We were anxious to take the boat out for a “shake down cruise”. It’s good to test all the systems before leaving the marina. We had to run the lines back to the cockpit. There are 12 lines that run from the mast and boom back to the cockpit to control the sails, 6 on each side. Dave had hung them all on the boom to have them out of the way while working on the dodger and for cleaning the deck. Today he ran them all back to their respective blocks.
We had to remove the water hose from the deck. Besides water for washing things, we would refill our water tanks from the city water source at each slip. We had to turn off our power and remove the power cords. Each slip has a pedestal for power. The meters are read monthly and our electricity is charged along with our slip fee each month. Somehow, the marina is allowed to up charge our electricity. We pay more per month to run our air conditioner on our boat than we used to pay for an entire house. We had to store several things below that we usually leave on the counter or table. The last thing we do is close the windows and the through hulls. If for some reason a through hull is open and breaks, it can flood the boat.
Pete was able to join us today. It was about 2:00pm when we finally took off. We motored out into the St Simon’s inlet. We raised our main sail to check it’s condition. We had trouble raising it and realized the furling line was jammed. Dave had changed the line to one with a smaller diameter. It follows a track as the main is raised, but the smaller line jammed between the track and the inside wall of the mast. It was nice to have Pete’s muscles to help release the jammed line. Once it was corrected, everything was smooth sailing.
We had a nice sail in the inlet without going out onto the ocean. We saw dolphins, always a treat, but hard to capture photos. And a large ship came into port and passed us, always impressive. It felt great being back on the water, and great Pete could join us.
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I'm sitting in our second dinghy, the Portland Pudgy. It will be inverted on the deck before we leave
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casino boat and a cargo ship coming into the St Simon's inlet
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cargo ship easily gaining on us
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pretty impressive when they get close
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passing under the 185ft clearance bridge
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