Getting Our Sea Legs Back…..

We are back in the swing of things and enjoying the cruising life.  We have met up with some friends  years past and are meeting new people all the time.  While at dock, it is not uncommon to unwind at the end of the day with boats nearby,

joining others for dinner like Lucy and Ben on Georgia.  They are veteran sailors who spent their honeymoon sailing from the Bay area to Hawaii on a 6’3″ wide, 27′ (I think) boat.  Talk about togetherness!

Having a ladies lunch in town,

or watching football in english at the local hangout.

We finally restocked Just Dandy, did the few projects we had in mind and took off for a couple of days.  The first day, a fiasco!  Our communication was so out of whack that we were making some big boo boos!  But we finally entered the first bay we were headed to and were some what in sync.  If you were able to look at our path on the GPS, it was pretty funny, a few circles and zig zag course.

But our saving grace, is our new ‘marriage savers’!  You might ask, what are those?  They are bluetooth headsets!

Dropping anchor can be very stressful and can cause many arguments.  In our case, Bill has to drop and pull up the anchor by hand as we do not have an electric windless to do that.  At the advice of our gurus, Dan and Debbie on Caper, we purchased walkie talkies our first year out but they are hard to use when Bill needs both hands on the anchor and chain and I am at the helm, steering and using my nifty rangefinder to make sure we are not to close to another boat or shore.  Many cruisers recommend hand signals but I can’t see Bill from where I am because the dinghy is usually on the bow and he is hidden in front of it.  Besides, we can’t ever remember what signal means what.  Thus, the ‘marriage savers’ and yes that is what they are called.  Bikers use them to talk to each other on a bike or between bikes.  We can now talk to each other without raising our voices, hand signals or stress.  We look like pros now when we drop anchor!

The water is warm so we swam, practiced getting in and out of the dinghy with our new ladder and walked along the beaches.  Bill has a little harder time adjusting to the warmer weather.  I immediately take off the long pants, shoes and socks while Bill still clings to his canadian clothes, loving when it cools off at night to be able to put on a sweater.  Everyday, is it a long pants day?  NO! It’s hard to get the Canadian out of the boy!  In fact, it has been so warm that doing anything much after about 11 in the morning is difficult, thus the need for siestas!

The highlight so far, is our visit with Sara (Bill’s daughter) and Tommy.  We were able to sail out and spend the night in a bay. Although it was very quick, it was great having them with us.  Next year, hopefully, a lot longer stay!

Cruisers – a small, exclusive group of people who are mentally ill and feel, for some reason unbeknownst to anyone, that by getting on a small boat about the size of a jail cell and heading out into the most inhospitable place on Earth (the ocean), they will somehow enjoy themselves.

Check out more pictures in the Photo Gallery.