Rhode River to Cambridge and Three Lay Days in Cambridge October 13 17 38 7 Miles

First the passage: The wind was predicted at 5 knots, building to 15, in our face. Not pleasant, but manageable. It came from the predicted direction, a bit east of south, but at  20 to 25 knots and one has to add five to that to account for our boats speed into it!  And with Chesapeake Bay running generally north-south, the wind had time to work up large stiff waves of up to five feet. ILENE was pitching in these waves, some of them breaking over her bow, throwing spray back onto us. And with both these waves and the wind pushing us backwards, we were making only about four knots over the ground -- making for a long day to cover the 34 miles involved.

What to do. We changed course by 35 degrees, with the engine still working at its high speed for continuous use, 2500 rpms, and put out the small jib. Now less pitching, speed up to over six knots and a whole lot of heeling. The Saga owners network is having a discussion of the merits of adding  a ton of extra lead at the bottom of the keel (a sole under the keels foot as it were) and with Lene reporting this was on her "ten worst passages" list, I think the time has finally come to bite the financial bullet and do this -- next winter, when the boat is hauled. I thought of taking photos for you, or video, which could have shown the excitement, but decided to keep the salt water off the iPad, which was in a ziplock bag.

Turning a bit east, into the Choptank River, the wind was 60 to 80 degrees off the starboard bow and our speed was over seven knots with the throttle turned way down.  But this wide but shallow river twists and turns and when we came to a point where tacking in the channel would have been required we elected to furl the small sail and motor the rest of the way.  The trip took seven hours, from 11 to 6.

The landing at a dock in the Cambridge YC was very poor due to Captain Roger forgetting an important rule: always check the wind direction when attempting a landing at a dock. Maybe I was tired -- a reason but not an excuse. Anyway, the wind blew us onto the dock. We should have aimed further away from the dock, stopped and let the wind blow us to the Tee dock. Instead, with some way still on, we crashed our starboard quarter with the dinghy, hanging from its davits athwart the stern and protruding a few inches out past the side of the boat on each side, catching the dinks bow on one of the pilings that support the fixed height dock.  The painter, which is one of three lines used to snug the dinghy to the boat, parted (here reattached and a foot shorter),

and one of the welded aluminum





 padeyes holding up the bow ripped open.

But we landed and enjoyed three days at the YC, though the first of them was rainy.



On the sunny days that followed we enjoyed this view from ILENE of a replica of a screwpile lighthouse at the adjacent marina. I visited our friend, Johns meticulously maintained 28 foot S2, "Hearts Content" there.

 John, a former New Yorker and Harlemite was the best host one could find and our reason for staying in Cambridge. He has many talents in boating and as a mechanic, and he has a whole lot of power tools and the knowledge of how to use them. He rebuilt the interiors of the Plaza hotel and Columbia Universitys Butler Library as well as working for 15 years in NY theater, both on the stage and behind it. A gentleman and a pleasure to be with who put himself at our service. 

He drove us all around the town (population 12,250) showing us where everything was, took us to the post office to mail time sensitive mail, to the hardware store where we got a stainless steel padeye, bolts split washers, to the supermarket, several times, for provisions, to his home where we hacked off the extra length of the 1/2" bolts of the padeye and chamfered the edges, did our laundry and printed out a letter that was on our computer. He lent us one of his cars. He came to the boat and "helped" (lets just say he did the jobs with me as helper/learner/doer of the easy parts). He ground off the remnants of the old aluminum padeye, drilled the 1/2 inch holes for the new bolts

and we attached the new stainless padeye -- stronger than before!

We also replaced the old carburetor with the new one which had been fedexed to his house and he showed me how to adjust the idle and it works again!








We spent our days here with John and actually stayed the fourth night, when it was much calmer, at the wall of the town basin, rent free.

For our stay in the basin, he suggested the creation of the fender board, shown here, which uses two fenders and a hanging board to keep the pilings from harming the boat.

We watched Johns TV. He took us to his favorite restaurants and bar, Leaky Petes, where we had Natty Bos (National Bohemian beer). We tried scrapple, and crab, oyster and fish.









