Pushing the Right Buttons

It exhales such a wonderful scent.

I have a new -- new to me that is -- diatonic button accordion, a Castagnari Sander G/C.

The Button Box, in western Massachusetts, is a purveyor of all sorts of button boxes, so I suppose their name is well chosen. They couldn't have been any more accommodating in arranging shipment. I explained that we were on a sailboat and the schedule was uncertain. Margaret said, "No problem". I explained that I wanted two matching straps and leather buckle protectors. Margaret said, "No problem". It was music to my ears.

Margaret said, "No problem".

I had a week to decide whether to send it back -- I can just imagine its humiliation at returning to the accordion orphanage after being tried out and rejected -- but I fell in love the first day. So, it is aboard as crew rather than guest. I don't know its provenance, but when I hold the air button down and give an affectionate squeeze it whooshes a heady aroma, as if it resided for years in a library and spent its time inhaling fumes given off by leather-bound volumes and snifters of brandy. Surely this will inspire my playing. 

Plus, its buttons are nearly silent, except for sounding a note, that is. What a delight it is to play this fine instrument after having clacked along on my Pokerwork for the last four months. Not to disrespect my Hohner 2815, but in addition to playing the tune it sounded like a barrel of china rolling down hill, without much padding.

It's a G/C/# in melodeon speak
and a work of art.

I had thought the Hohner would be just the ticket to have aboard, having said a sad goodby to my best box before heading off to the Chesapeake and Sweet Pea. The Gaillard gets to stay at home. No inhaling salt air for it. Instead it sits in a glass-front case with a pack of other instruments. No doubt it has to listen to the English concertinas sniff that it isn't even chromatic, despite all those accidentals, and it is French. At times, they can be so condescending. Fortunately the shelves hold a bunch of Anglos and Duets who are more sympathetic.

Swiss craftsmanship rescued from a flea market
was my first melodeon acquisition symptom.

I liked the Pokerworks enough to have acquired three of them before breaking down and purchasing a more pedigreed box. My first, I found long ago in a dusty booth at an outdoor flea market, my second was thrown in for good measure -- the seller added it and a case, but only if I would buy another that he had on hand -- and my third, a durable box made in Germany in the 70's. It turned out out to be the only one of the three that is playable and it has been along on this voyage.

Someone on melodion.net described Pokerworks as the pickup truck of diatos. Like many of the parts that make up today's pickup trucks, Hohner's manufacturing has been outsourced to China. The name is still German but that's about all.

If you watch enough melodion videos on YouTube -- and who isn't addicted to such fantastic fare? -- you'll eventually see someone playing a Pokerwork with rubber bands protruding from its metal grill, making the poor thing look like it has orthidontia, the kind that includes colored elastic rings to tug those reluctant canines into position. Sprouting rubber bands is a sure sign that today's springs, the ones that make those buttons leap back up, are not what they used to be.

As a result, the vintage Pokerworks made in Germany or Switzerland are sought out. While their springs may be long in the tooth they often play and clack along merrily without needing a pack of rubber bands in the musician's kit.

Like both of its kin, my third Pokerwork featured its own built-in percussion section caused by the keyboard mechanism, which is really quite primitive (compared to a Gaillard or Castagnari) but affordable (compared to a Gaillard or Castagnari). I have been trying to learn how to reduce the clack by pressing in just the right way so that the treble buttons don't disappear down their holes in a syncopated version of Whack a Mole.

Some claim to be fond of the Pokerwork's distinctive sound. I suppose clacking is an advantage if your intent is to sound like a one-man band. Others have posted detailed accounts of declacking and otherwise souping up a Pokerwork. I should tackle just such a project some winter when I'm in Atlanta, someday.

Two accordions on a boat are too many -- actually some critics would claim they are two too many -- so in a moment of insanity I put the Pokerwork in the Castagnari's case, resealed the sturdy carton used by the Button Box, and dashed off to the post office. Without really thinking it through, I added insurance. I've grown fond of my Pokerwork and wanted it to be shown proper respect on that long trip home. Big mistake. 

