Day 288, Year 6 Taking Advantage of a Day Off
Date: Monday, August 8, 2011
Weather: Partly Sunny, Afternoon Rain with Thunder
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Mark and I have been holed up inside Windbird all day. The only time we went outside was when a West Marine customer came by to discuss something with Mark early this morning. For the rest of the day, both of us have been sitting on the starboard settee working on our computers. Heather called this morning to say she was taking the afternoon off so she could pick up the boys and spend the afternoon with them. So all of a sudden, I had free time. I dedicated my time to doing some work on Year 1 travel logs that has needed attention for years now. After reading through the logs at the very beginning of our voyage, I was left wondering why we ever continued. We left Cape Cod and ran into Hurricane Wilma, lost our transmission, and had to have a new engine installed in the Chesapeake Bay. How we ever let ourselves leave here with a hurricane head north I’ll never know. Evidently we weren’t paying much attention to the weather. And then we left Norfolk a month later and ran into horrible weather again. The good thing is that we learned our lesson and for the remainder of our circumnavigation, we became true weather watchers. I’m sure as I read further into the logs from Year One that I’m going to find more things that amaze me. We have learned so much since then and are thankful that our early mistakes didn’t dissuade us from continuing on with the dream.
Mark spent his day dabbling in the realm of public radio and really enjoyed his day getting reacquainted. And he spent a bit of time dealing with boat issues. We have been having more and more difficulty keeping our batteries charged now that we are on a mooring. We have to run the engine once a day to keep things charged, but even that is not always enough. He called Xantrax, the manufacturer of our battery monitor and charge controller, but basically they said we probably have a failing unit and need to buy their new model. That might be the case, but we will continue experimenting to see if we can keep things going until we are plugged into shore power for the winter. We also called about winter rates at Kingman Marina here on the Cape. It appears to be the only place here that accommodates winter live-aboards. We are still unsure of where we are going to spend the winter, but we thought we should check out the possibilities of staying here just in case we do make that decision. I think it will be more like we can’t make a decision to leave, but in any case, our inquiry today showed that there will be a space for us at the marina here on the Cape. If we do stay, we’ll just have to hope that it is a warmer than usual winter. We put up all the side curtains in the cockpit yesterday due to the rain and they are all still zipped up. I’m sure people passing by must think we are crazy. It looks like we are all zipped up for winter already!
