Yesterday was a raw, choppy one where the clouds started thin and slowly worked their way into an impenetrable ceiling. Our float rocked all day long while A2 and I did our best to get ahead for the week. Culling wasn't a problem - it was keeping warm. But we had the heater on and for an hour or so, passed time singing Bob Marley tunes a cappella (turns out, A2 has quite the voice). Berg, meanwhile, spent the entire day dragging and pulled up around 40-50 crates. We helped him unload his crates onto the float at least three times and at the end of the day, ended up hauling all of the TBC's (to be culled) back to land and onto the truck. We'll most likely spend today at the shop since waters are sure to be too rough for us to get out there; we're expecting rain and a strong south wind for most of it. Plus, at least one of our boats, the Bat (short for Bateau) is going into the shop today. We weren't the only ones prepping. As we made our last trip to the float to pick up all of our finished bags, we saw Greg Morris put-putting his way into the marina -- the boat was so loaded up, all we could see was an orange wall of crates and two forms covered in yellow and orange shoveling water out of the bottom of the boat.

"The thing about April," Christian told me a few weeks back, "is that you get these gorgeous days, these 65, 70 degree days. And then, you get slammed with cold weather." Clearly he, and T.S. Eliot, know a thing or two about it.

Erin Byers Murray