Saturday, June 6th
Air temp 72, water temp 74, winds W @ 10
Did not move the boat today
Ahhh. I had a great night's sleep with the air-conditioner running. The night before last, our cabin never got below 80 degrees. This morning, it was 72. Nice!
Our priority today was to get the boat (and ourselves) ready for a day-night-day at sea off the coast of NJ. After breakfast, I thought it might be a good time to take the motor off the dingy and bring it up on the back railing. As I started to lower the dinghy into the water, I had a great idea. Let's go for a ride first!
Laura packed a few things in the backpack as I got the dinghy dropped and the motor running. We motored out of the marina then turned right to the bridge we'd never been through. As we approached the bridge, we heard the alarms that they were raising the span for another boat. We were at high tide and I don't think we could have made it underneath, even in our little dinghy, if it hadn't opened.
After the bridge I picked the boat up on plane and had a nice relaxing trip through the twisty Sassafras River. It was very scenic and beautiful. Here are a few pictures we took along the way.
We explored several different branches of the river for the next 1 1/2 hours. Oh. We did have one problem.... I had slowed the boat to idle-speed as we were motoring down one of the narrower channels. The boat surprised us with hitting a branch under the water which bounced us up about 6 inches then it hit the motor shaft and stopped us dead. Laura and I fell forward a bit but didn't get hurt or anything. Man. If I had been going even a little faster, it would have been much different. No reason to zoom through the shallow narrows!
Around 11:30am we motored back through the bridge. The tide had dropped about a foot so we could make it without opening for us. We decided to try the Harbor Cafe for lunch which was just over the bridge. Since it was a little early for lunch, we took a little walk around that side of the harbor. It was a very busy Saturday with everyone enjoying their boats and marina life.
The Cafe had outdoor seating so we had a nice lunch outside. A little while later the bridge went up again and I was able to get a picture from our table.
As we were heading back to our marina, the bridge opened and let 2 powerboats and 2 jet-skis through. I love the name on this powerboat. I just want to call him on the radio a few times!
Back at the boat Laura and I hauled the dinghy motor up to the deck rail where I secured it for our ocean trip. It's much better having the 95 pound motor on the railing rather than adding to the swinging dinghy in bigger waves.
After securing the outboard, I hooked up a fresh water hose to flush it out. That's one thing I really like about this new Tohatsu motor. It has a hose fitting built-in for flushing. I think it's even more important considering our old motor died from the cooling water jackets filling up with salt and corrosion. That shouldn't happen to this motor.
I then raised the dinghy on the davits and strapped it down with extra tie-down straps. Here's the final result. Motor on the rail and dinghy up on the davits (under the solar panel). Only step left is to put Laura's custom cover on the motor after it cools down. I just noticed in the picture you can see our blooming Hibiscus in the lower left. It likes the heat and humidity.
Next I filled our fresh water tank so we now have 200 gallons of fresh water if we get lost at sea (only kidding Sis). This afternoon I plan on checking everything on our main engine very closely. The winds on Monday and Tuesday off-shore are supposed to be very light so we'll probably have the engine running for about 35 hours straight.
Oh. I forgot to mention that we decided to stay at the marina (with our AC running) for another night. Today is the 4th straight day of highs near 90 degrees for us.
Autumn Borne and La Bella Vita will be anchored at the Harbor of Refuge in Cape Henlopen tonight and they will sit out the north winds tomorrow. Our friends Raffi and Lisa on Windfall passed us about 2 hours ago and will also be in Reedy Island anchorage tomorrow night - where we plan to be. Everyone will be using the dying winds and seas on Monday to head north so we'll have plenty of company.
Tomorrow morning we'll depart the marina for the 40 mile run to Reedy Island anchorage. Then it's an early start on Monday (3am?) for the trip down Delaware Bay, around Cape May and up the NJ coast. Should be fun!
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