This morning I attended mass at The Cathedral Basilica of St Augustine. Their tag line is “America’s First Parish”. But before I could get there, I had to check how much oil was in the dinghy motor. There was a tad too much, so I had to suction a bit out.

After mass I ate lunch at the Irish Pub and walked around a bit.

Back at the boat, I checked the tension on my lower shrouds and put in the missing pins so the shrouds do not loosen on their own. That was the final step to replacing the broken shroud.

The wind has calmed down, so that is good. Tomorrow Mark’s wife, Cheryl, will be here. I would like to leave Tuesday afternoon, but now they are predicting 25-30 knot winds most of my trip. I’m not a fan of that, so maybe Wednesday looks better. The trip should be around 20 hours, so that influences when I leave. The other factors are bridge opening times (and the times they say they won’t open, like at noon on weekdays) and the tide/current, which is strong here. When I put all those inputs into the equation, I come up with leaving my mooring in time to make a 1pm bridge opening. And I need to exit the mooring field at the correct spot, or else I'll run aground trying to get to the channel. Great Lakes cruising seems to have fewer variables to juggle!