What a day for sailing this would be! The wind is blowing across the bay from the West, so there would be no need to tack against it to gain the Islands on the horizon or run before it to return. Later it will shift to its customary southwest breeze. The sky is free of haze or cloud, and the air is clean and bright. Ospreys soar along the bluff and call out in the wind. How my earthbound feet want to fly across the waves with a sail for wings.
There is a curious craft with a red sail making its way toward the west end of the Cape Cod Canal as I write. She's made of wood - that much is clear through the scope by the great picture windows facing the bay - but her sail is stiffened throughout with stays like those of a Chinese Junk. There actually is, or was, a Junk that sailed the waters of Buzzards Bay when I was growing up. There are sloops and yawls among the pleasure craft today, and on very windy afternoons the windsurfers dance across the waves like skipping stones. Later today I may see a great rainbow-hued spinnaker billowing before the mast of some inbound vessel.
To my mind there are not enough sailing craft in the bay today for such a glorious late summer Sunday. Some of the best sailing weather is yet to come, in autumn wind with the whitecaps foaming, but today would be a day to savor summer to the dregs with the wind in my face and the blue water sparkling alongside.
Tonight, if the weather holds, I'll bring the children down to the beach and into the water to swim as we watch the stars. Maybe there will still be phosphorus glowing around us as there were earlier in summer. Maybe the pale face of Jupiter will leave a shining path on the face of the water.
My Great Great Aunt Kate, so I am told though she died when I was still an infant, had a favorite psalm for days like these:
"This is the day that the Lord hath made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"
Such days as these are "Aunt Kate Days".
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