Our Test Cruise Went Well

Kerry and I like to do a shakedown cruise each year before we depart for the North Channel. This year it was a two night anchoring adventure at our favorite local anchorage, East Harbor. We got to test all of our systems and all performed normally. This was a nice relief as our batteries are 10 years old now and I was anxious to see if they maintained their charge as they have in the past. They did. The refrigerator and generator worked well also. I think we are set to depart the week after next. 

We arrived at VYC on Thursday afternoon, dumped a carload of supplies on Annie and departed for East Harbor after visiting with friends at VYC. Kerry spent a large part of our visit here organizing Annie and her stores for our trip. She is especially happy with her new 3 piece plastic "wicker" baskets. One for cosmetics, one for medicine and one for toiletries. 

Our friends Kevin and Alice Miller joined us in EH, and invited us for a taco salad dinner on Friday night. Kevin was kind enough to pick us up in his EV dingy, powered by a 100 amp lithium battery. 

 


It's pretty here at EH. Annie enjoys all the attention she gets from passersby's.


I spent Friday washing the boat and reading in the sun. A perfect day for me. We grilled little slider hamburgers for lunch. Saturday lunch was microwaved leftover pizza which we enjoyed. Better cooked in an air fryer though. We left about 2:00 PM for Vermilion in order to join Jimbo and Jola in a pot luck dinner at VYC. Their daughter, Debbie, and her finance are here from California and the dinner was to celebrate their visit. Julian and Lynn Gravino joined us. Cocktails were on Julian's new boat (a 1987 Chris Craft). We had a lovely dinner and were glad we departed EH a couple of hours early to attend. Jim, Julian and I are 3 of the 5 members of the VYC Company, the ruling organization that owns the VYC. 

Our trip home from EH was calm and delightful. When we arrived we discovered that some scoundrel had taken 2 of the 5 dock lines I left when we set sail Thursday. Gary our manager happened to have 2 extra lines (black of course) and gave them to me. 

We came home early Sunday morning after coffee with last night's dinner participants. A very nice weekend to be sure. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Your Comments are welcome and appreciated!

Popular posts from this blog

Friday, July 28, 2023 Gore Bay

Image
It was another peaceful evening and beautiful morning at anchor in Gore Bay. Unfortunately I had to spend more time than I wished dealing with crappy internet while trying to post the blog. And Big Jim was all over me about being late. I still took time to appreciate the nice surroundings.  I called the marina and got a dock assignment. The promise of a pot of hot tea was enough to get Kerry up about 9:30. We sat on the bow at first but it was really hot. Moving to the upper deck gave us shade and a nice breeze. Perfect. We pulled anchor moved to our dock with no issues. The air conditioners went on immediately which may be for the first time since we have been in Canada. We had trouble with the circuit on the pedestal blowing. I finally had to dig out my second 30 amp power cord and plug two cords into the pedestal which solved the problem. It was really hot today, the first truly warm weather we have experienced.  We are docked next to a very nice Ranger Tug, and an older st...
Read more

Sunday, August 13, 2023 Vermilion Yacht Club

Image
Well, it was the last day of our cruise. I woke up at 4:00 with all sorts of thoughts running through my head. Thoughts of the past weeks and thoughts of all that needs to be attended to once we are back in the real world, which was to be later today. I must have been very distracted because when I did get up at 7:00, I forgot to put my coffee cup under the Keurig. Do you know those little drip trays hold an entire cup off coffee? Now that is good design.  Bad design is the men's room sink here at MBIYC. Ask Peter about trying to keep his toiletries in order on their curved sink. The weather maps showed winds about 10-12 knots from the SW, putting it on our beam. NOAA said NW about 5-10 knots. It looked like winds might diminish as the morning goes on. The winds actually were SE most of the day. Peter knocked on our window announcing he was here for his last cappuccino of the voyage and the last Skipper's Meeting to review the travel weather. He had a double cappuccino and we f...
Read more

Thursday, July 6, 2023 Deadbolt Island

Image
A gentle rain started last night about 2:00 AM. It was so gentle that I did not need to close Annie's porthole windows. I checked the forecast when I got up and it looks like an all day rain. Environment Canada said we would have high winds today, while the Weather Channel said light winds. Once again the Weather Channel was correct, at least for our local area. Some big storms did go marching by. The sun did pop out about 8:00 PM and it was beautiful on Deadbolt Island. The batteries were a little lower than normal today, 65%, when I rolled out of bed. I switched on the generator, the coffee pot and the ice maker in that order. Annie's batteries are 10 years old now, and still doing well, but I plan to replace them this winter. Our refrigerator needs to be defrosted so I think it is using amore power than normal. We plan to stay here today and tonight. We will likely move tomorrow, although I am not sure where at this time. Possibilities include a new anchorage called Keyhole ...
Read more