A bright warm sunny day. In the morning Witty was not his normal self. He did not wake Lene at 5:30 demanding his breakfast, his tail was down and he kept looking upward as at the ceiling. Lene thought he might have somehow become blind because he was looking up at the light coming through the hatches. But once we emerged from the cabin a different scenario appeared. A large pelican had used the top of our mast as his toilette seat and rained large quantities of guano down upon the boat, where it splattered, especially on its dark blue canvas. Thats where Witty likes to lounge. We think he may have been defecated upon and traumatized by the experience. My mom wrote a copyrighted but unpublished childrens book: "Pele the Pelican." She loved these birds, their grace despite such an ungainly body and their ability to hurl themselves, open-beaked into the water, seeking fish, Well the other end of their alimentary canal creates quite a mess. I spent two hours cleaning. Residues remain that will require a hose and soapy water to eradicate.
With this and inflating and hoisting the dink and closing the cockpit table we did not get underway until noon for the three hour passage. We ran the engine hard, 2800 rpms, which is good for diesels -- to let them burn off the carbon deposits that build up. And part of the time we went quite slowly using only the genoa. This was a short hop, anchor to anchor, and we dropped just outside the Titusville mooring field, where we had taken a mooring on our way south. I tied the new snubber hook to a very short piece of very strong line. and attached the middle of the new snubber line to its other end, to lead both ends back, one through each bow chock. We did not lower the dink here, living in our own very small world.
I made the charoseth and a dish with carrots and dried apricots -- sweetness being a theme of the Passover holiday. and though burgers are not the traditional meat, they were delicious. With store bought macaroons and home cut melon for desert.
But before the feast, the cockpit table was large enough for the seder plate, the matzohs and the three wine or juice cups -- one for each person and one for the prophet Elijah, who is always welcome. This may have been my first al fresco seder.
Seder translates to English as "order" and the order of each step in the home dinner ritual is prescribed in a book called the Hagadah. Well I forgot to bring one but after 70 years I know the story fairly well and while we had a loose non-orthodox version of things, we did have a Seder. Observers will note that we forgot one of the ritual items that belongs on the table -- a charred lamb bone to signify the paschal lamb whose blood was smeared on the doors of the Israelites so that the angel of death passed over their homes when smiting the first born of the Egyptians. Our crew was rather bored by the story,
their message: "Show me the beef!"
A quiet sunset over Titusville where we had lots of room.
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