Let the summer begin! Almost…
We are getting close enough to our summer for me to officially declare that it has begun. We have a long weekend up at Ciara, three nights at home to finish up school and then we are off!
Captain and I came up to Cedar River in the evening on Wednesday. A simple quiet night on board before we headed out.
I have a confession. I get real nerves early season. I had been watching the wind forecasts and felt that we should get up before sunrise and head across the bay before the winds picked up. I was in no mood for 20 knot gusts as predicted later in the morning. Today was going to be my first sail on Ciara for the season even though Captain had two already under his belt. He made the call that we could sleep in a little and take our time. Truthfully, sometimes your whiskers are better then the forecast, as when we awoke it was very calm outside. Captain would have motored across the bay had we left earlier and that would have bummed him out. We went to the boaters’ lounge to say hi to the park staff and get some free coffee. We disembarked around 8:15. I really love our new marina. The fairways are so wide and the marina waters are calm, it was nice to tidy the lines and pull the fenders with time to spare before we headed into the bay.
As soon as we cleared the channel, we hoisted the sails. Ciara heeled over ten to fifteen degrees and we were off at a nice five knot pace. Kona girl is still shaking a little with floors at a tilt so I cuddled with her and read a little under way. I tried really hard, but I did succumb to a nap for about 45 minutes down in the V-Berth. I don’t get sea sick, but I do get sea tired. For the record, it was an amazing nap!
Captain enjoyed an easy sail. When we are pointed close hauled Ciara steers herself. As we got closer to Nicolet Bay about three hours later the gusts were gaining and Ciara was showing her belly a few times, but she felt good.
No issues laying anchor and we deployed our new anchor duck for the first time! This is Carl (with a Sea!). He is from Canada and was bought and shipped to us from our friend Karl and Lilly. He hangs out on top off our anchor and lets other boats in the area know where out anchor is. We saw this in Canada last year and I had to get one! Great small Canadian company. For good reason, they aren’t shipping to the USA right now, so they helped us out.
Carl at his post
We made a brunch of Bloody Mary’s and bacon and then took Kona to shore. She was very happy to play fetch with a stick in the lake for the first time this year. She has perfected a new trick of her own by throwing herself at the ground into a somersault to scratch her back. It’s quite dramatic of her.
We felt strongly we needed a nap after all that and we both laid down for an amazing hard nap. Not sure what that is, but a boat nap is the best. Early season boating has us out of routine and just enjoying being aboard.
We are having a few issues. Our head is seeping in fresh water for some reason. This is a problem as the head drains into our small holding tank and we don’t have room in there for extra clean water. Some of our solar is also not performing. Captains homemade wind scoop needs some modifications to keep it from blowing off. So, we are trouble shooting all those things. I’m glad we had some time here in June to address these things. I did manage to do some “hack” wiring in the V-Berth. With our new battery power, I am working hard to getting all of our charging needs out of the pilot house (it was always just a corded mess in the most important work part of the boat). I am just laying charging chords with zip ties in place and then we can just charge our things near our beds and throughout the boat as if we had outlets…Things are getting pretty luxurious around here.
We both spent some time playing Trumpet and Bass while enjoying the late afternoon.
We finally were ready for dinner pretty late in the evening. I decided on Cheesy Bacon Potato soup that was Freeze Dried. I have a bad habit of packaging my soup in bricks so I spent some time mashing the food in the pot before I added water. I added some beer along with the water to reconstitute it because that sounded yummy. For this meal, it is just a matter of letting the soup keep taking liquid until it becomes the right consistency and letting it sit long enough while not burning it. About half an hour later we had hot soup, one pot. It was delicious.
I played taps at 9.
We took Kona to shore one more time and relished in how dark it was. I really enjoy looking at the night sky. I was shocked to see the Big Dipper where I didn’t expect it. I get really turned around in Door County as it is situated going north east and the bays tuck us around in different directions. I could have sworn North was the other way.
Back on-board Captain and I relaxed in the cockpit and took in the perfect night before calling it a night. Rain expected over night so we battened everything down and no need to wake up early tomorrow!
