These are some of the best days on the Delta. Temperatures are beginning to
abate somewhat during the day, mornings break with a hint of the crisper fall
weather to come, and the Central Valley Wind Machine--the one that sucks
offshore air through the Golden Gate Straits and across Bay and Delta--is
getting ready for winter.

The water is glass. An occasional cat's paw shows a tentative breeze along
Taylor Slough, but the breeze never musters any enthusiasm. My dockmates, who,
like me, spent the night afloat, are quiet, sitting on fantails or swim
platforms, drinking contemplative coffee. Greetings are a raised chin, a nod, a
quick smile. No one speaks. It feels like church.

The air is so still we can hear the cows on Jersey Island, across the slough.
One of them clatters down a rocky cut in the levee to drink. I remember hearing
a story about the cow that fell in and drowned a few years ago. The bloated
carcass got somehow wedged between a slip finger and someone's Grand Banks. I
hope this particular bovine will have the good sense to call for help if it
slips--but I don't want to be around if she does.

We plan to take the runabout--still a novelty for us--up to Riverboat to have an
early lunch. The boat is quiet, but it doesn't seem quite right to disturb this
nearly preternatural calm with the sound of an engine.

As though by an offstage cue, a small flotilla of ducks parades past the moored
boats. Someone throws a crust of bread in their direction and, as one, they
wheel toward their benefactor. When more bread is not immediately forthcoming,
they complain raucously. The morning's calm is not quite destroyed, but the
mood that has surrounded all of us has changed; a wakeboard clatters to the deck
on the other side of the shed, a dock cart thrums rhythmically across the
weathered boards of the dock, an engine room blower whines, two big diesels come
to life.

They are the sounds that anchor me to this life on the water. They transport me
back to the Maine seacoast decades ago, to wooden boats, to my grandfather's
coaxing boat and crew to life, and instilling a love of boats in a skinny eight
year old.

Young Robbie, here for the weekend with his grandfather, steps onto my boat.
He's clutching the length of three-strand dockline I gave him yesterday to
practice his bowline. Grinning, he demonstrates his bowline-tying prowess. He
extracts a promise from me to teach him how to make an eye splice.

Then he's gone, not-running down the dock to his grandfather's big trawler. The
air is redolent with diesel. He clambers aboard, and the boat pulls out
competently into the harbor. The trawler's master and I exchange smiles and
mock salutes as he glides past our boat.

I finish my coffee, pull the runabout's keys from the rack in the houseboat and
join my wife. She has already loaded lunch, cold water, bathing suits and
towels into the cuddy of the new boat. I let the blower run for a bit, then
crank the engine. It starts immediately and idles quietly. My wife casts off
the dock lines and we back out of the slip. Today is our anniversary--a BIG
one--and she has graciously consented to spend it on the water.

I think she's a keeper.