Thursday, July 20, 2023 Gore Bay

It started to rain about 1:30 AM. It wasn't raining at 5:45 when I got up to check the weather, but started soon after that. Should we stay of should we go? Storms, possibly severe, were forecast and nasty radar images were all around. We decided to wait awhile hoping that it might get better. But at 8:00 it seemed just as muddled and the radar had storms coming and going all morning. I decided to go and so did Peter and Marianna once we talked. 

Today was our day to have an anchor issue. We had about 120' of rode out. It came up pretty clean but the anchor jammed in the roller platform. The anchor swivel was twisted sideways at the shank of the anchor and it jammed at the front of the anchor platform. I tried to free it by pulling on the chain, That did not work. So I took a dock pole and pushed down on the anchor which freed it. Good news, but down it went. After I initially pulled on the chain I apparently did not put it back in the windlass gypsy. So when the anchor went down, the chain was free to do so also. I figured it would stop when the anchor hit the bottom. Wrong. All 100 feet of chain sailed across the deck and into the drink. I decided it might not be a good idea to try and grab it, so I waited until the rope rode started out which was going slower and grabbed that. The swivel was still sideways when we brought the anchor up again, but I pulled it on board by hand and avoided another jam. By this time it was raining really hard and we quickly jumped inside. The swivel is still jammed in this picture at Gore Bay.

The trip over to Gore Bay was OK. We had rain, some thunder and lightening, but the seas were following rather than on the beam which made the ride pleasant. It took 2 hours and 15 minutes to cover the 17.4 miles. We arrived about 10:45. Kerry had our lines and fenders ready.

Much to our surprise the fuel dock had a space for us. We needed a pumpout and wanted to get some diesel. We have had to wait in long queues before so we were felt very fortunate to proceed right to the dock. I held an umbrella over Harbormaster Lee as he pumped diesel into Annie. We did that to avoid getting water in our diesel tank. We were assigned a dock in the permanent dockers section so it should be very quiet for us this weekend. The wifi works well where we are docked - yea! Here is a picture of Voyager, Captain Peter and Annie in the center back. 

This marina has the laundry from hell, at least for me. Some years ago, I got caught between some ladies fighting over the pecking order of who got which of the two washers and dryers next. I had only gone to get the laundry for Kerry. That's what I thought anyway. I left that laundry building feeling like someone had chewed a "new one" on me, wondering how I got into that mess. The same thing almost happened today. I offered to watch Kerry's laundry while she took a quick shower. Never again! Thank goodness Marianna was there to manage the ladies and laundry. She made introductions all around and  told them to be nice to me! I owe her big time! Laundry ladies can be really aggressive. 

We had cocktails on Voyager and ate dinner at a little restaurant named Buoy's. We both ordered pizza. There is no longer inside eating there, just outside on a patio with no cover. Peter and I thought rain was likely so we wanted to order to go. Marianna said no rain was coming. The waitress said she would pack up our dinners to go if we stayed and it rained, so we sat down. Of course the captains wanted to be right. So we sat there and ate hoping it would rain on us which we knew was kind of dumb really. Finally we told Marianna she was right. Of course there was no gloating on her part . . . (For the record, it did rain a little when we were back on the boats, but as Marianna, it was too little, too late)

There is a full slate of activities for this Harbor Fest Weekend. We'll start it off with a cappuccino for Peter and a trip to the hardware store. We've also got to wash Annie sometime this weekend. We're having margaritas and Mexican tomorrow on Annie. The theatre is on Saturday. The weather promises to be much better than today.