The wine cruise

The wine cruise at anchor is a tradition Jane and I started only two years ago. In some ways, it is similar to lazing around in the dinghy in the waterways of the marina, but the ambiance is much improved.

In this tradition (which occurs only at anchor in a small cove somewhere), I put the dinghy down from the davits, and Jane procures a bottle of wine from the liquor locker and two wine glasses.

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Time out.

We gave up drinking wine from glasses made of ... um, glass, some time ago. Glass just doesn't work out too well on a boat, and you tend to find some of the pieces weeks after one jumps out of the wine glass rack over the sink while in a seaway. Hopefully not with a bare foot. So, now we use glasses made out of plastic. Not those light weight ones that come in two pieces - they are not stable enough. We have a set of heavy ones that look sort of like glass. So the question here is: should they be called "wine plastics?" I hope not, because that is so ugly sounding.

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So, Jane brings the opened wine and the wine "glasses" down to the dinghy and we cast off. There is a 2 hp outboard on the dinghy, but for the wine cruises it is verbotten - the noise wrecks the atmosphere. Instead, we row slowly around the cove or harbor, commenting on the houses on shore, other boats at anchor, sea birds and eagles, etc. until the wine is nearly gone, or the light is nearly gone, or both.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of a wine cruise in progress. You will have to use your imagination, seeing us, in the dinghy, say in Port Madison - our favorite anchorage.

And should you actually see us cruising around in the dinghy, be sure to hail us - we'd love to share the wine!

The wine cruise