Insurance required that I have a resident there to sign for the package. When? "Next Monday at the time of day you normally get your mail," I was assured. Instead I should have been told, "When ever a postman happens to show up", which is best described as someday sometime. I kept going online and requesting no earlier than 3:30 only to hear that the postman was long gone before my resident person got off work no later than 3:00.

This hearkens to those forgotten days of Leave It To Beaver when Ward could call, "Honey, I'm home," and expect an answer, 24 by 7. Nowadays, no one is home. They are either working or cruising. Well, mostly working. Actually given the recent economic unpleasantness, mostly out looking for work or standing in line. Anyway, it appears that the post office is still living in a long ago era, perhaps when Hohner still made those accordions in Germany.

After many phone calls in which various representatives said, "Too bad, nothing I can do," or slightly more polite words to that effect, I reached an unnamed co-conspirator, who took pity on me and revealed the secret formula: have someone sign the slip, add a note saying to put the parcel on the porch, and deposit the slip in your mailbox.

Ah, the PO just needs a signature, who or how isn't all that important. I get it. Before acting I did reread that bit about perjury and under penalty of law printed right on the picture of the slip that my granddaughter had emailed. Whatever. Someone, no names here, did the deed and voila, a neighbor reported the box had arrived. Big success.

This wax still works.

I hope it still clacks when played and doesn't clack when shaken. On EBay this is the critical question asked of a seller about a vintage accordion. If it sounds like it is a Hohner when shaken, the wax holding the reeds has failed and lots of parts are drifting around inside, pecking out the accompaniment to a tune that will never emerge, at least not without significant restoration.

I'll know more this fall. I wonder about that insurance . . .

Harbor Fever

According to this wind sock, Nantucket
 will be a beam reach from Providence. 
Yeah, right.

We're leaving Providence today, probably. Already the prospect of parting from these known conveniences is incubating like a virus, the kind that starts with a slight tickle in the back of the throat and blossoms into full blown harbor fever. It will be a close thing whether we cast off the lines or cling to the familiar and settle in for the rest of the summer.

For us the lure of unexplored places is often balanced by wondering whether pushing on is a good idea. The guide book does its part by making anywhere we might go sound incredibly challenging, rife with hazards that require local knowledge, policed by rules and regulations about anchoring, full of pot markers, beset with monster tides and currents, and probably menaced by giant whirlpools or boiling geysers. Like the 24 by 7 news channels, cruising guides thrive on creating drama: watch out for this, avoid that, don't even think of going there.

As the guidebook warns, Northport, NY, tides are gynormous.
Falling onto your boat would hurt. So use the ladder instead.

This summer's cruise has been a repeat of places we've been. That gives it its own rhythm. While this is not actually boring it is a bit subdued. Returning to a place is so different than arriving. You only get one chance to make a first impression and vice versa.  So far we've been confirming previous impressions and being bemused by cruising guide descriptions. It's like a steady diet of comfort food but lacks a certain dash of adventure. 


In Northport, NY, we had already learned to cope with big tides by climbing the ladder rather than just leaping off the dock and hoping to land feet first. Plus we mastered the fine art of tipping the dock master to adjust our lines. Where's the adventure in that?

We have talked about spending an August in Nantucket ever since I called there years ago as crew on OPB (Saber 42 by Ron and Jayne) and brought back a lighthouse basket that Anita uses as a knitting accessory and treasures as a work of art. Now we're off to see whether we can get there on our own boat. As is typical, the cruising guide book shrieks about the hazards, warning about dramatic nest-egg shrinkage. This may not be such an exaggeration after all.

A Taste of the Azores

We ventured into East Providence in search of the Azores.

