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Melissa & Dave - Adventures at Sea

Do we need radar in this smoke?

Melissa whipped up a Mexican breakfast with the black refried beans she made before leaving home, scrambled eggs, fresh made Pico-de-Gallo, and a dollop of sour cream.

Then it was time for boat projects.  Dave found the slow leak in the dingy by putting soapy water all over it.  Turns out the leak is in a place where three pieces of the rubber meet.  So we shouldn’t attempt the repair ourselves.  Best to take that repair into the shop when we get back to Seattle.  Meanwhile, Jim replaced the speakers in the master state room that haven’t worked for years.

Then the guys sawed up plywood to finish up the temporary repair of floor boards in the master stateroom.  Dave has good decking material in the garage, but before cutting into the expensive wood, he wanted to make prototypes and fit them out of cheap wood.  Now that the prototypes are done, sawing up the final decking should be a snap when we get home.

Dave warmed up the radar as in this smokey haze we might need it.  We let go the mooring buoy and headed out to, Quartermaster Harbor.  It was a weird day with the smoke from all the forest fires.  Somehow appropriate on the 19th anniversary of 9/11 that we would be surrounded by smoke and ash.  We put up the giant flag in remembrance.

As we headed underneath the Tacoma Narrows bridge the lowered visibility made it eerie.

Underway, Melissa juiced the remaining limes, and combined with homemade limoncello and tequila to make a fresh batch of margaritas.  Along with sliced apples and the homemade maple pecans, and rosemary sea salt pecans, the gang was a happy crew.  But they wanted seconds on the margaritas.  Melissa informs them that we have more commercially made mix, but no more fresh limes.  Will have to do.  But interestingly, we found that the mix was much too sweet and not nearly acidic enough for our taste.  Note to self, pack more limes next trip.

We decided to anchor at Dockton.  Melissa went forward to drop anchor, presses the “down” button on the winch and…. Nothing.  She yells back to Jim to check that the windlass breaker is turned on.  Normally we don’t turn it off – particularly underway.  If there is an emergency – say you lose your engine while in strong wind or currents, you really want to be able to drop the anchor at a moment’s notice.  So for it not to be operational is not good.  Right now the wind is dead calm – so no biggie.  But something has gone wrong in our process!  Jim says the windlass switch down below is turned on.  Melissa confirms – still not working.  Hmmmm.

Dave is like, “what are doing?” and comes forward to check things out.  Melissa inwardly rolls her eyes.  After hundreds of anchoring’s, pretty sure she knows how to push the “down” button.  Dave confirms something is amiss.  He and Jim snap into action.  Likely when they were trying to install the wash down pump a few days ago they accidentally disconnected something.  Sure enough, after 10 minutes of floating around, the guys reconnect the broken wire, and voila!  We have an operational windlass again.

After we got anchored, the guys decided to launch the dingy and take some pictures as the sun set through the smokey haze.

Despite the conditions the girls seem to be having fun!

Dinner was smoked corned beef (home smoked before we departed) along side garlic green beans, butternut squash fries with sage, and sautéed rainbow chard.  After dinner the movie was Goonies.  Melissa fell asleep, but the gang turned off the movie as the kids screaming through the whole movie was driving them nuts.

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