Cheryl's Notes:

Thunderstorms rumbled through over night bringing down the humidity, but left behind strong winds. John will explain our predicament. Our boat was caught in a slip between the rocky shore and the dock, with the wind trying to blow us into the rocks. We spent the morning waiting for the winds to subside and catching up on some boat projects. We just heard that there were water spouts out on the lake today, so maybe it is a good thing that we didn't leave.

The upside is that we can spend another evening with Barb and Trish. Barb had a chance at tickets for the Browns and Jets game tonight, but that fell through. She is going to grab us after work and we will watch the game and eat some pizza or wings. Note to Kay: Every woman in town is staked out at the stadium trying to get a look at Brett. The town went nuts when they heard that Favre was traded to the Jets.

Tomorrow should bring an end to our mini vacation. We want to get to Buffalo by Sunday so that the yard we have chosen can get our mast down.

John's Notes:

We wanted to leave early this morning. Unfortunately, we had winds between 16-18kts true setting us off the dock. I might have mentioned before that the slip we have is right up against the riprap seawall. I measured the distance between the boat and the wall and we had 20'. After looking further I noticed that the angle of the riprap gave us about 12-15 feet of space before the rudder or keel would be on the rocks. Now I don't have that much confidence in our little engines ability to gather enough weigh in reverse so that I can turn the boat before she is hard aground. We studied the situation for a long time and decided to just wait till the wind died. Several people told us that we shouldn't even attempt to leave. They couldn't believe that the marina actually assigned this particular slip to us. Well, I accepted it before I checked it out. Seemed to be a good idea at the time being close to shore, showers, etc. Well, we waited and waited. Now it is too late to leave and make our destination that we had selected for tonight, Geneva State Park Marina.

About 3:00pm the wind started to subside a little and I had the idea that if we had a really long stern line (3 tied together actually) and put Tom at the end of the dock a couple of slips to windward of us, that I could back the boat out of the slip and back down the fairway with him keeping me off the rocks. Cheryl walked the boat as far back in the slip as she could and when I saw the wind drop to about 9 kts I started to back down. Tom worked the extended stern line to perfection and only had to tug just a little to keep the stern to the wind until I had enough way to back completely down the fairway. He was really impressed with how straight we can back down once we are underway. We now have an acceptable slip for the night thanks to the generosity of one of our dock neighbors that let us use his. Our plan now is to watch the game with Barb and Trish tonight and leave early in the morning. Again, thanks to several dock neighbors, we have lots of information about where exactly to un-step the mast. I already contacted them this morning. We are going to go to a professional yard and forgo all the excitement and possible angst that people like Dave Nixon have told us about in Tonawanda and the good old boys and their antiquated equipment. I know it's more money but I'll feel lots better knowing that the job is done right. I'll just have to get a job at the local Food Lion in New Bern to pay for my peace of mind. I'm not sure if I want to be a bagger or run around the parking lot rounding up carts. I still have time to think about it.