We are off. We pulled anchor this morning and it felt wonderful!!!!, for about thirty minutes and then we started beating into four foot seas and thirty knot winds on the nose. I don't think you ever get used to beating into weather, at least I don't think I will. The kids were feeling a little queasy not enough to make them sick, but it slowed them down a little. Overall, they were troopers. We beat against the weather for about two hours and then turned so that we had twenty knots just off the beam and no swells so we put the Genny up and had Indy doing 9.5 knots, it was great. AS I write this we are on a dock somewhere near the mouth of the C& D canal which we will transit tomorrow. I have no idea what to expect from the canal since the only other canal I have been through is the Panama canal. Apparently the current runs about four knots through the canal and there can be a lot of traffic. I am thankful i do not have to drive her through.
The entire trip today took about 7 hours, we arrived around 5. O then did a mini washdown with the dock water and refilled our water tanks while I did laundry and made dinner...not exciting by any stretch but it felt good to have all of that stuff out of the way and begin with a clean slate for tomorrow.
We are a day behind schedule due to a little hitch with the car. i wanted to write about it earlier but was too angry to write. Anyway, the long and the short of it is this. Previously one of the guys at Annapolis Mercedes quoted us a price and when we went back on Monday they back tracked and offered us considerably less (knowing we had no need or a car on a boat). O and I could have stayed to sell it privately but we really needed to just get moving, so after some discussion we decided to just proceed with the offer. The car was in my name so I had to return to do the paperwork. The guy in charge there, Larry is a total JERK. He was rude, arrogant and lacked any social grace. I was in return short and abrupt. He actually said to me
"you don't strike me as the sailing type"
me: "Really, Larry, why is that"
L: "Well normally sailors are laid back and are just go with the flow people and you just don't seem to be like that" ( i was thinking, oh yeah, like your idol Jimmy Buffet is so laid back...ugh!)
At that point I actually thought I was going to beat him over the head with some Mercedes Logo'd thing he had on his desk but instead I said
" Listen Larry, we both know that what you are offering me for my car is insulting, but I have put myself in this situation, of which you are taking advantage, I understand that ,But DO NOT expect me to sit across this desk from you and pretend to be nice and or happy about it, ok?"
He made some lame attempt to tell me that he was offering me wholesale and I responded that it was interesting as our dealer in NY offered us more and i doubt the markets are that much different..blah, blah, blah.
Larry then made some excuse about the administrative staff being gone and I couldn't get the payoff today so would have to return the next day. We agreed that I would take my car and return the next day.
Does anyone else find it strange that there are no admin. people in a dealership after five???? so if i was a buyer and wanted to buy a $85,000/ $150,000 car they would tell me to come back tomorrow????? Somehow that just does not ring true but I wanted out of there as much as Larry wanted me out. I stewed all the way back to the boat. Then i did some internet research and learned about CarMax.
CarMax is a huge car outlet that buys and sells cars. It was a thirty five minute drive and it was 7:30 at night but I was determined! They did an appraisal which was consistent with what the NY Mercedes people told me but Larry, the charmer, had my title so i couldn't sell it to CarMax until the next day. The best part of the story is that the next morning I got to call Larry and tell him I decided that I did not want to sell him the car. When I got there he did not greet me, he saw me walk in, he handed me the title, turned around and walked away. I felt satisfied.
CarMax was great! It was a fair price, the people were friendly, they had me in and out in an hour, but most importantly, I did not have to sell my car to Larry.
To Larry's comment about sailors....yes, we do tend to go with the flow but I don't care how laid back someone is nobody likes to be blatantly taken advantage of....