Slow Life Chronicles

It used to be a pretty normal island of 12 acres, with sheep grazing there, and then it somehow kept diminishing, and these days only a tiny part of it is visible at high tide. The rest is hidden underwater, and only appears when the tide is ebbing.

It was the first day of our long awaited cruise in Buzzard Bay. We negotiated the long and narrow channel out of Sippican Harbor and set the course across the bay, to the Elizabeth Islands. We could not ask for better weather: windy, warm and sunny.

That August turned out great, with the sun and the heat teasing the hundred-degree mark. And so, one of those lazy August days we (Ben, Jeremy and I) took off under sail.

One day last week I went out sailing with Sergey and Koby after work. The evening was warm, and the sunset was beautiful. There was only one problem: the lack of wind. We persevered under the sails, as is our custom, and it took us an hour and a half to cover a mile... if that.

There were a couple of lighthouses on Martha’s Vineyard, with whom we have only met in passing: the white towers of West Chop Light and East Chop Lights. They mark, correspondingly, the west and the east sides of the entrance to Vineyard Haven Harbor.