Ahhhhh!

..... the relaxing part of the cruising lifestyle...

This is the part that we do this for: solid anchor in the bottom in a secure anchorage, a warm sunny day, a seat in the cockpit watching other boats do the anchoring dance and the tour boats doing a jig around them.....like I said - ahhhhhh!

Today we were host to Alan and Heather from Moonlight Maid for breakfast and Alan took his ancient Johnson 2 hp 2 stroke in to the marina to let one of their mechanics look at it. They put the carb in an ultrasound bath to clean it and did a little more magic and hey presto it would appear (everyone, fingers crossed) it appears to have fixed 90% of the issues. I have been thinking that since the engine is nearly 40 years old, they should retire it and get a new 4 stroke but Alan really likes it plus it is about as physically heavy that their "Fatty Knees" dingy can bear. So, this is great news if they can coax another couple of years out of it.

We then too a walk along the boardwalk strip in tow and poked our noses into the few places that were still open. For many of the shops the season ends at the end of September. We found one store where the proprietor specialized in nature photography specifically but not limited to. crabs, and stencils the image on canvas, t-shirts, coasters, just about anything that you could name and has them all for sale. We stopped for coffee and Key Lime pie at another spot where Alan, who is a key lime pie affectionado, declared it one of the best he has tasted, then a flying obligatory trip to the West Marine store and a stop at a 7/11 for some snacks and then back to Nelleke. I also saw a horizontal drilling unit in operation. This is a tool that I had tried to co Vince the Town of Shelburne that they should get to put the town water supply down every street. It would allow laying of pipe without trenching and having to repave roads and driveways. But as with so. Any other suggestions they blew it off. It would have made water installs for the entire town so much cheaper and provide accessibility to fresh water to everyone.

Ahhhh!

Back to watching other folks come in and planning tomorrow. There are more and more very young couples out cruising these days. We have seen a number with very small children aboard and by small I mean barely into the toddling stage. Bless 'em! Doing it while they are young and imagine the life experience for the kids!

From here to Reedville it is 40 nm so at 5 knots we are looking at an 8 hour day. Hopefully we will get a wind that will allow us to give the engine a bit of a rest.