Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Happy Birthday to "WE"...

It's our birthday.  Bruce and I share an October 17th birth date... (thus the boat name Dos Libras)  This year we celebrated by may taking the week off to spend aboard our beloved boat doing wonderful boaty things and having glorious adventures.  

This is always the expectation, right?  You do whatever you want and have a perfect day on your birthday?  Well, the best laid plans...  So it started out great at anchor in Flato Cut.  Every day this week we have done just what we wanted to do and the weather has cooperated beautifully... until today.

Keep in mind that all through this day while we were being bashed by high winds, I've continually checked my online weather sources and found that they, like the local weather man, have no windows!  

We ditched our plans to spend tonight at Mud Island since there was talk of a norther' coming in, which would make that unpleasant.  We opted to finish out our week getting some chores done, which is fun too.  After the bash from Flato to Port A, we settled on the long dock.  I tried three passes at getting the boat backed into our slip... and with the SW winds gusting to 22 knots, I just couldn't get it.  

We had lunch (realized we had forgotten to eat breakfast in our haste to leave the anchorage and the wild ride) and I thought it would be a good time to have a nap before we started on the laundry.  I crawled into our bed and  AWWK!  The pillows (all six of them) were soaked!  As was the comforter and the sheets and the shelf behind the bed...  The window behind the bed had been left open.  Oh NOOOOOO!  

This would be another important lesson learned.  Check the windows before leaving,  then check the windows again before leaving...  This changed our plans for the afternoon.  We bundled up all of the dirty clothes, pillows and bed clothes and piled them into the van for a trip to the local laundromat.  So this unglamorous activity was our birthday treat.  We spent the whole afternoon waiting for the feather pillows to dry.  We caught up on some reading anyway...  

Finally finished with the laundry and back at the boat, I baked us a birthday cake.  (we picked up a mix at the IGA)  It was a little lopsided since the SW winds were heeling the boat a bit.  But when we finally got it iced and tried it out (Bruce wouldn't hear of waiting until morning), it was soooo good!  

We spent the last half hour or so of our birthday sitting on the veranda talking over the day's events.  I think it was quite a success actually.  I got some very good experience on the boat in less than idyllic conditions and it handled beautifully. I've gained lots of confidence in our new boat from today's sail.  I think the kitties are going to survive being Sailor Cats, although they look like they would rather be elsewhere...  And we learned another lesson about getting under way... always check and double check the ports.  We have so many and it's very easy to overlook one or two.  No matter what happened or didn't happen today... I'm out on our boat with the man I love and what could be a better way to spend our special day than that!?