SailingKnitter

At last! I'm released from my vows of secrecy and can reveal this new design. SEA CRUISE SOCKS are the February/March 2012 featured sock pattern for the Six Sox Knitalong Yahoo group.

Inspired by the fishermen Gansey sweater patterning these socks have anchors and rope cables running down the leg and tiny sailboats on the foot. No, you can't have the photo sample pair as it has already been promised to a fellow sailing cruiser.

I've now started writing my sock patterns up in 4 sizes:
1) Child Large/Women's Small
2) Women's Medium
3) Women's Large/Men's Medium
4) Men's Large

For these Sea Cruise Socks, that meant that I had to chart and write out the line-by-line instructions for EACH of these four sizes - whew! Thank goodness for the team of eagle-eyed test knitters.

REEF REPORT
Naturally, I've been out snorkeling the reef a lot lately. The first day in the water I thought it would be wise to simply do a couple of laps swimming around the boat as I checked the screws in the sand for our mooring ball. Good idea. I got 3 leg cramps in just 2 laps! My muscles were screaming from lack of use over the long  summer of no real swimming.

But now these legs have remembered what they are supposed to do and I've been out bobbing along the beautiful reef. My goal this year is to see a seahorse. So I've been just hovering over the coral heads and studying what is going on a foot or 2 below me. The weather is still a little unsettled and one time a big squall came through when I was snorkeling. The rain crashed into the sea and winds were clocked up to 35 knots! On the surface, I couldn't see more than 5 feet in any direction. That meant that Jonesy (who always watches me from the boat) couldn't see me. For about 2 seconds it was terrifying, but when I put my face mask back down in the water - well, life was calm and normal down there. No currents, no lack of visibility and the reef creatures were going about their normal business. So I just did the same.

Here are some of the fish I've seen:

Hogfish and Groupers (yummy! but protected in this Marine Park)
Many kinds of funny looking Trunkfish interacting with each other
Queen and Spotlight Parrotfish
Long, upside down Pipefish
Foureye Butterflyfish
Banded Butterflyfish
Houndfish up near the surface
Barracuda
Caribbean Squid (so cute!)
Southern Stingray with a Shark Sucker
I swam with a school of Doctorfish and Blue Tangs, and watched while bigger fish were cleaned by smaller fish at "cleaning stations". But still not a single seahorse...yet. No worries, there are many more opportunities in the coming months and like knitting, I simply enjoy the process.