Cambridge is a very sleepy town, which has seen better times, especially its downtown district, which was devastated by suburban stores, fires, the recession and greed. We toured its Arts Center, and visited its Maritime Museum

and the Harriet Tubman Museum, but  the last two were closed.

Here are the kitties exploring a neighboring boat at the YC; maybe they smelled fish.

And I just loved this one, which I call "Still Life with Boat".

On our last day John took us on a long car ride to the southernmost of the three Hoopers Islands, connected by road and only a few feet above sea level, and populated mostly by watermen (crab and oyster harvesters) and their families. These islands were reached after driving through the Blackwater Wildlife Preserve, a huge swampy expanse.  We had lunch at Old Saltys

which has this wonderful view of mainland Maryland, the thin line at the horizon, across the Bay,

where we will be going next. John and I are planning the next leg of the cruise, I wish we could have persuaded him to come along for a few days.

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HYC Cruise Day 13 August 6 Milford CT to Port Jefferson LI 17 Miles

Alphie Girl is enjoying the day. Tides were favorable in the afternoon so after buying a quart of milk and a postcard for my wonderful grand daughter, ILENE left at 11:45 for a leisurely sail across the Sound, anchoring in the huge anchorage just inside and west of the Port Jeff inlet. North Star had a hankering for "2 for 1" lobster and hence took a mooring at the Setauket YC, near town. They left before us. On our way out we stopped to fuel up and got hailed by Dana on "Frabjous". They will be joining us in Centerport. 

It was a day made for sailing. We had plenty of time to go 17 miles and sailed the distance in light wind. Too often we cruisers have miles to go and do the math to conclude that at the speed over ground that the wind will give us, we cant get from here to there before dark without a motor assist. But today we put up sails before clearing Charles Island and headed south, close hauled on starboard, across the Sound, only about ten degrees off the rhumb line to the way point. Then tacked and sailed over Misery Shoal to the mouth of the inlet. Anchored is 22 feet of water at near high tide with northerlies of only ten knots expected tonight on 80 feet of snubbed chain. But it is near dead calm.

Home cooking tonight and blissful solitude. Attempts to watch the Fox political debate were unsuccessful so we will have to read about it tomorrow. There is room for about a hundred boats here and only three are present, as these sunset photos show.

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February 15 17 Marathon to Rodriquez Key to Hurricane Harbor on Key Biscayne and Lay DayThere 46 4 and 47 4 Miles

Well the good news is that I did not screw up the screw -- i.e., the transmission still turns the propeller. But the bad news is that the rattle is still there. I guess its time to have a professional take a look. And with all the contortionism required to muscle bolts with wrenches in a terribly cramped space, I got a back pain though it was a little better the second day and gone the third. Its just that so many tasks require throwing your weight into it or reaching or bending -- everything except typing a blog -- that one notices such pains. But ibuprofen helps.

And I started the first day with a mistake, though not a harmful one. I recalled that some of the three passage days from Biscayne Bay to Key West were 20-25 mile days and others were 40-50 mile days, but I guessed wrong on the trip to Rodriguez and we lallygaged about and made a late start at 8:45 for what was a longer day, arriving after five. Some of the trip was good sailing, some motor sailing and during the last hour and a half the wind was directly in our faces and rather than tack back and forth we furled all sails and just motored slowly. We were passed by a boat. I could not read the boat name because it is in a fancy script- more later.

We anchored on the west side of Rodriguez Key; we stayed on the other side when going south;  it appeared to provide some shelter from the wind, which was quite strong.

But the oblong island is aligned from north to south and so neither side gives much protection from a wind that was mostly from the south. But we put out 110 feet of snubbed chain in ten feet of water, with plenty of room behind us. Our nearest neighbor, 100 yards away, was the unnamed boat that had passed us. I awoke from the wind at 2 a.m. and sat up worried the rest of the night in fear of dragging. The anchor alarm suggested that we had slowly dragged but in the morning light

it appears that we did not. Not a good nights sleep.

