We had a very productive and almost relaxing day at anchor. It started raining in the middle of the night and rained through the morning but then it turned into a beautiful day. We got the boat all straightened out and much more livable. We even finished some projects we hadn’t quite completed before we left our dock. By mid afternoon it was warm enough for Bill to consider diving on the boat to see why we weren’t really moving through the water as smoothly as we should have been.

Sometimes we don’t think so, but in general we are a very well equipped boat. Buying things is one of Bill’s favorite things to do. One of the things he bought a few years ago is an air compressor diving system that lets you dive around the boat. He tried to use it in the Bahamas, where you can actually see in the water, but he snagged the regulator and broke it off in the first minute of use. We got the regulator replaced when we got back to Annapolis but he wasn’t going to dive on the boat in our marina. The picture above is Bill in all his gear ready to jump over the side of the boat this afternoon. What he found when he got under the boat was an outrageous amount of barnacles on our propeller and rudder, not to mention on the bow of the boat. Apparently the past two months in our home marina was devastating to the bottom of the boat. He spent some time cleaning off the prop and then realized the rest was going to take a lot more energy than he had today. We had called a diver to come clean the bottom a few days before we were leaving but she never returned our call. Now it was 4:00pm on a Friday and the chances of finding someone to do it for us, at anchor yet, were slim. Bill decided to try to use his contacts as ex-president of our neighborhood Homeowners Association to find another diver. It didn’t take too many calls before we were lowering the dinghy so Bill could pick up a diver at the closest dock to come clean our bottom. What luck!! The guy was great, it was cheaper than we would have paid the other diver and he wouldn’t even accept a tip for a job well done. That company is definitely getting our business again in the future!

Now we are ready to leave again tomorrow morning. One possibility was to rush up the Chesapeake under power so we could make Cape May by Sunday but we’re thinking we would rather sail if the wind will allow us to. We’ll see how it goes. If we don’t get to Cape May until Monday that is fine too.