Day 77 - To Egg Harbor
I give up on the weather. I mean, I only have a week left, right? My prayer is that whatever we have to move in for the next week will be reasonable and we make good choices, but I’m done with the weatherman. We awoke to fine weather, but still not what was in the forecast. Both Captain and I were super lazy getting to shore with Kona. We wanted to dump some power into Ciara and go charge our batteries while we took her for a walk. Once ashore we took a nice long walk around our old marina and saw some old dock mates and some new ones. We passed an hour of time with no issues there and by the time we got back to the beach our batteries were fully charged. Back at Ciara we started to prepare to leave and head to Egg Harbor. The curtain of weeds on our anchor rode gave me a good hint that today’s pull was going to be hard. I pre-pulled the rode up to the chain very slowly pulling off more and more curtains (weight) of weeds as I inched it back over the roller. Captain helped a lot with the chain and eventually we got it up to the anchor which had a huge weed ball around it. I worked on that slowly while Captain maneuvered us out of the anchorage and away from the weeds on our prop. Once I got enough weeds off, we both pulled it up onto its rest on its roller. I then was able to use my hand and not the boat hook to get the rest off. I promptly washed my hands afterwards because seaweed smells horrid!
We had to motor out of the bay as the wind was right on our nose. We saw another boat, another John Alden make, Aeolus. We have never really met the owners before but we have a mutual friend and any other John Alden is a friend of ours. Captain came around and we took photos of them under full sail to email to them. Later they would text back saying they have been reading my adventure blog all summer! Woah, I’m flattered that even folks I haven’t met are reading this!
Once out of the bay Captain evaluated the wind. We could have kept motoring directly into the wind for another two hours or we could motor out into the bay a bit and then set sails and head back towards Egg Harbor. He chose the later and so glad he did. The winds were good, the seas were gentle. We hardly get enough sailing in and this was a good time to enjoy sailing! So that is what we did and, in the end, it only made us half an hour later with 2/3rd less fuel and one smiley Captain. The sail was perfect. Even Kona has gotten her sea legs and she was happy in the cockpit with no shaking whatsoever. We sat up deck and enjoyed the sounds of the waves and wind and not the motor.
Because we were under full sail Captain did his favorite fly by at the marina break wall where people often go to enjoy the views before we took down our sails. Also, being a Tuesday, there was plenty of space in our favorite hole to drop anchor with just one other boat off to the side.
As I was setting the anchor a sailboat at the end of the marina yelled over “HEY RICHARD! WE MET YOU IN BEAVER ISLAND!” I looked up, but of course I can’t read their boat name or see them clearly from a distance so I just waved and yelled back “HI!” and that we would come over after the anchor was set.
Captain was smart and went down below to our, now overflowing, boat card holder and we found their card! We met them last year at Beaver Island and their home port was Sister Bay, right here in Door County. We hadn’t eaten but a small bite of salad earlier in the day and Captain said he wanted to take me to dinner (I was starving) so we headed to shore. We stopped quickly on the dinghy to say hi to Dave and Nancy and said we would dock and walk over. As we took the dinghy over just another 50 feet over to the dinghy dock another lady sitting on the back of her boat says to us “didn’t I see you guys playing a conch in Little Current and Killarney?” It’s a small world! I didn’t catch her name, but I did recognize that she was interviewed by Roy on his show as she is doing the loop all by herself! After two full summers on the water, I am feeling like the lakes are becoming smaller and we have friends in every place we lay our anchor. What a joy!
We headed over to talk to Dave and Nancy and were invited on board for some brie and crackers which tasted sooooo good. I’m afraid if I let myself get too hungry or something after being at sea that I’m starting to fall victim to some land sickness as the last few times this has happened, I have battled about half an hour to an hour of nausea pains before it gets better. I really enjoyed chatting with them and could have talked a lot longer, but it had been over an hour and dinner hangry was taking over so we said our goodbyes. I will say, Dave shared a poem he wrote titled “Why do you care?” That had me almost in tears and I’m grateful he shared it with us. With his permission I share it here so I never lose it and hope it touches you as well:
Why do you care? By Dave Krunnfusz
Why do you care that my daughter is gay?
How does that affect your life, day to day?
Why do you care that their son is trans?
That surely doesn’t change your everyday plans.
All that they want is to live their lives happy,
You seem hell bent on making them crappy.
You hold up your Bible, “In here it says so”
And I shake my head and say don’t you know…
That divorce and adultery are discussed so much more,
But those sins, for some reason, you choose to ignore.
Maybe divorce and adultery hit too close to home,
Maybe your heart and your ands like to roam.
But whatever the reason, you propose no laws
Directed at them and that gives me pause.
I know of no religion that lets you decide
Which sins to ignore and which sins to abide.
The hypocrisy is astounding, without limits and bounds,
To some you are heroes, but to many you’re clowns.
But still you persist, causing pain to “others”
While God says to love ALL your sisters and brothers.
So come down of your high horse, live and let live.
You’ll find that the “others” have plenty to give.
Again, I ask, I would like to be fair,
I just don’t understand, why do you care?
Just wow.
After we said our goodbye’s, we headed to Pizza Bro’s/One Barrel for dinner. We absolutely love the pizza here and they have outdoor fire pits so we can enjoy with Kona and meet new people, of which we did. We met an artist from CT who was in town for she had painted one of the “eggs on parade” in town. We met a group of teachers all enjoying a last minute get away and a group of co-workers. I was a bit out of my element as we have been talking so much to other sailors that I forgot how drastic our lives must look to others. I know it does, I see it on their faces and sometimes they don’t even hold back with the “I could never” or “I couldn’t afford.” I carry that weight, but the more I thought I about it, it simply isn’t true. Captain and I made a choice to follow this dream. We made adjustments to our current and long-term plans. We have met many sailors with much less, with incomes not as high that have made it happen. We know 30-year-olds who have plans on sailing around the world and being retired before they are 40. It is possible, I just think it is hard to not follow the flock and to know that is always an option.
Dinner carried on while chatting away. I checked my phone to see when the ice cream place closed as I now was hankering for dessert. It said 9pm so when we left at 8:15pm I thought we’d make it in time. Sadly they just changed their hours a day ago and now closed at 8pm. Booo. Captain said he owed me ice cream tomorrow. Fair enough :D
We came back to Ciara and I played Taps. It is now completely dark when I play and if feels strange as at the height of summer, and in a different time zone up north, the sun didn’t set until nearly 11pm. Full of food and fresh air and the dump of no stress of moving the boat for a day or so I was really tried and went to bed shortly after 9pm, even before Captain as he enjoyed some of his own reading time.