This O Dinis wall reminded me of Texas

The potatoes were creamy beyond belief

O Dinis restaurant is Portuguese fare touched with the spiciness of the islands. Well, that's what our firecracker of a waitress said when she heard us wondering about the difference between the food of the Azores and Portugal.


She helped us sort through the lunch menu, suggesting the daily specials as being absolutely fresh. I thought the tripe soup interesting but decided instead on the fish of the day: fresh cod. I've been sampling cod at several restaurants recently and wanted to see how they did it. The cod was OK and it came with a side of boiled potatoes, which were a delightful surprise. I was thinking they would be like New England boiled dinner, bland and white. Instead they were creamy and formed a tasty base for the fresh onion sauce recommended by our server. 

Prawns in shrimp sauce

Anita tried the prawns, since she knows she likes shrimp. She discovered this on a fall cruise through the low country when I got into casting for shrimp. At every opportunity I would head off in the dinghy to twirl my net in the hope that it would be a pancake rather than a lump. 


I saw lots of boys aged five or six who could make that odd contraption of mesh and lead weights float out onto the air to form a perfect disk that landed on the water, just so. They clasped one of the weights between their teeth, gathered the bulk of the net in one hand, and gave it a twirl with the other. How hard could it be? 


Harder than it looks, for sure. I think having a big gap where two front teeth were growing in must have been the secret. After lots of practice that included stepping backward off the dinghy a couple of times I could occasionally rake in enough shrimp to return with a partial bucket, which we would immediately devour. 


Then one day as I eyed my net, we both said enough. Fresh shrimp had become too much of a good thing. We found the prawns most tasty, given the passage of lots of time since my last cast.

Laundry Aboard

No nap until the dryer finishes

Today is laundry day. We've been putting it off for a while, holding the chore at bay while we explore Providence and entertain friends. A sniff reveals that we've been delinquent in attending to those dank sacks of tee shirts et al and they are beginning to announce a protest movement.

At home, this isn't so much of an event because Anita runs a continuous laundry service, keeping the washer and dryer running on a treadmill, poor things. She and I do contend for one key surface: the kitchen cart's butcher block. It's where I chop or she folds, depending on who gets there first. Usually we manage to interleave our schedules but sometimes I notice her standing beside me draped in a towel and a long-suffering expression. That's my signal to take those onions elsewhere so she can get on with it. Dinner may be important but laundry is sacred. Having been my own laundress before I met her, I can certainly understand that.

Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full in
Northport, NY

On board we have several favorite laundry ports, places where it's relatively easy to tote the bags back and forth, friends who offer the convenience of their house, or a laundromat that meets Anita's exacting criteria. Well, actually, that last hasn't happened yet but one or two might have come close to meeting her standards. Who else takes a spray bottle of cleaner and a rag to wipe down the folding table in a laundromat? When we're someone's guests, using their appliances, the spray bottle does not appear, of course.

Dapple and Eeyore ready for the next trip

Occasionally we treat ourselves to the luxury of a rental car. There's nothing like four wheels to make beating upwind to the washer-dryer less of an effort.

However, most of the time we're on two wheels each. Dapple and Eeyore (both sired by Dahon and able to fold like contortionists) are the perfect cruisers' burros. They never object to being burdened with provisions, parts, or over-ripe bags of trash or laundry, in addition to their humans. For weeks at a time they stable in the quarter berth and consume only a bit of oil, grease and compressed air. At a marina they get a change of scenery, gazing out of their bikeport on the foredeck, tethered to the rail. It's hard to find a carbon-based crew member so patient or willing. 

Four squirts feels inadequate

In contrast to our bikes, laundromats gorge themselves, demanding a steady diet of detergent and quarters. Recently they have developed an enormous appetite for coins even as their soap consumption has, in theory, markedly diminished. 


