Beneath slanting sunlight, wind pebbles the water in small runs across the harbor, and the flag is a red tongue that wags, laughs, gossips about the sun, mountains, islands, and wind. Gulls fly straighter, their circles flatten, and they rise or descend on the wind like squawking and feathered yo-yos. Distant in the harbor, dories appear bobbing between splashes, while buoys ride solid, displaying the wind as they separate the lightly running chop. Susurrous murmurs wake between the hull and the pier, and men, not exactly intimidated by the cooling wind, place their hands on sunlit steel of the leeward side where there remains a memory of excellent warmth. The breeze nudges like a sniffing, snuffling dog, nose-bumping indifferent elbows, intent on gaining affection. Men step belowdecks to rifle seabags from which are fetched questionable-looking socks, watch caps, long johns and mittens that have survived the preceding winter. On the messdeck and in the crew's compartment, foul weather gear is pulled almost apologetically into view.