Next day after a great french toast breakfast, thanks Lene, we set off at 8 am. We gradually caught up with that boat that had passed us the day before, who had left before us. They passed us the day before because I did not want to push the engine with its rattle. But now, I saw, via the binoculars, that she was a Catalina 34 with hailing port Oriental NC. I called them on low power on channel 16, and we switched to 17 to not impede the Coast Guard: "Catalina 34 hailing from Oriental; this is the sailboat ILENE on your port quarter." I learned that their boats name was "RagTop" and they were making the same two passages as we were and planned to stay in No Name Harbor on Key Biscayne as we were. ILENE is longer and hence faster under sail. When we passed them we wished each other a good passage and said we would try to meet up in No Name. I still did not know the peoples names.

The wind was in the low 20s and on our starboard bow. It was on shore yet the waves were not large. The Keys, heading for Key Biscaye through Hawk Channel are arrayed in a curve and as we got closer we were able to gradually steer a bit more north and a bit less east so the wind came from near close hauled to near our beam. We had full main and small jib and were heeled quite a bit,

though Witty wasnt upset by it.  We were doing near seven knots on average the whole way up Hawk passage and hit eight for a few minutes. We could probably have gone faster with less heeling if we had reefed the main but the forecast called for 10 to 20, not 20 to 25.

 We accomplished  in one day the mileage that  took us two days on the way south, going directly between Rodriquez Key and Biscayne Bay without the stop at Pumpkin Key. This was in part due to the free open speedy passage in Hawk Channel and was necessitated by the fact that we passed the entrance to Angelfish Creek way before high tide and waves were pushing on shore there. We entered through Biscayne Channel which is wide, deep and well marked.

Still with the wind and waves and tide all pushing us in, and never having been there before, and with the course involving some jibes, and channels always looking narrower on the charts than in real life, we dropped the main before entering and used the small jib, the tide and the engine at low rpms to make 5 to six knots on the way in. The channel is marked by 20 day marks and several fishing camps, houses built on stilts, on its sides. You can occasionally see shoals that line the sides, but mostly they are under water so you cant see them; it was like Boca Grande. Once through the channel into Biscayne Bay, we turned to starboard for No Name Harbor, which the book says is horribly overcrowded on weekends. This was Presidents Day and it was quite overcrowded, so we went to Hurricane Harbor, where the entrance was shallow, 62" at mid tide, but it quite deep enough at fifteen feet once inside.
And there was plenty of room for ten boats with only three present. I called RagTop and told them we were in Hurricane and they were anchoring outside of No Name due to the crowd so I suggested that they come over. There are NO waves in Huricane Harbor and precious little wind. The advantage of No Name is that though they charge you $20, they have a dinghy dock, restaurants and access to beaches etc. This harbor is completely surrounded by private homes.

and there is no shore access at their private docks, but we do not need shore access every day. In the second photo, on the right, through the harbor entrance, you can see the skyline of Coconut Grove, about four miles across Biscayne Bay.

Our neighbors here have left us alone, which is better than some of Floridas wealthy waterfront land owners have behaved. We exercise our legal right to anchor, for free, in the navigable waters of the USA and do no harm. And ILENE is a pretty boat, at least in our opinion and enhances their view. But some have tried to use legal means and sheer harassment to exclude boats from the waters near them. They dont own the water but they like to think they do. One guy moored a fleet of his own small faux miniboats in front of his house to "use up" all the available space. The idiot spoiled his own view with those ugly things.

When they had anchored we invited  Rag Top for wine and thereby finally learned their names: Don and Trish. They live four hours inland by car from Oriental, and this is their first extended cruise. They were part of a rally of new cruisers who went from Hampton VA to Florida, sort of like the Caribbean 1500, but via the ICW, so they partied most nights.  They are pretty good sailors in that they only gave a few tenths of a knot to ILENE. We enjoyed talking with them about cruising and boats in general.

The lay day was devoted to cleaning, -- the spots that we dont get to very often. Benny of s/v ""Rhianna", who we met in Beaufort SC, alerted to our nearness by Dean, of s/v Autumn Born, called and we might meet up with them soon. Three of four boats came into this harbor during the day but left within hours. We were also very close to Bob and Brenda of s/v "Pandora", which I helped sail from Essex CT to Annapolis in September. Our last night in Hurricane they were in No Name, only a mile away. Now back to Miami Beach where we have guests coming from NYC.

