[IMAGE] anchored at Shaw

…click to listen:

…about the music

Fruits of a water crossing.

A few days ago, we got a last minute call from a pal to join him with a few other island friends on his 46′ sailing ketch…

[IMAGE] headed to Shaw

… to go apple picking.

Now, most folks don’t take a sailboat to an orchard, but this ain’t most places. By noon we were underway the very short distance to Shaw Island, a place of serenity, fruit, and remarkably clear water.

[IMAGE] water at Shaw

After anchoring in a little bay, we loaded the rowboat with empty bins and, thinking ahead, a large hand truck (not standard equipment on either a sailboat nor a dinghy), and oared to shore over lovely clear jellies floating atop the eel grass.

[IMAGE] jellies at Shaw

The Shaw Invasion had begun (the jellyfish were shaking in fear, I’m certain). Climbing up from the beach, we walked down a rural path about a hundred yards until we found ourselves in the middle of an apple orchard, and wasted no time determining which of the bright red orbs were worth plundering.

[IMAGE] apples at Shaw

The answer turned out to be, “quite a lot of them.”

Hauling our winnings back to shore, we realized that we could add more than enough fiber to the diet of a small nation with the number of apples we had in tow.

[IMAGE] road on Shaw

It took a few strong shoves to get the overladen rowing dingy out to sea again, there were so many pounds of fruit.

[IMAGE] back from Shaw

At this point in the story I should be showing you a beautiful photo from my kitchen of the incredible delicacies I created from this windfall. Instead, I admit that since returning to shore that afternoon, life was too busy for me to learn how to cook or bake (someday, someday!), and instead I’ve enjoyed the apples one raw bite at a time. This was my very first time apple picking, in fact: growing up in Manhattan, I used to think that they came prepackaged under a cellophane window on styrofoam in polite groups of six. I had never before seen apples in their natural habitat. The whole Newton/gravity thing finally came alive for this aged school girl when she saw what happens when you shake a ripe tree. Apple-ied physics!