Lay Day | Bucks Harbor

The family portion of the cruise was over and it was time to think about heading back towards Falmouth. I still had six days before I needed to be home, but I didn't want to have to put in too many very long slogs into a southwesterly to get there. But the forecast for the day was for "rain, heavy at times, chance of precipitation: 100%" so I wasn't planning on going anywhere until the next day.

Departure Time

Gavin woke up early, at about 0630, but he played happily and quietly while the old fogeys slept until 0745. We finally dragged ourselves out of bed to the drumming of rain on the decks and awning. It was coming down. Hard.

The first words out of my mouth were: "Why didn't we unload all your gear yesterday?"

Unfortunately, we hadn't. Heather packed up all of the clothes and toys while Gavin got himself dressed. Around 0900 the rain eased dramatically to just a light mist and we decided to grab the opportunity to unload. We all piled into the dinghy and buzzed to shore. I helped load everything into the car and said goodbye to Heather and Gavin. By 0915 they were on their way back home.

I headed up to the market to pick up a few things to round out the larder for the trip home, and decided while I was there that I should treat myself to one of their fine, fine egg-cheese-and-sausage sandwiches. Mmmmmm. Loaded down with some steak, chicken, tonic water, ice, and a freshly baked sourdough boule (exceptional!), I headed back to the boat

I Thought It Was Going To Rain?

After stowing the provisions I noticed that it still hadn't started raining again, so I toweled off the cockpit where rain had blown in under the awning and settled into the cockpit with the laptop. I spent the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon plotting routes with my navigation software, and writing these very logs you are reading.

You didn't think these logs just magically appeared all by themselves, did you?

Around 1500 I saw Angelina, Andrew Breece's Cape Dory, bearing down on me. He had stopped by to say hello before he left. He was on his way to the Benjamin River to get hauled! So early in the season, but his summer was over and he was leaving the following day to head back to college for his Junior year. We chatted briefly, and said that we would see each other again in 2007, as he intended to be back for another summer at the yacht club.

I then topped off the diesel tank with the five gallons in the jerry can on deck and headed back over to Bucks Harbor Marine to refill the can. I like to have spare fuel on deck when I'm cruising! While I was at Bucks Harbor Marine the rain started up again, lightly.

I spent the evening lazing around down below while the rain, heavy at times, pitter-pattered on the awning. Around 2200 I finally put my book down and went to bed.