Thursday, August 3, 2023 Harrisville

For some reason I was awake at 5:00. I turned on NPR and slept through most of the news stories until 6:30. I decided to go take a shower to try and beat all the sailboat crews that came in yesterday afternoon. Surprise! They were all gone already. Quiet leavers for sure. The marina was locked when I arrived. As I started to walk back I wondered if there was a side door for boaters. It turns out that there was so I got my early morning shower. It was a pretty morning. I love the little fuel shack office here.

I spent a frustrating two hours trying to get my television  to work with a cable on my phone, and then with my laptop, and then with my Chromebook. Peter let me use his cable, but we eventually decided that Apple cables don't work for Pixel phones. Of course I had to deal with passwords that did not work, messages that I did not have this service, messages that location services were turned off, and on and on. Bottom line, no television and a misuse of a nice morning. Where is Starlink when needed? 

Kerry and I got bikes and rode to Teresa's for a late breakfast. The Orros were already there so we joined them. We all enjoyed our food. Then Peter and I took the bikes and hit the True Value hardware store. Peter bought several things, with another little white plastic table the one that made Marianna the happiest.

It was very calm most of the morning and I think Peter and I were second guessing ourselves about not traveling. But a little later the wind and seas picked up significantly. We sure would have wanted to be in before that happened. 

Kerry got the laundry knocked out. There are multiple machines and little demand, so it's a good place to do laundry. She was very happy with the facilities when she returned - very clean and nice machines. While she was doing laundry I took my rub rail restorer and cleaned up my starboard rub rails. They look so much better. But I also used it on the tops of my red decorative fenders. They have deteriorated  over the years and looked awful. Preliminary indications look positive. Kerry noticed a huge improvement.

I made rum and cokes for us once Kerry was back. We had them on the top deck. The wind seemed to shift from south to west as we drank. It's forecast to be north tomorrow. I am almost out of rum, but have 4 boxes of wine left. 

A boat across the way has had a halyard banging since we have been here. I walked to the office and asked Rich if he could go on the boat and tie it off. I implied that a responsible owner would not have his halyards banging and Rich agreed. Well, as it turns out, there have been previous complaints about the guy. Rich can't stand him and said the key word was responsible. He has discussed this with the owner before and has been blown off. He told me to go on his boat and tie it off. I tied three halyards off. I told Rich to tell him this was a warning and that the next time the halyards will be found at the top of his mast. That made Rich smile so I bet he will tell him that. I probably would not do it, but the owner does not know if I would or not. Check out these nicely tied off halyards, 

Marianna made salmon patties for dinner. They were good and we had nice conversation as we ate. An alarm went off on the boat nest to Voyager as we ate. I climbed onto his bridge deck and shut off the VHF radio. It was a channel 16 alarm of some sort. When the neighbors returned we explained what happened, They invited us to go with them for dinner tomorrow night at the Mountain Inn. We accepted.

Huge winds are forecast for Monday and Tuesday, and fairly high winds for Friday and Sunday. We are planning to go to Harbor Beach tomorrow. I would love to get to Port Huron before the big winds hit, but don't see how to do it without some uncomfortable travel. It's 110 miles from here. We could consider a 12 hour day. Saturday's weather would be good for it.