This blog was begun in May, 2013. Following is an overview of what is contained here, and how to find the various bits.
Links to photos and description of trips prior to 2013, in both AUKLET and the Peep Hen SERENITY, can be found in the blog post “Previous Trips,” located here: http://sailingauklet.com/2013/05/26/previous-trips/
In 2012, AUKLET was launched for the first time, on April 20, at Deep River, Connecticut. The boat then journeyed, over the next seven months, along the New England coast from Connecticut to Cutler, Maine and back. The boat was hauled out of the water on November 17, also in Deep River. See “Previous Trips” (linked above) and “Auklet in Print” http://sailingauklet.com/2013/11/07/auklet-in-print/ for more on this trip.
In 2013, AUKLET was launched on June 8, at Deep River, Connecticut. Shemaya and the boat then sailed along the coast, and outside of Cape Cod, to Maine, and back to Massachusetts. The turnaround point was 3 miles southwest of the Canadian border, and the boat was hauled out of the water on October 12, in Danversport, Massachusetts. The account of this trip begins here: http://sailingauklet.com/2013/06/23/launch/
Over the winter of 2013/2014, and through the summer of 2014, the boat was at home in the driveway and underwent a conversion to junk rig, much of which is described in this blog. Launch with the new rig took place on September 14, 2014, with the boat on the water for rig completion and sea trials. Both launch, and later retrieval which happened on October 18, were in Deep River, Connecticut. This trip involved mostly sailing on the lower Connecticut River, with a foray across Long Island sound to Montauk Point, and around Shelter Island, and back to the River. The account of this 2014 trip begins here: http://sailingauklet.com/2014/09/16/afloat/
In 2015 AUKLET went in the water on May 2, in Deep River, Connecticut. From there Shemaya and the boat sailed north and east, again around the outside of Cape Cod, and on to Maine by way of Cape Ann and Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The blog is a bit thin for the summer of 2015, but the boat sailed a lot, mostly between Penobscot Bay and Gouldsboro (back and forth a couple of times), and with a couple of forays up to Pleasant Bay, east of Petit Manan. The boat was hauled out on October 24, 2015, in Steuben, Maine, and then traveled a couple of miles down the road to its new winter home in Gouldsboro. This year’s trip entries begin here: http://sailingauklet.com/2015/05/03/2015-launch-one-more-time/
In 2016, AUKLET stayed in the new boat shed in Maine, and the Peep Hen, SERENITY, went in the water. There are posts here from those trips also, all in Maine.
2017 saw AUKLET back in the water, and around and about. The boat also went in the water this year, 2018, but land has been looking appealing. We got in some day trips, taking friends for tours of Gouldsboro and Joy Bays. The little Portland Pudgy dinghy acquired a junk rig, and a Junk Rig Gathering was held in Joy Bay, the organizing of which kept things busy.
Along with trip descriptions, the blog contains writings to do with work on the boat, sailing and seamanship, and cruising techniques and strategies, as well as topics that in and of themselves have nothing to do with boats and sailing, but are in one way and another interwoven with the author’s experience of the boat project.
Navigating the Blog
The most recent post is found in the upper part of the main page of the blog, underneath the banner photo. This is what opens if you go to sailingauklet.com. Above the banner photo, on any page, are “page tabs.” Clicking on one of these page tabs will take you to material related to the tab title. For some reason, this particular blog format does not make it easy to include a “home” tab, and I haven’t figured out how to do it. If you go to one of those other tabs, you’ll have to use your browser’s “back arrow” to get back to the homepage with all the general posts. Or you can use one of the clickable titles described further below, to go to other posts.
You can also go directly from one post to the next, by using the buttons at the bottom of the post that you are reading, that say “previous” or “next.” In this area there are also buttons for “related posts.” The blog program selects those, in a way that may or may not make sense.
On any page in the blog, at the right hand side of the page and down a little, you will find a long list divided into three groups that are titled “Subscribe,” “Archives,” and “Categories.” The “Subscribe” group can be ignored, unless you already know what to do with it – I’ve tried to make it go away, without success. The other two groups, on the other hand, can be quite useful.
Under the “Archives” group you will find month/year labels. Clicking on any one of these will show you a list of posts from that month and year.
Most useful is the “Categories” group, which you’ll find if you keep scrolling down below the “Archives” section. Each post in the blog is labeled with one or more categories, and all of the categories are listed in that right hand margin of each page. Clicking on any one of those category titles will bring up a page that lists only posts within that category. So for example, if you’d rather skip the material about technical boat projects or seamanship questions, but you’d like to see anything to do with trip stories, you can click on “Trips” in the Categories list, and you’ll see all the posts that are somehow related to trips.
Reading and Posting Comments
If there are comments on a particular post, there will be a note near the top right of the post that shows how many. Clicking on that note will take you to those comments. They can also be found by clicking on the title of a specific post, and then scrolling down to the bottom of the page.
If you’d like to leave a comment, you can do that at the bottom of any post. Using the comment box produces a public comment, that will be added to the bottom of the post. If you have not left a comment before, whatever you have written will be sent to the moderator (me) to make sure that it’s not something that came from a spambot. Once checked, it will be posted at the bottom of the blog page where you originally entered it. If you have previously commented, and the comment was approved, the blog program will likely put your comment right through, and it will be posted immediately. Sometimes the blog program doesn’t do this, and sends them for moderation anyway – I have no idea why. If you would like to make a private comment, it’s best to send a regular e-mail, to my e-mail address: ShemayaLaurel swirly symbol yahoo d0t com (unlike the spam address harvesters, I’m hoping that you will be able to interpret that address!)
Thanks very much for visiting!