c.e.grundler

There has to a good reason a large crowd of people will be gathering along the shore of the Hudson on a bitter day in February to watch various brave souls strip to their bathing suits and jump into the river. And there is. It’s time for the annual Stony Point Seals Polar Plunge, which takes place on a quiet stretch of road in Stony Point, NY. Each year a huge crowd gathers for the event, which normally benefits a local family or child in need.

In last year’s Plunge, you can see a whole lot of crazy people having a whole lot of fun for a good cause.

Every year, the families that live along this quiet road welcome this invasion of happy insanity. But this year, the neighborhood of Grassy Point looks more like a ghost town, with vacant and boarded up homes. Sadly, the homes lining that road, along with so many others in the area, had been devasted by Sandy. So for 2013, the Stony Point Seals are holding the Plunge to benefit these very people, along with many other North Rockland Hurricane Sandy Victims. And this year, my husband will be among those hardy souls making that fridgid leap.

Below, some of these homes, shortly after Sandy. If you’re in the area on February 3rd, come on down and lend your support. And even if you can’t stop by, you can still donate online and help our local families recover.

I did all my proper preparations, to the best of my ability. I’ve done all I could to make sure the boat would ride out the storm, and being that she’s in a (hopefully) sturdy shed at the highest point in the yard, I’m hoping she’ll be alright. I can only wonder how the river is handling the surge and flood waters flowing down.  And I did all I could to prep the house. But there is only so much that can be done. The news coming in over A.M. radio is troubling and the roar of the storm outside is truly terrifying. They just remarked that this is a night people will remember for years to come and I’m inclined to agree.

It’s 10:30 at night, and we still have power, for the moment at least, which seems ironic considering I have a tree through the middle of my house. Yes, one of those lovely massive oaks came down, there’s a trunk in my kitchen, and rain is pouring in. There are cracks in the hallway ceiling, another new skylight in the small bedroom, paintings were knocked from the walls. I’m just grateful no one was hurt, and all people and animals are safely bunkered down in the basement, and come daylight we’ll see just how bad the damage is. The police advised us to leave, but there’s nowhere to go. Every road is blocked, powerlines are dropping, driving was impossible, and ultimately we turned back as tree crashed down. The basement seemed the safest place, and that’s where we’re staying until this passes. But the lights are flickering, so I suspect I should sign off. I hope all of you out there are well and morning comes to find all well. Or as well as can be hoped for.

A while back I posted about how I’d be posting here more regularly, and I did, at least for a short time. But I’m sure those of you who follow my blog have noticed by now that little burst of activity was short-lived.  That’s not to say I haven’t been writing, in fact I’ve been wearing away at my keyboard at an accelerated rate, which has left me little time and focus for much of anything else. On top of that, life’s been throwing me a few curve-balls, and in my determination not to be derailed from my most important tasks, blogging has, for the time being, fallen to the back-burner. In fact, any of you who also follow my posts at Write on the Water may have noticed today’s post is in fact a recycled post from this blog. I’ll admit it – my inspiration was spread a bit thin this morning, and it seemed appropriate for that site.

I’m hoping in the coming weeks I’ll have a bit more time and creativity to spare, and if that happens I’ll be sure to share some of it with my online readers. I thank you for your understanding.

Back when most kids were getting bicycles for their birthday, my parents instead presented me with a bright orange Snark, which was pretty much a Sunfish knockoff, constructed of styrofoam, covered in tough plastic. It was more or less an Igloo ice-chest in the shape of a boat, and at 45 pounds, it barely displaced any water. Considering I didn’t weigh a whole lot more, it had a tendency to plane along the surface, and while it was never designed for radical sailing, once I rigged it with a tiller extension and hiking straps, it was a blast to sail. In fact, in the many years and boats since that Snark, I’ve never quite matched the pure exhilaration I had aboard that little orange cork — and that even includes a Laser I sailed for several years. And in recent years, my lack of sailing has begun to wear on me to the point I’m climbing the walls.

Well, I can stop climbing.  The other day my mom called to inform me they’d found me the perfect birthday present. She needs a little work, but nothing a few evenings in the garage won’t remedy.  And yes, she presently lacks a sailing rig, but that’s easily remedied as well.

This is going to be fun!  (And is also the subject of today’s Write On The Water post.)

I said I’d be doing all this regular posting, which clearly I haven’t been. Life has become a bit hectic, some of it good, some of it not so much. But that’s life. On the positive side, work is moving along aboard Annabel Lee, so much so, in fact, that I have zero photos to post at the moment simply because we’ve been too busy actually doing for me to stop and take pictures. On another (what I consider) positive note, I’ve acquired another boat, which in itself would be the definition of insanity, though it’s only a *little* insane, as in a pretty little dinghy that is, of course, in need of some work.Oh, and it is a design that can easily be converted to sail, and that will be hard to resist. Aside from that, I’m not going into details at the moment — I have much in the works beyond things that float, but for now I’ll just keep swimming.