St. Mary's ...Monday - November19

We worked on projects this morning ...Kathy finished the generator cover and I continued to wax and clean stainless ... we went for a walk in the afternoon but really didn't find anything worth reporting. We arranged for a car tomorrow to do some shopping and then went back to shore for happy hour. There we no-see-ums in the park but we had a nice time meeting people anyway.

We got back to the boat and listened to MSU almost give away a basketball game to Missouri. It may be a little to soon in the season to play UCLA tonight.

The anchorage is filling up here ... there are about 40 boats now with more to come in the next couple of days.


St. Mary's ...Tuesday

Although it was a little early for Kathy to be up and around, we were at the dinghy dock a little before 8am to be picked up by Enterprise. At 8:20 I called and found out that Jamie, the new girl, had reserved a car for us on Wednesday instead of Tuesday. At about 8:50 they showed up and by 9:30 we were driving....to Walmart. Along with lots of food, we purchased some jerry cans to carry reserve diesel and gasoline for our engines, as well as two for extra water. All of the serious cruisers install a board between two stanchions and then lash their jerry cans to the board. The captain and crew of Sapphire have resisted as long as possible... (It really isn't very attractive), but as we get further in our adventure, wefind that there is some wisdom in carrying a reserve and there really isn't a better place to stow flammable liquids.

After returning to the boat and refrigerating those items that need it, we were on the road again to find some diesel additive and an 8 foot oak board. We stopped at 3 car parts stores before finding the additive but in the process found a propane filling station. Lowes provided us the oak board, but a stop at Kmart for a large plastic salad bowl was a waste of time. We did however learn from an employee there that Dollar General had just what we needed. Radio Shack was our next stop and since there was a salon next door, Kathy got a hair cut (not a great haircut, but it hasn't been cut since June 26th) while I picked up some ethernet cable and an adaptor for out Ipod.

Then is was off to the post office to mail Kurt's maps back to Michigan. Kurt is a friend from our old marina who graciously let us sort through his dad's maps and guide books, borrowing what we needed... probably saving us $500. (Plus, I got to read about the history of the Hudson River, aloud, as Mike drove the boat!)

On our way back to the boat to unload again we noticed that is was 3pm and we hadn't eaten. So we pulled in to a bar across from the dinghy dock and the waitress talked us into an order of nachos ... which were excellent. After dropping Kathy off at the boat with another load of stuff (to try to find room for all the groceries we bought in the morning), I drove back to town to get the propane tank filled and three jerry cans of diesel. On my way back to the boat I was met by about 10 dinghies heading for the 5pm mandatory happy hour who all found it necessary to point out the fact that I was going the wrong direction.

I unloaded the fuel while Kathy finished our snack to pass ...and then we were off again.

The party was fun. It was held in the lounge area of a nice hotel. Our group spilled over into about three rooms. My guess is that there were probably about 150 people there at one time or another. Later in the evening people got out their instruments and played some music.... Guitars, fiddle, flute, bass ...

We returned to the boat about 8:30 to listen to the basketball game but I couldn't tune it in... maybe this game wasn't broadcast. (It may have been on too late for us.)



Wednesday

We took the car back, making one more stop at Walmart for some things we forgot. We worked on the boat-it was nice and warm. We made our snack for the for tonight's happy hour and had another fun time meeting more new people. We were back on the boat early and read for a while.