Departure Delayed

We had hoped to slip the lines this coming Tuesday to begin our Adventure...

Walter had just finished installing his davits he designed to hold our dinghy above the transom on Miss gg. After three days he was done and trailered the dinghy to a boat ramp near the Marina. He launched it and motored to the empty slip next to our boat. Then quickly pulled Miss gg forward by shortening the forward lines and lined up the dinghy behind the swim platform at back of boat. When we want to go ashore or exploring a creek while anchored out the swim platform is where we will board the dinghy.





He attached the two wires and started first pulling it up at the front end of the dinghy. When he started the other winch on the Port side it sounded awful, like it was really laboring although it is suppose to be able to haul a weight of 2 to 3, 000 lbs. Our dinghy weighs 450 lbs. Even with something wrong the winches still hauled the dinghy up into a good position... aft down to drain it.



Excited about the progress I went home for another load of clothes and galley (kitchen) equipment. When I returned I was surprised to see the dinghy back on the trailer behind our truck in the parking lot! Sadly the mechanism in the port side winch failed and the dinghy fell! Praise God Walter was not hurt nor was the dinghy or boat. I called West Marine just before they opened this morning to tell them about the faulty part. Walter had ordered these winches and normally they only have a truck delivering parts from their warehouse in SC on Fridays.



I persuaded them to do an overnight delivery which they are doing but it means it won't come until sometime Tuesday. When are we leaving? The only thing we know for sure is that God's timing is perfect!

Stand by to enjoy the journey with us..... 

Retrieving Miss gg From Oriental

This was our third solo time on Miss gg away from the dock AND it was the time of our first boat fight! Yep, there we were wearing our “marriage saver” headsets and standing about 3 feet from each other... Walter frustrated, GA upset cause the lines were left in different places by the haul out company.... more on this later.

I returned home late Monday from my driving trip to FL to see the Grand Wonders during their Spring Break. A wonderful time but I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was get up early the next day and fetch our boat from Oriental. There is also a lot of driving involved as we needed to leave one car at each port and then go back and get them. But we had left the boat too long past the finished haul out job. I was too tired to even look at the charts even though all that had to be done was to write the reciprocals on the already plotted directions from the first trip there. So I told the Captain if he would put the reciprocals on the chart I would do the trip.

Attention all math teachers... I am good friends with at least two of you ladies.... probably one of the easiest math tricks is reciprocals, right? I think the man had not had his morning coffee when he charted our route. After we left Whittier Creek's Sail Craft Services and maneuvered ever so slowly and carefully through that tiny channel to the bay/river I read the chart and gave Walter the direction. We soon realized we were off course! So I figured the reciprocal, found the error & we were then on track. The man is an engineer and can do all sort of difficult math.... ?????? Well, the GPS had all our tracks from our last trip to Oriental so this was not really a problem. Just good practice time but maybe I will do all the charting.....?

Alone at the Helm a dolphin startled me jumping up and swimming around the boat... I was surprised because I didn't know we had dolphins this far north! What fun.

We were able to mostly put our feet up and enjoy the 2hr plus journey. When we are on the rivers & locking through or on the New Jersey ICW (Super Storm Sandy damage) or a lot of other places up north with unforgiving granite rock bottoms we will not be able to relax this way.

Now for our “fight”... urrgg! We were docking at our Home Port... it is real tricky to back up this big boat into our slip with the wind blowing.... it never seems to get easy as the wind is always different. So Walter was repeating the procedure trying to get the boat lined up when I grabbed the spring line and secured it on the starboard side. The port line was the problem. Can't believe how dumb I was but I just stood there holding the end of the rope that was on the deck. Walter was saying “make a loop”... GA just stared at the rope end thinking I didn't learn this! Was I suppose to make some fancy knot thing I didn't know!! Then I see the loop end on the forward Port cleat... I think it is suppose to be there but it wasn't. Walter had to leave the helm to help me all the while telling me our trainer, Captain Lenny, taught you this! It is easy to make a bigger loop using the loop end of the line but I was afraid to move it off the cleat. The lines are usually on the pile and I grab them with the boat hook but this time the port lines were on the boat. Walter was not happy with me and after a while (two days later!!) I had to agree with him. :-0

After the boat was secured we had another discussion, much calmer this time. I explained why I was doing what I did or should I say what I didn't do and why and then he explained his frustration saying he was not mad at me. So I then said, “What do you have to say to me?” expecting an apology... and he said, “What do YOU have to say to ME?”.... then we both laughed! I think I'm still a little mad but doggone it! I am having a hard time getting this stupid grin off my face!!

Conclusion: I LOVE our marriage (48 yrs) and WE NEED A LOT MORE PRACTICE (docking)!!