Jennifer off Phoenix, whom we met at Tidewater in Baltimore, gifted us with the ultimate use-only-four-squirts-a-load brand of soap. We follow the instructions, but really it is a giant leap of faith to believe that all that boat filth will be defeated by just a tiny amount of detergent. When I was a kid they made me swallow spoons of cod liver oil that were giant-sized in comparison. Usually, for good measure, I sneak in a couple of extra squirts when Anita is distracted by having to shovel loads of quarters into the maw of the beast. [Editor's Note: Okay, that explains why the bottle is almost empty. I've been doing the same thing when he's not looking!]

After piddling away at the current laundry chore, interspersed with eating out, riding the bus to sight-see and taking long naps, we're down to the last couple of loads. This is the marina with the lights on a timer. The one where Anita did aerobics, waving her leg to activate the lights as she folded. The difference this year is that we noticed a small slider on the bottom of the light switch that selects between Auto and On. Well, duh. Now the room stays bright, almost as bright as our clothes, what with all those extra squirts sneaking into the washer. We're probably using the equivalent of a gallon of soap per load.

Books Glorious Books

A diversion on a venture

Cellar Stories was one of those unexpected finds we sometimes stumble across on a venture with a totally different purpose. We had set out to find a new issue of a new magazine, well new to Anita. On impulse I smart-phoned "nautical bookstore", hoping that there might be a replacement for Armchair Sailor, which sadly no longer welcomes browsers to their brick and mortar shop in Newport. They are still on the web, but no longer offer the rocking chairs in which to wile away the time while perusing a stack of new acquaintances.

The best used book store ever.

Google told us to walk a couple of blocks from the Kennedy Plaza bus complex to find the best used book store either of us has ever experienced. That's saying something since we search out used books at every venue: thrifts, yard sales, trader shelves in marinas, and aboard other boats. 

It's almost like a disease. We try to be not too obvious when invited to go below on OPB (Other People's Boat) but we always size up the books to see if they are our sort and might want to trade a few. Come to think of it, OPB is a dual purpose acronym that stands for books too. The wrong kind of books cast doubt on whether this would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Years before on a trip through the Bahamas we arrived in Georgetown at the height of the season, just in time for Cruiser's Regatta. On a leisurely cruise through the Exumas we had read everything aboard, leaving the book locker completely bare except for leftovers we had already enjoyed once. On the morning net, Anita organized a book swap on the beach, creating an impromptu used book market. She tucked her best friends into her back pack (Anna Quindlen, Alice Munro, Anne Tyler, Gail Godwin, Anita Shreeve, among others) and hopped in the dinghy. 

What a disappointment. Mostly the participants swapped Harlequin Romances, leaving Anita without a ripped bodice to her name when she came back aboard, though I recall that her bosom heaved in frustration. Only a few people showed up with the sort of authors she enjoys and she'd already read them all. Unrequited book love is so tragic.  

Plus, no one ever takes the best to a book swap or a marina shelf. Gresham's Law applies to every economic activity: bad books drive out good. Swaps quickly devolve to the lowest common denominator with everyone hoarding a few truly awful examples to drop off in return for something of higher value.

Cellar Stories was an exception to Gresham's Law. People brought their best rather than their worst, hoping to sell. What a difference a reward makes. We browsed nautical and craft books that neither of us had ever seen before.

I left with an early Tony Horowitz in which he recounts touring Arabia before everyone knew all about it from the headlines and a Lynette Chaing travelogue about going solo in Cuba. Anita scored a philosophy of knitting tome full of stories and attitudes. 


Books, glorious books. It is simply delicious to anticipate devouring such good fare. Please, Sir, I want some more.

Steak to Salad

Heart stoppingly good
cheese steaks.

We've been indulging in Providence eat outs and so far we've lucked into a couple of delightful experiences.

The first venture was back to Edgewood Market, a pizza and deli place that is a couple of blocks from the marina. A year ago we had gotten hooked on their cheese steaks. We would hop off the #3 bus and do takeout for dinner aboard. A year later they are still terrific. The local police eat there, which I take as an accolade, much like seeing long-haul truck drivers walking into a roadside diner.

