Everything came out of the water on Saturday, two weeks earlier than last year because the
yard had a free slot and because nobody trusts October any more.
The hull was better than I feared and the rudder bearing worse. That is the usual arrangement:
the part you worried about all summer is fine, and the part you never thought about has been
quietly wearing itself out since May.
A list went up on the shed door the same evening. Four jobs, in order, with the smallest first,
because a list that starts with the hardest job is a list nobody begins.
Rope, and the argument about knots
Every harbour has this argument and every harbour has the same answer: the knot you can tie
in the dark, in the rain, with cold hands, is the correct knot.
Three good knots, tied badly, will lose you a boat. One knot, tied properly every time, will not.
I keep a short length of old line on the kitchen windowsill for exactly this reason.
Two minutes now and then, and the hands remember what the head forgets.
Fog at the end of the lane
Four mornings in a row this month the fog came right up to the last house and stopped there,
as if the lane were a wall. The harbour was invisible; the hill above it was in full sun.
The old explanation, told to me by someone who had it told to him, is the cold water and
the warm land meeting exactly at the turn. It sounds too neat to be the whole story,
but it has been right every August I have watched.