We have started the Grander Scheme! We finally managed to get off the docks and motored out of the marina at 11am this morning...

Those who know the area will now be wondering gee, they left at 11, and they're making a report from the yacht club about 8 miles away...I wonder what happened? Several things! The first was that we found that, in full cruising trim, Northern Symphony squats quite a bit when we really rev up the red beast...Squatting refers to the tendency of a propeller-driven vessel to "squat" at the stern and draw more water then when sitting at the dock, or under sail. Well, on Northern Symphony, we noticed that when we pushed the engine hard the boat squatted a few critical inches more than with the old engine: Enough so that the bilge outlets and the exhaust were essentially submerged. Now, those outlets are supposed to be watertight but they aren't intended to be submerged for prolonged periods...after a half hour of motoring like this, we had a considerable amount of water in the bilge! Nothing our pumps couldn't handle, and we carefully inspected everything and found no other leaks: As long as we keep our speed at 5 knots or less all is well.

I also noticed while we were just motoring along, that we were all exhausted and falling asleep. Heading offshore for an overnight passage with a leaking boat and an exhausted crew seemed like a bad idea, so we popped over to the yacht club where we have our mooring and secured ourselves and took naps...I slept for 3 hours! After we woke up we assessed things again and realized that it really doesn't make sense, given the many delays in our departure, to rush into a major passage as a frst step in a madcap dash up the Saint Lawrence just so we can have the fun of rushing through some of the highlights of the Great Loop...

We have always said that the most dangerous thing that you can have on a boat is a schedule...So why spend months rushing so we can get someplace to cruise? Let's cruise now! So that's what we're doing: We're having a relaxing night on our mooring and tomorrow, when we head out, we'll turn right instead of left and cruise down the south shore of Nova Scotia and then hop over to Maine and spend the best months of summer cruising the New England Coat before heading south for the winter. The Great Loop isn't dead: We'll just do it in the reverse direction! Of course, that means we'll be going against the current coming north through the Midwestern US, but those currents are actually pretty tame compared to the Saint Lawrence so we're okay with that. And, by the time we get there, we'll have relocated our bilge and exhaust outlets so we can take full advantage of the powerful red beast!

So, to our great relief, we are cruising again! The rushing is behind us.