Solstice Sailing

[Joe (SoCal)]

So Tess had a half day, end of the school year and all. So I picked her up and her friend from school and we went sailing to Little Stony Point Beach and had a blast swimming.

[Leon m]

That place is gorgeous!i I love that second to the last photo.Man is your daughter going to have some great memories...You da man Joe !

[Joe (SoCal)]

Ya got to wear your Crocks® on this beach cause there be Devil Heads everywhere





We all had our Crocks® on

[Leon m]

What the FRICK are those nasty buggers ?!?!

[Joe (SoCal)]

What the FRICK are those nasty buggers ?!?!

Devil's Heads some people call them, but more properly, they are the fruit of Trapa natans, a plant that has the common name water chestnut. The native range of T. natans is from western Europe and Africa to northeast Asia, including eastern Russia and China, and southeast Asia to Indonesia. In much of this range it is cultivated as a food crop, but it is not even in the same family as the water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) you can buy in cans at the market or that are used in Asian cuisines at restaurants in this part of the world. (Even where T. natans is cultivated, it is often regarded merely as a subsistence crop and not held in particularly high culinary regard.)
Probably around the 1870s, someone decided to bring some of the horned fruits to this country, perhaps thinking the plant would look nice in a neighborhood millpond.
He or she tossed a handful into the pond.
In the shallow water, a stem grew from the single seed each fruit contained. From a point on the stem, a circular group of leaves, called a rosette, grew outward. The leafstalks holding the rosette to the stem were made up of a spongy tissue that enabled the rosette to float to the surface of the water. In the leaf axils, flowers bloomed; a new crop of horned fruit began to grow there. As new rosettes grew along the stem and floated up, the older ones, with the developing fruit, got submerged (since the water was shallow, the submerged leaves could still contribute to the work of photosynthesis). When the fruit matured, it fell from the plant and sank to the bottom. The horns helped anchor the fruit against currents that might sweep it into deeper water. For four months or so the fruit remained dormant. Then a new stem emerged from each. Rising on a buoyant parasol of green leaves, the stem stretched for the sun.

Trapa natans. Drawing: USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database / Britton, N.L., and A. Brown. 1913. Illustrated flora of the northern states and Canada. Vol. 2: 612.
In 1884, T. natans was observed to be growing luxuriantly in Sanders Lake at Schenectady, New York. Soon the plants were growing in other lakes and ponds; they found their way into rivers and canals, spreading their clusters of rosettes the stems can grow up to 16 feet across the Northeast. In many places, T. natans now covers acres of shallow water at a time and can be found as far north as Quebec and west to the Great Lakes Basin. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent to eradicate, or at least to control, the plant. In Florida and South Carolina, you can get yourself arrested for trying to transport the plant or its seeds into or across the state, let alone planting the things.

[Klabi]

Ya got to wear your Crocks® on this beach cause there be Devil Heads everywhere





We all had our Crocks® on

Moin moin Joe,
what are Devil Heads, Joe???
I dont know this and never have seen it!
It looks very danger!!
Tschüss Heiko

[Meerkat]

Let's hope " Stoltace" doesn't come up in a spelling test!

A very nice Solstice here today!

[RichKrough]

Taking a sail with your daughter and her friend is really awesome, But what is even more awsome to me is that the Hudson River is finally clean enough that far south to swim in!

[Joe (SoCal)]

Let's hope " Stoltace" doesn't come up in a spelling test!

A very nice Solstice here today!

I spelled it correctly Meerkat didn't I??

[JimD]

Nothing quite like a sunny afternoon on the water

[ddeaton]

Hey Joe, It looks like the wind was down, but do you trust your anchor that much to leave the sheet up? I get nervous anytime my sheet is up. We always have small gusts coming from a couple directions on our lake. Winds coming down from the valleys.

[Leon m]

I was wondering who was going to be the first to bring that up

[ddeaton]

I am just asking cause I am new to sailing and just took a boom to the nose last week in my Handycat. The pics look great!

[Joe (SoCal)]

Hey Joe, It looks like the wind was down, but do you trust your anchor that much to leave the sheet up? I get nervous anytime my sheet is up. We always have small gusts coming from a couple directions on our lake. Winds coming down from the valleys.

I KNEW someone would mention that

I used the light air to sail close to shore. The tide was just finishing going out. Then I dropped a stern anchor and let the drift in set it. I got the kids out and supplies to shore, took a few quick photos. Then went back to the boat dropped the sails ( as you can see in the following photos ) and set a larger anchor at the bow. The two anchors set in the sandy bottom well enough to keep Tidbit from drifting at all.

[ddeaton]

I guess I have done that only as the sun sets and not enough wind to get back to the dock. Thats about the only time I have had to feel ok with leaving it up and just relaxing. I did get my reef looking good last week, it looked real good until it hit me in the face. I think it is safer in the shop working with all the sharp tools.