This morning saw me barrelling off down the highway with the propane tanks to get them filled. There’s a distributor called Revere’s about seven miles down the road that opened at eight and although I got there fifteen minutes early, there was a fellow there who was kind enough to open for me and fill our tanks, which meant that I was able to get back to the docks in time to help John and Joan get away for their trip to Norfolk and points south by way of the Dismal Swamp Canal. Last night we had another celeidh only this one aboard Changing Lanes and Joan treated us to a great meal of chilli, baked ham and brown bread. Slurp! They were off at 09h00, first stop the next marina so they could buy some fuel and then off down the Chesapeake. We have greatly enjoyed their company and will miss them now that they are off. But that’s part of the cruising lifestyle, I guess – making new friends and then one or both of us moving on.

Then it was off to Gloucester to buy some USB extensions and a couple of extenders for the monitor cables. The owner was kind enough to give us 15% off most of the gear and by lunch we had them installed and were in the throws of testing when we were reminded that there was a problem with booting the computer. After some extended conversations with the staff at MarinaNav back in PEI, we came to understand that some of the peripheral devices create what is called a phantom comm port and that when I had unplugged them I would have had to mark or remember where they were originally for when we reinstalled the computer..As it was the fact that they weren’t there was causing Windows no end of grief. The solution was to go into Windows through the safe mode and delete the drivers for those devices. Then we bring the operating system up normally and reinstall the software. So far it seems to have worked.

Barb and I also went into the cockpit and emptied out the port lazarette. I had forgotten how much “stuff” we had aboard in there and took no small delight in making a trip or two to the dumpster. Sadly one of the items that got gashed was our folding bike. It was a nice product but it had been made from recycled steel and hence prone to rust. Not a good ticket for the cruising lifestyle. The store where I worked now has some made of aluminum for a reasonable price so I might get one of those when we get home. The real thing for consideration is that Barb can’t ride a bike because of her knees and as a result I don’t use the one we had very much either. I couldn’t see myself biking off while she toiled along behind me on foot. The other stuff that is no more is a whole lot of 15A outdoor electric cable which was a holdover from our days on the hard plugged into the shore power, some tubing and a bunch of other odd and sods that we are better off without or simply don’t need.

After that it was still a bit nippy and we retired to the selon for a cuppa and a relax. Barb is doing dinner tonight – stir fry sausage. How’s that for being different?