Come to think of it, two years ago St. Michael's was the scene of a very nasty confrontation between our sturdy Knotty Cat and a slutty french catamaran who dared to anchor within smacking distance of us, and even though our girl was victorious, I don't want to think about that right now.
After anchoring, we took Wilbur ashore and had a wonderful (since Wilbur was permitted on the restaurant's outside dock)(yet horribly expensive) dinner at The Crab Claw.
Hans is happy to have survived two months on a boat with me.
I'm happy that we finally found a restaurant that allowed dogs (even if it was outside).
(BTW, I made my dress from a length of silk I bought in Paris a few years ago and I was thrilled that the heat broke so I could wear it!)
When we left the next morning we saw tons of these boats. They were preparing for a race and even though there was virtually no wind they were still moving along as they are so light and have tons of exposed sail.
Even more of them.
Some heeling action, and right after I put down my binoculars Hans informed me that one of them had dumped!
I would have liked to see it (just because) but I felt very sorry for the crew because even though it wasn't a dangerous situation, there were tons of jelly fish in the water, and there's no way a lot of stinging wasn't going on.
As I mentioned previously, there was very little wind that day so Hans thought our final sail should involve the gennaker.
Being the lazy soul that I am; I didn't. And maybe the day will come when Hans listens to me.
In the end, getting the gennaker up turned into a bigger job than it should have, and when Captain Hans yelled back to me where I stood at the helm, to rev up the engines, I did.
Maybe one (or both) of us should have given some thought to the fact that our Knotty Cat had been at a virtual standstill for quite some time and our dinghy might want to cozy up to us (thus allowing its painter to slide under our boat).
By the time we limped into Kent Narrows on one engine Hans had been in the jelly fish infested water twice. The first time was to free our dinghy's painter from The Knotty Cat's rudder (oops!), and very soon after that to rescue our dinghy when we realized the painter had been cut by the starboard propeller. From the sound of the awful thumping noises issuing from said propeller, a huge chunk of painter was obviously hanging on, and we made the rest of the trip with only our port engine.
Luckily for Hans, I believe the jelly fish were so astonished at seeing him jump into the water two times that they were too stunned to sting!
We just had to shake our heads and laugh that last day on board when we realized we'd pretty much gone full circle. Our water pump was giving us problems yet once again and believe me when I say that little stinker will be ripped out and replaced before we set foot aboard the Knotty Cat again.
For now our girl is on the hard and anxiously awaiting the installation of solar panels, and rumor has it her stuffing boxes will be - well - they'll be restuffed (she leaks on her port side and it makes her blush so please keep this just between us!).
Some time at the end of October we're going to sail her to Florida where she'll bask in the sun until we get back there in January in order to take her to the Bahamas.
But keep checking in as I blog about, "Living Aboard with Pets", "Provisioning for the Liveaboard", "How to Beat the Heat While Living on Your Boat", "What to Wear (or not wear) While Living on a Boat", and "How to Stay Sane (it's called alcohol!) While Living (existing?) on a Boat".
Y'all come back now, hear?
We'll definitely keep following and looking forward to more of your wit and humor.
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