So I woke up this morning thinking it was going to be just another day of crossing items off the to do list and was in for a big surprise when Captain Clark suddenly announced at 2 o'clock this afternoon that the weather was perfect for a dry run, sleep on the boat night tonight.
Without saying so to each other, I guess we both translated that into "pretend we're leaving today and see how ready we are". "Ready, Set, Go! " I started going through my last-minute list and madly throwing items into bags and coolers to be brought onto the boat.
Of course I didn't have meals planned out so the first thing I had to figure out was food for supper, breakfast, and tomorrow's lunch. When we actually leave, I have to empty the fridge completely. I didn't go quite that far today. There's still food in there for when we return tomorrow.
Since I'm still using it for some projects, I also decided that my laptop was not part of the exercise. I considered it but concluded "that's just not happening"! You see, one minute we were strolling around the house removing batteries from clocks and TV remotes in preparation for our trip, and the next we were in "all hands on deck" mode of operation to see how fast we could pull away from the dock. Life is never dull with Clark!
I must say that Clark literally did the heavy lifting on this exercise. He carried all but 3 bags down to the boat including 2 coolers full of food. When I finally boarded the boat, all I could see was bag after bag of things to be stowed because he didn't empty any bags he just lined them up in the salon / galley along with our 2 collapsible bicycles.
The trip to our favorite anchorage is about 1.5 hours on a day like today when fighting the tide. I saw none of the trip out as it took the entire time to get everything put away in its proper place. I finished just in time to watch the Captain lower the anchor.
Clark decided to dive under the back of the boat after anchoring to change the zincs on the trim tabs. I was so hot I almost dove in with him! Instead I put on my swimsuit and doused myself with the shower on the back of the boat.
After that I decided to make dinner ... spaghetti ... and quickly came to the conclusion that if we were to have enough potable water to make it to tomorrow lunch then we needed to ration our supply since I had severely underestimated the amount needed for cooking and drinking for an overnight. That's one lesson learned for our trip.
Other than the water issue (we'll just have to suffer through by drinking juice), so far so good. We have a bag of collected items to remove from the boat as not needed.
The fun part of boating is many-fold especially if you like surprises. Like tonight after a beautiful sunset we heard boats tooting their horns in a "happy" way. Clark decided to go check it out and found a boat parade in progress along the Shrewsbury River. Boats of all styles and sizes decorated with colorful lights.
I look forward to many more happy surprises on our trip! All said ... so far ... a great dry run!
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