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November 15 to 17 Three Lay Days in Beaufort SC Zero Naut Miles

Here is that Ladies Island Bridge, first from land, closed, and then from ILENE at the dock, open, with just a few of the waiting cars at the extreme left.

It was cold but the third day has been warm but first windy and then rainy. The wind pushed us hard on the dock, separated by our somewhat flattened fenders. Several boats that were anchored out dragged into the marshes.
Lene used the Downtown Marinas courtesy car for groceries and to obtain this Mr. Heater Buddy,

which burns propane, producing carbon monoxide and hence is not as safe as using the electricity driven heat exchanger, but used when we are not at a dock and carefully, for small periods of time while we are awake, it can take the chill off in the evening and early morning.

I washed the boat, cleaned the starboard rub rail with acetone and waxed it; not much for three days, I confess. I also plotted a whole bunch of alternative courses between here and St. Marys, where we want to arrive a few days before Thanksgiving for the festival there. All the way from a single 125 mile overnight passage to as many as four intermediate stops, each such shorter hop or combinations of them by the inside and outside routes. It all depends on the winds, as always. Each such potential course except the inside ones, consist of three segments: to get out to the sea, in the sea and coming in from the sea.
Beaufort is a very historical town and the county seat and site of a US District Courthouse (federal court), as well as a tourist town with many shops, galleries and restaurants. I checked out the mostly used bookstore with a huge selection of books by Pat Conroy, and an antique shop with a nice selection of antique nautical charts. The restaurant we found and patronized this time is Low Country Produce, located in the tile walled former post office and town hall. It has good reasonably priced innovative cuisine and sells groceries as well. We bought a jar of their pickled Jerusalem artichokes after having been given a few with our dinner.
I visited the John Mark Verdier House,

right on the main street, Bay Street, which survived the war and several fires since 1804. It is the site of the historical society but they offer only guided tours of the house, which they do not conduct for only one person, so I saved $10 and contented myself with viewing the public rooms.
I had never thought that the Union army "occupied" the South during the war, but they did occupy Beaufort, because it was a harbor from which, through port Royal Sound (where a multi-ship naval battle was fought) they could operate the blockade of the Confederacy to choke off revenues from the sale of Sea Isle cotton, the finest grade, to England. The white confederate residents fled leaving their property (slaves) behind, so missionaries came in to help them, as well as merchants, newspaper publishers, photographers and carpetbaggers of all types. Many of the buildings on Bay Street survived to this day and a diorama was created of them and,from photographs, of the others.

Robert Smalls was a slave who had been stationed on a cargo ship, the "Planter". He put his wife and family aboard and brought the ship to the Union forces and surrendered. For this daring heroic act he was given command of a Union warship, later granted prize money with which he built a house here in town and was elected several times to the US House of Representatives.

But perhaps the best part of this town was just walking among the old homes and the magnificent live oak trees with Spanish moss that grace them.

This last one is Bythewood (two sylables not three), built in the 18th Century by the sea captain of that name and perhaps our favorite. The owner, Heather Perl, came along, took this picture and invited us for dinner. Maybe on the way back we can take her up on that.

We finally met up again with Dean and Susan of "Autumn Borne", who have appeared in this blog several times since we met them, coincidentally here in Beaufort, in the spring of 2012.

We also met their friends (our new friends), Benny and Lisa of "Rhiannon," a 42 foot Catalina. We six shared a pot luck dinner and played  and a game of cards.

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September 17 to October 9 One Sail One Raft Float Down the Snake River in Wyoming and Work

Twenty four days since my last post; a,sad new record. Partly due to the trip through some western red States: SD, WY, MT, ID and UT and partly due to computer problems at home which are semi fixed. Sorry folks, Ill try to never repeat that record.
A trip down the Snake from Jackson Hole WY was fun, but not sailing. The only water related activity other than majestic waterfalls and geysers.

We were up to nine tourists in each of the big blue inflatables, each steered by a forward facing captain-guide seated in an aluminum contraption on the stern with huge oars. The river was never more than 2.5 feet deep and occasionally we rubbed over the river-washed smooth rocks on the bottom. in six inches of water.

Occasional small rapids were present, in one of which a wave crested the port bow wetting part of my left pant leg. We saw eagles  nests, anglers and glorious landscapes.

