Saturday, August 12, 2023 MBIYC

It was bright, sunny and breezy this morning. Very pretty actually. It must have been rough on the lake based upon the breeze in the harbor. I posted the blog and then did a little Amazon shopping. I ordered a new Yeti Rambler Tumbler for Kerry which will be here Monday. Annie got a new American flag as I noticed a tear in our current one. And Kerry also got new foam ear pads for our Ultralite headsets that let us communicate while anchoring. It's like a whole new world being back - want something, got something! 

I noticed some bird poop on Annie this morning. We have pretty much been without that this entire trip. One bird even made a shot through the open back door to hit my varnished step. What a shot! Well, this will get me ready for Vermilion where the birds are tireless. 

Today is Anne and Nate's 17 Anniversary. We are proud of the life they have made for themselves. They are fabulous parents and we have three great grandkids. Now we just need a granddog or two!

At 10:30 we all walked to this little breakfast place, the Island Grind, for coffees and breakfast sandwiches. There are no menus for sandwiches, so I ordered something like an "Egg McMuffin with bacon" and we got a sandwich that was pretty good. We sat in a pavilion so Copper and Benny could join us.

We toured the old Lonz winery after breakfast. The old artifacts were interesting The barbershoppers were going to preform there at 1:30. The wind had died considerably so it was a hot walk back to the boats. Kerry decided on the way that she would be staying in the air conditioning and passing up the performance. 

I decided to wait until 2:00 to go hear the barbershoppers and let the others go on. Another storm hit while I was waiting. So when it was time to go I was deciding if I should go, and if I did, should I take an umbrella or a raincoat. Then Peter was at my door. He saw the weather and decided he better get back and close up and secure Voyager.  Plus he said the venue was hot and the quality of performances was not as good as he had hoped. Well, that made my decision easy. After my "no go" decision it rained again. Later, Marianna said the performances were better later in the show. I invited Peter over to smoke a little cigarillo and eat potato chips. He gladly accepted. 

Tornado and Special Marine Warnings were in effect

                            

Marianna and Kerry went down to grab a table for the big dinner a little before 5;00. Shortly afterwards I got a text from Peter saying everyone was there having cocktails but me. I solved that problem quickly. 

We had a lovely dinner and evening. This was a dinner where you brought steak or fish and cooked it on their grills. MBIYC has huge charcoal grills and also several propane grills. I cooked on charcoal for the first time in years. The smell and smoke was nostalgic. They also had salads, cooked onions and mushrooms, sauces and lots of other goodies to accompany our steak. Plenty of deserts were provided too. We sat on the patio, which has a lovely lake view, under a yellow umbrella. It showered lightly half way through dinner but the umbrella did it's job and we were easily able to continue with our dinner. The rain stopped after a short while. 

After dinner we went back to our boats, cleaned up our dishes, etc., and then went to Alex and  Karen's sailboat, CAVU, to have after dinner drinks. We took our usual liquors over plus a big bowl of little Karpinski ice cubes to put in our small liquor glasses. We had fun telling stories and laughing. The mosquitoes stayed away so we went on longer than usual.

Karen is deathly afraid of spiders. At one point Peter excused himself, left and came back with a bug zapper. He had seen a spider and wanted to get it before Karen saw it. Then he went on a spider hunt over the whole boat. But Alex has his boat professionally sprayed and Peter could not find one other spider. He should have searched Annie or Voyager.

Peter on the hunt!

The dinner party and after dinner cocktails were a wonderful to spend the last night of our 2023 North Channel cruise. I don't know how it could have been any better. What nice memories we will have to take home with us.