas are kinda pricey during the season so we will park and bicycle around . well live on board and be able to shop in town for food and coffee.

Im upearly doing some banking and sending out checks (Mrs F does the real money thinking and all I do is the drudge work of mailing out. I also want her to get several NETFLIX so we have some movies to watch when we get back.

Im also beginning to drop some words down on the hard drive and then backing up to the home computer so my geo book has a real beginning. Ive been screwing around with outlines too long.

Its 3:15 AM and Im wide awake thinking about anything we missed packing away . LAST TIME we left without taking the binoculars and the electric skillet.

Now you're making sense at last. All this bullshit about cutting the water like a knife is not how Mr Melville taught how to write about the sea and sea-faring folks.

It's a mistake in my opinion to hold out for the price you might have in mind as compensation for passing IAPETUS into other hands. You should snatch the hand off the first realistic offer.

Nasty stuff is water. Especially salt water. You don't see an old salt with a fine complexion.

And it's really nasty when the various Gods of the weather start falling out.

And there's rust and other entropic manifestations.

And I'm not saying that " we will put the boat back in storage, winterize her" means finding some cheap place to put the old dear, like a field, and leaving her to weather the N.E.American winter deserted by her captain, but it could mean that and from the boat people I have known it often does mean that.

A man of your obvious academic bent should be engaged on more important projects. A survey, for example, of what I think Ed called "what to survive in water in" (boats) from the first floating on a branch to the latest in aircraft carriers and luxury cruise liners designed to appease the vanity of western widowhood.

A project like that can only be carried off by a man of experience in a station comfortable enough to prevent any inputs from the senses interfering with the play of his intellectual fancy which is more fructiferous at night thus necessitating late breakfasts.

Does any animal use a float to get about? Apart from accidentally.

Dylan's Quinn the Eskimo begins "Ev'rybody's building the big ships and the boats"

Not sure about the Irish eskimo, but


I didn't begin with askings. ~I took my job and I stuck;
And I took the chances they wouldn't, an' now they're calling it luck.
Lord, what boats I've handled -- rotten and leaky and old!
Ran 'em, or -- opened the bilge-cock, precisely as I was told.
Grub that 'ud bind you crazy, and crews that 'ud turn you grey,
And a big fat lump of insurance to cover the risk on the way.

Y'AAAAARRRRR, we be back. And a goodlly adventure. Especially since our entire travel plan was redirected by a stalled Low Pressure off Cape HAtteras. So we went Nort' steada SOut'.

Home again and into the yard with Iapetus where we shall spend the next several days in a winterizing mode and then covering the little lady with shrink wrap and hauling her into the sheds.

The water and air was quite cold. We were surprised at how quickly the seasonal change is coming. Up near the Sydney NS area, we actually recorded a 6 (C) and we were running with full heating .

Going out of The Gulf of MAine, we ran into an RV that was heading south to do some surveys on White Sharks. Apparently thereve been several sightings of Great Whites in the Gulf and further South.

Thats , at least to me, another sign that sealife is trying to muster out due to the quickly lowering temps.

Is the sunspot activity saying that we shall soon see another "Little Ice Age"?

We will turn the heating up full blast and the emissions will soon see that off.