One surprise on this latest visit was that the guy who took our order and vanished into the kitchen immediately reappeared at the cash register to sell Lotto tickets to several customers. I was thinking that the sandwiches would be delayed or, even worse, overcooked, when he walked back out of the kitchen with our subs, neatly wrapped in white paper. Identical twins, how confusing at first glance.

Edgewood Market is favored by the local police force.
Always a good sign in my book.

The decor is minimalist but features wonderful pictures from thirty years ago or so, showing the brothers standing in front of the market in a blizzard, bearded and shaggy. Plus the walls host newspaper clippings detailing crimes -- I saw the policeman at the next table pictured in one of these -- and other local happenings. It is definitely not your typical chain eatery. I'm so glad that it's still there a year later, though I suspect that a neighborhood treasure like this has been there for many years and will be there for many more.

I'm in love with RITA

The second venture was more surprising. We had taken the bus into Providence and then hopped on the #13 back out to Garden City Center, an upscale shopping center in Cranston.

Anita was pursuing a copy of Anthology magazine. Several months ago I had impulsively bought her a copy at Trohv, an eclectic shop in Hampden, a neighborhood near Baltimore. She was hooked. Anthology punched all her buttons: decorating with flea market finds, re-purposing vintage paper and cloth, and featured interesting travel stories that focused on art, style, thrifts and markets. How they knew to customize the content just for her I really can't imagine.

After stumbling on one copy I had expected that it would be widely available. I could use it as my go-to-gift for most any occasion. Not so. Had we lived in California we might have had some luck. On the east coast the pickings were sparse indeed. Now we were in pursuit of a happenstance. A shop called Anthropologie was listed and happened to be on a Rhode Island Transit Authority bus route. Coincidence or fate? Actually the statistics of small samples was at work once again.

Unfortunately, they didn't know that they carried the magazine. The clerk that we approached had never heard of it. To assuage our disappointment she kept trying to convince us to take a glossy catalog, undoubtedly full of stuff every cruiser needs.

Might serve as an anchor

I had eyed a hand-painted Original Still Life Bag showing a horizon above a choppy sea -- I estimated a half knot current was running against about 15 knots of wind with a three-foot swell, about like on the Delaware River -- but decided that Sweet Pea needed a new Rocna anchor and 100 feet of chain instead. It would have been considerably less expensive than that canvas bag and much more useful when the current really does run against the wind, making us circle like a junkyard dog.

While Anita browsed I circled back and, on a hunch, inquired of another shop person, explaining that we had sailed from the Bahamas just to find this magazine. OK, I'll admit that this might have been a bit of an exaggeration. But I had started from there three years ago and we had arrived here on Sweet Pea.

She must have been impressed because as I was preparing to launch into a detailed account of our cruise, she immediately produced two issues: the one I had found in Baltimore and another that Anita hadn't yet pored over. Quick as a wink it was wrapped  in tissue, slipped into a gift bag, and hidden in my back pack. The clerk never did get to hear about the time I was trying to haul anchor in Cape May and ...

It might have been a Rocna in the bag but wasn't.

I do love springing surprises on my love. Although that last surprise on the Delaware River was quite unpleasant, I had a feeling that this one would be much more to her liking. 


After the grand unwrapping, I studied the bus schedule and realized that lunch would need to be quick. Fortunately, we had noticed Cafe Luna and decided to chance it. Its terrific service and unusual salads made it a delight. My favorite was a cold mix of sweet potato, peppers, and pineapple in a lime vinaigrette. Anita had a slice of pizza rather than venture into the delights of salad dressing. Note the lime slice holding down the fizz on my Corona. What cafe thinks to have a plate of serve yourself lime slices, just in case you pluck a long neck out of the cooler? My kind of cafe, for sure.

Anthropologie carries Anthology
and that's more than a mouth full.