I sat with a couple on the forward inflated thwart, outboard to port and we talked. And you can guess what I talked about. After a while the gentleman told me he plays fiddle in an Irish band and has a friend who plays with him on a small eight sided accordion and has an old wooden boat near New Rochelle. "If you mean Lennie S, he belongs to my Synagogue and Ive sailed with him on his sloop, Mary Loring", I said. Yep, its a very small world.

Returning from out western trip  I wernt out to ILENE, what with the approach of hurricane Joaquin, to check the mooring and tighten things up in case of a big blow. I also made tentative plans to take her over the the Huguenot YC where she safely weathered Sandy in their hurricane hole, but Joaquin veered far enough off shore to not molest us.

We had the rain date for Lenes HS classmates -- the outing that was postponed in September for fear of rain that did not come to pass. This time it was cancelled due to a nice strong wind and cool weather. I have to stop listening to Lene on this issue. So we made a brunch for them at our house and will sail with them in the spring.

The one sail was three hours with the Old Salts.

From right to left: Marcia, Dave, Peggy, Bennett, me, Art and Angelo. Angelo was brought by Bennett. He is visiting from Italy, had never sailed before but was an eager learner, a quick study and a big help. ILENE did not get much of a workout because the northerlies were too light. We did get to 5.8 knots SOG during a five minute puff, but otherwise it varied between slow and slower. An innovation in the liquid refreshments department: Wine replaced the G&Ts. And with light winds, they began before we got back to the mooring.
My service as crew on the 47 foot Aerodyne sloop "Pandora" from Essex CT to Hampton VA was delayed because the yard work needed to make her seaworthy was not completed. Hey, Id rather not be way off shore in a boat that is not ready. The kitties are disappointed though that they wont be petted and pampered by their cat sitters.
This adjournment freed me up to participate in the Harlems annual Fall Work Weekend. I always love this event because I meet folks who I barely knew and get to know them much better while working with them. This time I was assigned to a crew led by Ken whose task was to paint the Yard Car.  That lovely machine permits us to move boats on their cradles from one place in the yard to another. Our machine is about 20 years old and looks great again. Working with Ken were me, Jim and Drexel.

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March 17 Fort Lauderdale to Boca Raton 17 Miles

We got help from our neighbors in bringing in our dock lines, exactly at 9 am, the earliest opening of the New River bridges after the blocked-out morning rush hours. On the way down the New one large boat leapfrogged with us and later told us that he had stopped at a dock to let off a passenger. After the four bridges over the New, which open on request, we passed eight more that open only at fixed times, on request. We missed one, because we miscalculated the time/distance/speed relationship, and because Lene wanted to arrive "on time". But the bridge tenders want us to hurry up, arrive early and wait. So we had half an hour to kill, because of missing that opening.  We passed The Ocean Monarch, the one on the left, where my parents lived and my daughters enjoyed vacation days, its balconies looking north and over the sea.

We arranged to let Elissa know when we were passing her house so we could wave to each other. Thats Lene standing on the port side, outside the cockpit, waving.

Lots of big houses along the way; I shot only a few. So much money down here. Nobody "needs" such a big house. Many are empty, maintained to impress ones friends and colleagues when one chooses to visit Florida.

We dropped the hook in Lake Boca at 1:30 pm and after lowering the dink, got to a dock on the west side of the ICW, just south of the Palmetto Park Bridge, by 3:15. There Kathryn met us by car, took us shopping and then to her and Craigs beautiful home in Boca Lago, another of those gated communities for those 55-and-over that abound in this region. A great home cooked meal, lots of sailing talk. Craig is so handy; he can fix anything on a boat and renovated their house by himself, carpentry, plastering, plumbing, electrical, tile work, electronics and painting. And they play a mean piano and are superb racers.
Another thing: we are so ungrateful; for months we were complaining about the weather, too cold, too rainy, too windy, etc. But having enjoyed several week of ideal weather with nothing but more of the same in the forecast for the next week, we forget to give thanks and express our gratitude. or even  to mention it.
And I have finally found a good home for "The Lighthouse Robinsons", reviewed in this blog, which was a gift from Judy. Kathy and Craig are not only sailors, but of Scottish ancestry, so Im sure they will enjoy the book.
I would say we enjoyed a quiet night aboard and this is true as far as the wind was concerned, but false in that someone partied very loudly until 3:30 am, a drunken screaming woman disturbing the peace. The first episode of this on this trip.

