We are well and truly into the dog days of summer now. On Sunday evening I looked at the weather forecast for this week and there was one common word for every day and every night... "humid". When we lived in New Jersey the radio weather forecast used to call this weather "3H's"... hazy, hot and humid. I guess Rhode Island is a bit cooler than New Jersey but it sure doesn't feel like it right now.
Just for fun I looked back at the posts I wrote about this time of year in the last four years...
In 2005 I was so exhausted by my outside activities in this weather that I actually stopped writing the blog for several weeks in late July and early August. Eventually, on August 18, I posted Phew all about how tired I was from working as a sailing instructor, training for a marathon, running a new Laser fleet, and winning my age group at the Atlantic Coasts Masters. Phew indeed! It wears me out just to re-read Phew. Wherever did I find the energy to do all that?
In 2006 I think I must have been out in the sun too much as I actually wrote a song about sailing for my last post of July. (OK, it wasn't exactly original. It was a parody of a Lennon/McCartney number.) Rereading The Ballad of Tillerman Oh No! makes me realize how crazy this weather can make you.
2007 wasn't much better. My last post of July had me consulting the doctor about voices in my head. A Time for Every Purpose actually concluded with the words, "Hmmm. I think I must have been in the sun too long last weekend."
And last year I wrote about A Bit of a Yot. That wouldn't have been so bad except that, once again, I was obviously suffering from heatstroke as I wrote it in rhyming couplets with such horrible rhymes as "alluring" and "mooring", and "buoy" and "screwy".
I'm not sure what I'm going to write about this week yet. The heat has frazzled my brain and dried up my creative juices. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Or what passes here for "normal" in the dog days of summer.
Is it hot where you are? How does this weather affect you?
14 comments:
too much rain here.
Damn your prayers!
bad summer here - twice as much rain as in average july :-(
But a nice 3-5 Bft breeze from the west which is offshore here in Schilksee in Kiel in Germany
I'm following for a couple of weeks now and really enjoy your blog!
In the early 80's - as a teenager - I used to sail dad's Laser. Now, after almost 20 years without any Laser sailing I'm glad to ride one at least once a week. Compensating teenage agility with weight (87 kg) and now looking at it as an engineer I became a real Laser fan lately ;-)
Possible source of inspiration:
200+ Lasers parked at Brant Beach for the Nationals
Welcome Aggel. Always good to see a new commenter.
Yes Anonymous... looks like the Laser US Nationals will be a big regatta... though not as big as the Masters Worlds a few weeks later. And Brant Beach is a wonderful host club... I always liked sailing there.
Stop your whining Mr. Tillerman, at least you have a summer!
10 knots NNW and 24 degrees [C] forecast for this afternoon, here in Groningen, NL.
Em and I are going Optimist sailing.
The dog will stay home and lie down in the shade. He's not as dumb as he looks.
Have to agree with Joe...at least you have summer. The winter is hitting again today and the rain will start falling again....predicted 20mm of rain fro Friday.
On the point of how to cope with the summer heat, especially in Africa:
In the water; on the water or in front of the tv with the air con on max.
Oh. Did this post come across as a "whine".
Sorry. It was meant to be more of a sneeze.
Zorro's strategy for summer sailing at a popular lake:
Sail the early morning drainage winds.
Take lunch and a siesta in the middle of the day while all the drunken power boaters are stirring up the lake.
Take a late afternoon/sunset sail in better winds after most of the power boaters have retreated to shore to nurse their hangovers.
Alternate strategy: Go to a high mountain lake; enjoy cooler temperatures and lots of wildlife and mountain scenery.
Whine and sneeze?
I'd rather have wine and cheese, please.
I am oddly not too unhappy with the weather. My garden is happy, I'm a little blown away by the amount of items made with homegrown produce I have in the refrigerator right now, and it is hazy hot & humid but it seems like we've been spared any of those filthy east coast heat waves.
I'm pretty happy in anything up to the mid-90's.
I did readjust my thoughts of "good timing" for a trip I am leading for the club this weekend. It's a circumnavigation of Jamaica Bay, and I had it stuck in my head that it should run from morning until afternoon, and the tides didn't seen right for that & I was getting all bothered about that until my friend Stevie pointed out that this time of year, a long trip is going to be much nicer if you avoid being on the water in the middle of the day & either start EXTREMELY early, or just wait until well past noon.
Well, DUH. I do not know why I didn't think of that, but yeah! he's SO right. So we're launching around 2, we'll have our dinner stop at the Wharf Bar & Grill over in Far Rockaway, enjoy sunset on the water & put our running lights on for the last hour or so.
Now doesn't that sound better than slogging it out in the middle of the day?
Your post does remind me of something I heard on the radio once that made me laugh. I was working in an office where we listened to WQXR (the local classical station). The WQXR announcers were all very well-spoken & proper, not at all given to colloquialisms, but one of them slipped reading the forecast for the week - "Tuesday, high of ninety degrees, hazy hot and humid, Wednesday, high of ninety degrees, hazy hot and humid, Thursday, high of ninety degrees, hazy hot and humid, Friday, high of ninety degrees," -- brief pause -- "blah, blah, blah".
I think what really made us crack up over the "blah, blah, blah" wasn't just the unexpectedness, but the thorough disgust in the announcer's voice at the week we had in front of us!
Everyone blogs about the weather, but no one does anything about it.
Except in San Francisco, where you can sail to better weather if you don't like what you've got. Sausalito and South Beach are usually sunny when it's foggy by the gate.
I don't know what Joe's whining about. In Sacramento, where no one even mentions 'the heat' until it's over 100 degrees, we escape to the Bay, where it's 40 degrees cooler, and are glad to be there, fog or no.
What's up O'Docker? I live in the City. It's been foggy for over a month. I don't want to go to Sacramento, I want to launch off of East Beach with a bright sunny sky overhead. Is that asking too much? Haven't we sacrificed enough carbon credits to appease Gore The Mighty? I'll get back to my glass of wine.
Too many microclimates.
We brought the boat over to South Beach for about five days, two weeks ago. Sunny there every day.
But one day we rode our bikes over the bridge to Sausalito. It was sunny until about Fort Mason. But you're right, East Beach, the bridge, and the gate were socked in (couldn't see the towers). Down in Sausalito, it was sunny again.
You could look for another beach or just drink wine until it clears up. I think you've made the right choice.
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