Plus they had a charming court yard just steps from the bus stop. Normally I think of shopping center restaurants as being unlikely to be more than laminated menus and uninspired offerings. This place was surprising and pleasantly so.

Now I'm looking for an authentic and tasty Portuguese restaurant. I read that East Providence is the place to find such fare. Isn't it fate that the #3 bus also goes that way?

Studio On the Go

Studio transformation

Dealing a new hand

In addition to being a tidy, a thrifty, and a whiz -- well, that's how one of our granddaughters summed up her own impression of her gram -- Anita is a yarn aficionado and a fabric fanatic.  Underway she's always fondling needles or hooks, decorated with multicolored string. At anchor her creative side blossoms and she transforms Sweet Pea's saloon into a sewing studio. If you're wondering how she manages to cram all her stuff into our small sailboat, just remember she is talented in tidiness, thriftiness and wizardry.

A tidy box that lives inside one of the tubs

It starts in the quarter berth with two bins that hold supplies and tools, categorized by her own unknowable algorithms. When she dives into her bins and plucks out smaller and smaller boxes each organized by color or content, I'm reminded of nesting Russian dolls. Now and then I'm called on to contribute by lugging the bins into the saloon where she shuffles the stuff like a deck of cards and draws a new hand. This tells me that a new project is on the horizon and soon we'll be plucking a different color of thread off the upholstery.

Janome tackles a baby quilt at anchor in Three Mile Harbor

Janome spits out a new pillow

Her Janome Gem Gold sewing machine is a marvel of engineering, compact but powerful with all sorts of cryptic symbols for this stitch or that. It hums along, powered by the inverter, so no shore power is required. I've borrowed it to restitch a sail and do some canvas repairs and can attest to its adaptability. The throat and the stitch length are both a bit short for big projects but it certainly seems willing to learn a new trade.


Her kit also includes an iron -- funny smells drift forward when it heats up -- and plastic rulers in all shapes and sizes.

Sunbeams on a project with Biscuit hiding in the corner

Her killer tool is a rotary cutter, as sharp as broken glass and as dangerous as a rattlesnake. Early in our cruising life she was sitting cross-legged in the cockpit, cutting strips for a quilt when a small slip put a lifetime gouge in the cockpit locker's cover. Occasionally I eye it, 22 years later, and shudder at how close that came to doing real damage. Now she restricts her cutting up to a real cutting mat on the saloon table. No slips with that and she still has all her fingers.

Biscuit is still aboard.
One of my favorite pillows by Anita.

For years we had an Airadale Terrier who went from puppy to grand old lady aboard our previous sailboat. Biscuit considered herself fully part of the crew but liked to jump ship at every opportunity, especially if the stench of dead fish wafted aboard from a nearby beach. After a romp and roll she would swim back, expecting to recover from doing her duty by snoozing below for a while. At the command, "hard alee" she would sigh mightily and change settees before drifting off again. I suspect the sound of spinning winches were her clue but she never missed a tack. Now, despite being long gone, she still sails with us but she always sits on the starboard settee, even when we come about.

Anita Kinnears the Harvey Gamage

We've finally found a way to bring our knitting and cruising worlds together. In the knitting world "Kinnearing" is to have a celebrity – well, really, any recognizable brand-name person – hold up a pair of hand-knitted socks while the knitter captures the triumph in a photo. It is a bizarre celebrity sighting sort of thing, the name of which (as I understand it) derives from Greg Kinnear, who was apparently the first celeb to be sock stalked.

In my cruising world the true celebrities are the vessels. While I loathe celeb sighting announcements, I must point out that in Essex the Harvey Gamage, an ocean classroom that I first saw in Bequia, was anchored near our course. I consider any ship with such graceful lines to be famous and Wikipedia agrees. Anita Kinneared the Harvey Gamage, forever tying the loop of our passions. Snazzy socks, eh?