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April 17 19 Redbird Creek to Beaufort SC and Two Lay Days There 66 5 Miles

We hauled the anchor at 7:15 to get to Hell Gate about 30 to 60 minutes before high tide at 8:40, measured at a tide station only 2.5 miles from that canal. It was cold and windy -- in the wrong direction -- but we passed through Hell Gate with no less than nine feet of depth -- about six more than would have been there at low tide. We got such an early start and partial favorable tides, that we changed our destination from Bull Creek to Beaufort SC, which had been scheduled as the next days destination; we got onto a mooring, rather than their dock where we had stayed our last two times here at 5:05 pm.  Generally the tides were running to the sea from high tide near Hell Gate for six hours and then rushed upstream. The course was so circuitous and involved going upstream on some rivers and down on others that it was always a surprise to us when we entered a new segment to find out which way the tide was flowing. With 2500 rpms on the Yanmar our speed varied from 4.8 to 8.4 knots depending on the current. Maybe some Comp Sci Ph.D. could solve the riddle of when is the best time to leave from point A to go to Point B, depending on your boats speed, unadjusted for tide, and the date in the lunar cycle. But I cant game nature. I mentioned hairpin curves and here is an early part of the passage

from the pliers at the right, through Hell Gate  at the screwdriver tip, upper right, past one hairpin curve above the big washer to just above the wrench jaw at the left. Overall,  the course for this segment was about 30 degrees, or north of northeast.
The portion of the days passage before we got to and crossed the Savannah River was new to us. It took us past Thunderbolt, the boating capital of Georgia. We had heard so much about this place, so close to Savannah, including that the marina brings you a free Krispy Kreme doughnut in the morning. Here are its boatyard and marina and a big beauty. I wonder how she got in this far from the sea with her mast vastly exceeding 65 feet in height.

We also passed Paris Island and Hilton Head, both of which I mentioned during our voyage south last fall.  We tried to motor sail in the afternoon, when we got to Port Royal Sound and the Beaufort River the last 14 miles, but the wind had died down and our speed brought it to our nose.
Our stay in Beaufort was quiet. Unlike our last two visits here, we took one of the marinas moorings. We used the marinas courtesy car to spend $290 at the Publix on Ladies Island, across the river. We off loaded several days of our garbage, filled our four one gallon water bottles, met with friends, including a pot luck dinner ashore. We had planned only one lay day, but the forecast weather seemed worse on the second lay day and we like it here so we stayed.
We made a date with Carla, co-owner of another Saga 43, "Reverie", as she was driving past this town between Charleston and Brunswick. But she had a friend as a passenger who did not want to stop, so our rendezvous had to be put off until the fall when, hopefully, Carla and John, who we have not yet met in person, will be driving through New York on a day when we will be there.
We spent some time discussing whether to divide the segment from Beaufort to Charleston into two halves, as we did on the trip south, but in the end decided to go almost all the way to Charleston and anchor in the Stono River, just south of the city. This solution avoids two problems. 1. It is hard to find a berth in Charleston due to Race Week. 2.  There is a strong tide under a bridge that is closed for rush hours which we have to pass at the end of another long day, just before Charleston.
We saw a matinee of Noel Cowards "Blithe Spirit", at the USC Beaufort campus theater. We sat next to Louise and Jim, nice folks, who recommended "Narrow Dog to Indian River" by Terry Darlington, which I am recommending to Dick and Elle.

Though in a university setting, the show was put on by the local theater group and funny, a farce: during a seance with a medium a mans wife comes back as a ghost visible only to him and torments his new wife. And only $20 per ticket for good seats.
And having had dinner and breakfast at Low Country Produce, located in the former City Hall, during our trip south, we had lunch there this time. Innovative inexpensive food in a place with cloth napkins  which also retails its food; one sits among display cases and racks.
The dink is hauled and we have to get underway early tomorrow to make the 7 am opening of the Ladies Island Bridge, less than a quarter mile away, or wait until 9:00.

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