Hurricane Lee, Solar Panel Update, and Ghost Pipes

Here I am, in a nice hurricane hole in Onset, with a beautiful blue sky and lovely breeze.... and my weather report says that in a couple hours the skies will cloud over and winds will rise. The storm is so huge, however, that the worst will not hit until about forty hours from now, then rapidly abate. I've worried a good bit over the last week, but the worst appears to be missing us and I probably won't see winds over 35 knots or so. I laugh at this so-called storm!... just kidding: this is always serious.

My new solar panels are working well. I am slowly cooking some slices of sweet potato for Monty over my induction burner and am still adding power to my batteries. I've even turned off my propane since I hardly use it. Very satisfactory.

Monty seems sad, perhaps because Cynthia and lucy departed yesterday. On the other hand, we are both glad to be back on board: the beds seem to bother Cynthia's back, so we spent her visit ashore except for the weekend she spent visiting friends in the Springfield region. I missed my boat!

Finally, some weeks ago I walked through a yard in Chatham and spotted what I first thought were unfamiliar fungi, but on closer look appeared to have vestigial leaves and definite flowers. I identified them as Ghost Pipes, a native parasitic plant living on nutrients stolen from the roots of other plants. Rather beautiful and quite cool!

Carpe diem: I should go swimming right now before the temperature drops and the wind rises....

A bad day or a good one?

One can look at a day and count the blessings or the disasters. For example, thursday afternoon I drove Andrew's ancient car to Boston to do various errands, pumping the clutch to shift [note that this SHOULD have told me the problem, despite mechanic's diagnosis]. In the city, on the freeway, a push on the pedal suddenly met zero resistance, accompanied by a significant bout of swearing....

Fortunately, I could still get the car in gear sometimes in the very slow freeway traffic and google maps managed to find an auto parts place [in case of low brake fluid] and took that exit into Charleston. Then I realized I couldn't get to the place without trouble and that a good place to park at a gas station/minimart lay to my right, so I rolled in and parked.

I indulged in dejection and grumbling for a few minutes, then a bit of poking around and internet research showed that the problem was probably my clutch master cylinder.... another few minutes located the nearest garage... right across the street, on the second floor of an old building with no one really fluent in English: all Spanish. 

Anyway, I got a couple guys to run across the street and look, we managed to get the car into the shop, they confirmed that the cylinder was shot and found one that could be delivered the next day... but the boss took his car and got the part in a mission of mercy, even though rush hour was starting... so nice of him! This made the car driveable, but the fluid was nasty, so they tried flushing that quickly... and broke something due to years of rust.... and the boss had to go out again to fetch THAT part. 

Monty and I sat in the waiting area chairs, him sleeping on my lap and refusing to go in his backpack or in the car, me with my back aching from sitting and holding him. The guys worked until dark to get me back on the road, charged me very reasonably, and I drove home safely, praising their names. 

Monty and I arrived at the marina after 10pm and I found striped bass swirling and feeding in the pool of light by the dinghy dock, a wonderful sight from a nature point of view and seriously tempting to an omnivore and forager such as myself. 

Now I'm sitting in the blinding sunrise of the first day of September, cold morning breeze chilling me and saying “winter is coming”.... and the terns, hearing the same warning, are crying out as they dive for the bait fish, fattening up for their long flight south. 

And here is a random sunset from the last week: