Boats, Lobsters, Socks and Cork Boards!

Hope everyone had a great Labor Day Weekend. Both DS and DD are now back at college. But DD is close by and came home to go diving this weekend. More on that below.

Last year DD's roommate had a cute cork board made of wine corks. We started saving wine corks, got some more from a friend who was just saving them for no real reason (LOL) and proceeded to make a cork board for DD.
Got this inexpensive frame at the Christmas Tree Shop - took out the glass.

Here are all the corks - we like wine but not that much so a good thing my friend Ramie had all the extra corks.

Arranged the corks and used a jewel glue I had in my studio. DD Loved it. We gave it to her today when she came down to the boat to go diving.

My Sock Fest!
The two pair of socks I was working on are done. The maroon ones are for me and the black and white ones are DH slightly delayed anniversary present. Finished them last Monday - our anniversary was Sunday. I ran out of yarn just shy of the toe on the maroon ones. So I used a little yarn from DD(blue) and a little yarn from DS (green) socks to finish. That 's what the teensy tiny white print on the picture says. Sorry didn't know it would come out so small in the blog version!

The maroon pattern is one I got free on the internet. Here is the blog http://whimsicalknittingdesigns.blogspot.com/2008/11/touch-of-whimsy-socks-version-two.html

She has tons of patterns (look on the lower right side of the blog). The only comment is that the pattern is not stretchy. Any my legs are a little chubby - so if you do make them and have "well developed calves" I would suggest adding a little to the diameter of the leg. But the pattern is lovely.!

Labor Day Boating Fun

Well on Labor Day DH finally got to take a break from his work. He is working on a huge project and did not get away from the computer on Saturday or Sunday. So we got to the boat on Monday. DD met us there . It is only about an hour for her from school. The marina is about 45 minutes from our house. We are so fortunate to be this close to the ocean. DS is 3.5 hours away and does not like the ocean. We don't know where he came from (LOL)

It is just a little boat, with no seats, but a lot of room for dive gear.
One of the other "best" parts of the day is that I took the boat out of the slip and out of the marina - driving myself. We just have an outboard motor - so n0 stern thrusters or any fancy maneuvering controls. I can be a real "nervous nelly" and having me drive the boat is one way to get me over this. I was thrilled. I didn't dock it on the way back, we'll keep that for next year.

Our sole purpose when we go out is to go "hunting lobsters"
In Massachusetts you can catch lobster several ways on a non-commercial license. You can dive and take them by hand or you can put out a small number of pots that you put down and then pull up. We just dive. You do have to have a license (DH does) We get in our cold water scuba gear and go down about 50 feet and look for them under rocks!!

Lobsters are basically nocturnal creatures so they hide during daylight hours. In fact if you night dive, you cannot take lobsters after sunset.
The visibility was pretty bad - only about 5 feet - basically you don't see the bottom til you hit it! But the water was fairly warm for south of Boston and we hit a good spot. DD found the first really big lobster - the picture show the biggest legal lobster you can take scuba diving. You have to use a gauge to check that it is not too big or too small, or a female with eggs. We did get three others during our dive- but just regular size (1.25 to 1.5 opounds). Also saw several really large blue fish. The fishermen were having a great day. So these are DD with the lobster (above) and DD and DH with the lobster. Aren't they just the cutest. PS. the lobster was delicious!!