We love our marina, but this has to be the fastest we've EVER left a marina when returning to our boat in the fall. Of course, we're not leaving to "go cruising" ... we're leaving to go live in a boatyard for a week or 10 days, whichever comes first.
Since we're leaving tomorrow (Sunday), today was our last day in our favorite marina, Burnt Store. We spent it working on miscellaneous stuff, setting the lines to leave, doublechecking the continuity and electrical connections and other "outside" influences on what appears to be our dead Icom M802 SSB ... hopefully when I call tech support on Monday they'll have a "rescue" solution, but I have a feeling we're sending it back to Bellevue Washington to be evaluated and repaired. Nothing else is not working, so hopefully it's just a minor screen replacement or some other issue... (not very hopeful).
After our "work" was done, we wandered around the marina, talked to friends, walked the "loop" to enjoy all the manatees - one of my favorite things to do.
Since we're leaving tomorrow (Sunday), today was our last day in our favorite marina, Burnt Store. We spent it working on miscellaneous stuff, setting the lines to leave, doublechecking the continuity and electrical connections and other "outside" influences on what appears to be our dead Icom M802 SSB ... hopefully when I call tech support on Monday they'll have a "rescue" solution, but I have a feeling we're sending it back to Bellevue Washington to be evaluated and repaired. Nothing else is not working, so hopefully it's just a minor screen replacement or some other issue... (not very hopeful).
After our "work" was done, we wandered around the marina, talked to friends, walked the "loop" to enjoy all the manatees - one of my favorite things to do.
Two of the dozen or so manatees living in our marina. They like the warm shallow water, but it's so sad to see the propeller gashes on their backs and tails. But they make me smile and we spent a delightful half hour just sitting on the seawall watching them cavort, splash and play.
The challenge this week is to get to a boatyard that has 4 feet of water at the entrance marker. Since Winterlude draws 5 1/2 feet, you can see the dilemma. Everyone assures us that we can make it ... at high tide, which is 6 AM Monday morning. Adding to the challenge is the fact that our depthsounder is NOT working. This should be interesting. Then we go through a lock (self operated, another first for us!) and into a fresh water canal that winds for 8 miles back to Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage where we plan to haul on Monday 11.5. That's two day ahead of our scheduled Weds 11.7, but Brady - the yard manager - is going out of his way to try and accommodate us due to the bad weather -- a norther coming. With our draft and any wind over 15-20 out of the north (which is what the forecast calls for, of course), we were afraid if any water blows out of high tide, we'll be literally high and dry and stranded with our 5 1/2 ft draft.
Keep your fingers crossed that this is what we see by mid-day Monday!
Until then, we're looking forward to sailing all day tomorrow and anchoring outside the lock to wait on high tide early Monday.... anyone who knows me knows that 6:30 AM is NOT my idea of civilized and another 2 hour sail up from Burnt Store would definitely have set my day off wrong! :) So we get to anchor out MUCH sooner than usual when we return to the boat! WooHoo!
All is well, wish us luck! :)
Until then, we're looking forward to sailing all day tomorrow and anchoring outside the lock to wait on high tide early Monday.... anyone who knows me knows that 6:30 AM is NOT my idea of civilized and another 2 hour sail up from Burnt Store would definitely have set my day off wrong! :) So we get to anchor out MUCH sooner than usual when we return to the boat! WooHoo!
All is well, wish us luck! :)
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