We’ve holed up in Sandusky OH for a few days to catch up with some friends and family and for our mail to catch up with us.

Yesterday we had Dusty Whitman over with a friend Jessica. Dusty is the sales manager for Lincoln in Toledo and befriended Pamela as a newbie at Lincoln Tech in Indy. A kind of ‘odd couple’ - sales guy and librarian. The thing they share is their undying commitment to making students lives better at Lincoln Tech Indy. I met him when he was invited over to dinner at Pamela’s while he was in Indy for business. Traveling for business is hard work and many times solitary especially around dinner time. He arrived with a bottle of something in hand and was a gracious guest for dinner thanking us for inviting him into our house while he was in town. That was like 2 years ago and once you’re in with Dusty, you’re in. He’s bought us so many dinners when he is in town, inviting us along with his sales team like we we’re part of it, I’ve lost count. The last time we got together was at Pamela’s retirement party at Lincoln and his whole team attended and I couldn’t pay for a drink. When we parted company then he said he’d like to see us when we came through Toledo and to let him know.

Well as you might expect it’s been pretty hectic for us these last 8 weeks with selling up and moving aboard, retiring from two jobs, setting up our new home and learning how to move her from point a to b. Our schedule didn’t clear up for us to be in Ohio until late last week and we missed Pamela’s Son Cliff’s birthday weekend that we were supposed to be here for by like 2 days. When we in-boxed Dusty we were in Sandusky he said, “sure thing, see you on Thursday”.

There are some folks you can always count on and Dusty is one. He showed up dressed like a yachtie with an awesome sidekick Jessica, a case of beer in a cooler and smoked salmon and cream cheese pinwheels to share. We got under way a little later than we had hoped for Kelly’s island that has a north facing crescent cove that is good for anchoring off for a swim. They key phrase is anchoring. Since we’ve never anchored our girl it would be great practice!

The picture on the post is of Dustin, ever the gracious guest honoring the Captain’s rule of no smoking aboard having a smoke off the back of Big Frisky. A tricky proposition as any of you smokers can attest. We got a late start home and Pamela and I looked at each other and the Chart plotter’s ETA of 2159, about and hour past sunset as thought, what the hell were we thinking?? Another strange marina, pitch black night with a complicated approach to the notoriously shallow Sandusky bay.

It took us about an hour and a half to get back to our slip and was fairly hair raising with the narrow channel, pitch black night and the simultaneous arrival of another sailboat. Dusty and Jessica? Just enjoying their time together, encouraging us and watching the sunset as the lights of Cedar Point passed by at night, arguing about which was the most scary or bone jarring roller coaster as they both grew up in this part of OH.

Pamela and I were locked in on getting us safely back to the slip with her on the bow with our million watt hand-held spotlight and me white knuckled threading the needle to get us through the break wall and then into our slip. As fate would have it another boater saw us stumbling through the marina flashing our spot light all over and helped us with lines.

We settled in for a few more drinks with our guests before turning in for the night. Having a good time is a group effort. Sometimes it takes and uptight captain to get you safely back to harbor when misjudging the light left. But it ALWAYS takes good natured, happy go lucky folks like Dusty and Jessica who show up with beer and a great attitude and leave with a story to tell their friends about their time on-board Big Frisky.