Thursday, December 18, 2014

Well, we have been here in Christmas Cove for the past week. Enjoying the heck out of this location and the friends we know here.

Hey Backseaters…forgot to tell you we saw the deer again on the island. As we were relaxing last Thursday on the foredeck I looked up and saw a little 2 point reindeer poking around on shore…I wonder which of Santa’s reindeer warrant’s leave this close to the holiday?!

The weather was perfect for a few days, sunny, light breeze, no rain…then on Sunday the winds backed to the west…WEST?!, and it got pretty bumpy inside the cove. However Lee and Sharon on Allegro arrived here on Sunday so we all headed over to Charles & Leslies for an amazing dinner and a ton of laughter…. The party finally broke up after 10:30 (!) and we all headed home still laughing. This is the reason we love the cruising life…its all about the friends and experiences we get to enjoy.

Monday the weather turned and it rained and rained and rained…the afternoon cleared for a bit, then started raining some more….Tuesday was more of the same and finally on Wednesday the system move out and the day dawned bright and clear. We got some boat projects attended to while the weather was foul… most importantly fixing (or substantially reducing) the squeaking in the port hull. Which Jim finally determined was caused by the stairs that we have to remove periodically to get to the wiring run behind them. The fix we put in place cut the noise by 80%! Yahoo!
Also, I finished sewing a life jacket bag for 4 jackets to keep in the dingy while we are in US waters.

Wednesday, and its time for us to head to shore on our own…so first we drop the dingy and get it rigged with the new life jacket bag (which doubles as a little seat), the cable for the lock, and while there I fixed the light fitting on the top of the engine, and then made a cover for the engine. Surprisingly this took less than 2 hours, and in the early afternoon we took off to shore. It is only 2 miles…but it is across the cut, and always seems far, far away and a little intimidating. But off we went…and shortly were on shore dropping our garbage, and heading to the grocery store for ice and incidentals. That accomplished, we headed back, and this time thought to time it…8 minutes from the outer harbor back to the boat! we were fortunate their were no ferry’s or in fact any other boats crossing at that time. Had a nice, DRY run back…our first successful foray into shore on our own! YEAH!

To celebrate, we had Charles & Leslie over for Pizza that we ordered from Pizza Pi, the pizza boat Tara & Sascha run that is anchored here. They bought the boat 2 years ago and refitted it with an outstanding galley in the aft. Its pretty cool to dingy up to the boat and get your pizza’s handed out thru the aft hatch…and the pizza is REALLY good….these two have a good thing going! So we ate really good Pizza, watched the lingering color in the sky, and had drinks and laughs and with two dear friends…the real reason we went cruising.