orange gloves

We were listening to the frogs starting to sing at dusk. Senara was content to sit still at anchor in this scenic, deep water creek. From our vantage point on the bow we could see another sailboat easing up the creek from a day of sailing in the Bay. Of course, it is always interesting to watch other sailors go through their routine of picking a spot, dropping anchor, tying off, and going through the other seeminingly hundreds of little jobs to get the boat settled for the night. That's when it happened. The first mate came forward to release the anchor; not sure if it was male or female, because all we could see were a pair of neon orange, elbow length gloves. Of course, gloves are helpful and often necessary. Usually you will see sailing gloves with fingers exposed for manipulation, or just a pair of Home Depot leather work gloves. But these gloves were in a class by themselves. I speculated that they served a dual purpose; if the sailors became lost at sea they could don the gloves and wave their arms madly, or possibly hoist the gloves up the mast. Either way, the Coast Guard or anyone else within sight of the horizon would have no problem locating them. What did they do with the gloves once the job is done? Do they have to put them in a bag and stow them under the sailbags, else the glow will prevent sleep? This interesting anchoring routine made me start considering all of our little routines aboard Senara.

Strange habits emerge from small necessities. For example, you will find a small wad of toilet paper jammed between two sliding cabinet doors in the head. This would certainly set off myriad speculations by any newcomer, some of which may be worthy of their own blog post. But, depending on the particular directional roll of the swells during the night these doors often will make a little clicking noise as they touch together when Senara is gently rolling. The quieter the night, the louder the clicks. Hence a wad of TP. Other anchoring routines include moving the anchor line off the roller (it will make a banging noise as the roller moves across its axle during boat swings), bungy cords on the halyards, releasing the roller furling line, and a few other little seemingly inexplicable dances to make the boat quiet and sound during the night. You have to spend a lot of time on your boat to learn all her idiosynchracies. Kind of like marriage, every skipper has to learn them the hard way. I just hope to one day have an opportunity to meet the skipper who can tell me the story of the orange gloves.