Sunday, January 22, 2012

Somebody Has To Do It

Our posts for the last 15 days or so have admittedly lacked many great blogging moments.  Lots of working on the boat and buying things (boy are we earning lots of frequent flyer miles on our credit card) and providing direction to the people who are on board fixing things or installing our new electronics.  We’re frankly just a little worn out by it all.  So today we decided to include one of our “we need to d0 ___” items that included an element of fun.

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Our new outboard motor needed its’ first critical couple of hours of break- in period at lower and variable speeds.  So around 11:00 we took off in our dinghy into the Intercostal Waterway for some boating.

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It was 75 degrees when we left; looks like a difficult assignment, eh?  Bob took the first hour, and after traveling up the ICW, we turned off to some smaller channels into the barrier islands. We totally by accident (OK ,we had a recommendation) came across “Little Jim’s” a marina for boats on their last legs, biker bar and sandwich shop.

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We sat outside in the sun overlooking the water and ordered Cuban sandwiches, a couple of Negro Modelos (our favorite Mexican beer) and took in the sights.

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Sorry we decided not to point the camera at the bikers or their female companions. (Tom: note some of the Navy Seal signage; you’d feel comfortable here). And here’s Cathryn getting ready to start her shift at the helm on the way back.

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After leaving Little Jim’s and the smaller channels, we entered the inlet from the Atlantic to the ICW. We gather this must be where the fish are.

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Hard to imagine threading a large ship through all the fishermen, when the dredged channel deep enough for large boats is only 100 yards wide.

Tomorrow we start our training.  The first day will be focused on the boat’s systems and basic engine maintenance.  The second and third days will be underway and focus on handling, navigation and docking.  After that we hope we’ll feel comfortable leaving the dock in something a little bigger then the new dinghy, by ourselves even.

1 comment:

Gary said...

Seeing the photo of Cathryn reminds me of two other BOAT acronyms: Beer Often Alters Trajectory and Beer Only Amplifies Technique. Seeing that you returned to your slip I know which one proved correct.