To and Fro
We awoke this morning around 9am again. I was alerted by a text that I am a great aunt again with a baby girl born about the time we went to bed at 12:55 in the morning. She is born on flag day. We always have our flag flying on Ciara (we are required) and we absolutely can’t hang it upside down on the boat. We decided to raise our signal flags for the day instead. All seven of them. FDT and 8647. I have zero regrets.
Just as we were getting Kona ready for her morning walk I noticed at our bow that Carl was gone!!!! CARL IS GONE!!! Seriously upset, Captain and I both grabbed looking glasses and started to see if he had drifted to shore. I assured Captain that I had a secure knot on him, I promise! After not finding him from afar I suggested that maybe he got dragged under somehow as he had some extra tether on him that we hadn’t secured. Captain highly doubted me but in a state of desperation we followed the anchor rode in our dinghy and sure enough I could see a yellow duck 7-10 feet below the water. CARL!!!! He had gotten dragged down just as I suspected. He was taking a little scuba excursion.
We went to shore for some shore coffee and came back to make breakfast. Captain pulled up our extra anchor rode and we were able to get Carl. He was wrapped pretty well around the chain and when we pulled, he snapped off and started to float away. Thankfully our dinghy is faster and we were able to pull off the rescue mission. Sad to say, we busted him pretty badly pulling him free and now will have to figure out how to fix him. Poor Carl.
We made some breakfast burritos and decided what we wanted to do for the day. Our friends George and Terri wanted to come for a sail but the winds were super high and we found ourselves with a full free day. We decided to take Jeannine for a hike and thought the lighthouse would be nice. Once at the lighthouse we decided to walk to the other side of the park to Eagle Tower. We ended up doing nearly 10 miles! Thankfully the hiking here is very gentle and we had a lovely time enjoying all the sites and company. Four hours later we returned to Ciara. The winds today are on shore and the last bit of the hike was a bit chilly as we came around to see Nicolet Bay. Out in the bay our boat and the other sail boat were dancing. The waves were coming around the corner and our boats were caught in to and fro, like the hand of a metronome. We returned to Ciara to find we had not left her in preparation for the rock and rolling. We lost two of our smaller solar panels. One of them was still hanging on to the side of the boat with its tether. Down below our leftover coffee had spilled all over the counter and dirtied everything in its path. Our salt grinder pod had smashed on the floor and broken leaving coarse Himalayan salt all over the galley. A few other items in disarray. Oy what a mess and what a day. We broke Carl, broke our salt pod and lost a solar panel.
After we got Ciara all cleaned up we enjoyed a drink while I re-constituted some raw chicken for some Butter Chicken dinner. Jeannine is absolutely floored by the food. The raw chicken is super light and feels like Styrofoam. Just add water and let it sit for about 15 minutes. Its pink color came back and looked and acted just like raw chicken. After, when in our meal there was no way to tell that was not fresh.
The winds finally calmed around 8pm and Captain wanted to do a little drone work. The rocking had calmed significantly, but there was a good roll going on here and there. We took the dinghy over to the other sailboat in the bay to see if they wanted footage of their boat. Turns out we knew them, just didn’t recognize their boat as it had been a long time. They used to be at our old marina with us. Of course they wanted footage! Captain invited them over later.
He had a good flight but said landing was a bit hard because of the rocking and he wasn’t comfortable taking another flight for Taps. He was bummed, I could tell. “You know, you could take Kona to shore for her night walk and fly the drone from land” I suggested. I don’t think I even finished my sentence when Captain was already gathering his drone and getting in the dinghy. Kona jumped on with Jeannine and they left me alone to play.
They made it to shore and got the drone launched and, in my sight, just at the turn of 9.
Taps went ok. I have never played when the boat was rocking that bad. It made it really rough. It makes me sad not to play well. I haven’t seen the footage yet of me leaning 20 degrees from port to starboard to counter the boat back and forth while playing but I could hear it in my phone recording. ☹ Jeannine said there were people at the boat launch who had come down to specifically hear me play. I need to remember that this isn’t about me and it is good to do, even in less-than-ideal situations.
As I sat at the bow waiting for my crew to return Seth and Jessica from the other sailboat came by on their SUP’s. I invited them aboard and poured myself a G&T while giving them a nickel tour of Ciara interior. We all enjoyed a nice hour or so on deck, admiring the stars and trading pirate stories. I think they called it a night around 10:30. We had an invite to go over to their boat but I was pretty chilled to the bone and tired and didn’t want to do all that. The rest of the crew didn’t seem too upset about that so we passed for the evening. Jeannine, Captain and I played some games until we found ourselves looking at our watches wondering how it was 1am again. The transition time where we are tired and taking boat naps every day has somehow morphed into us staying up late, keeping busy and having fun all day and somehow having energy to spare.
