The phone call came as we were bobbing at anchor on a rainy day in Point Judith Harbor of Refuge. We were out of options. Marce’s sister and brother in law had decided to drive three and a half hours in the rain to celebrate Marce’s birthday. The Honda will still not start which means that the best we could offer them is a wave from the boat about a mile away from shore. The dink is a decent rower but not in current or wind, both of which we had in abundance this day.
I picked up the phone and called every marina I could find in the crusing guide and eventually found one that could take us…for a price.
It was blowing 20 plus knots and pelting rain out here in the anchorage and I had 100 feet of chain out, twisted every which way due to constant wind shifts. The thought of being tied up to something solid, albeit expensive, was starting to grow on me as I bounced up and down on the trampoline. Finally we had the anchor up and I looked back at Marce, and I knew she’d had enough too.
We dodged a high speed ferry on the way into the harbor, fueled up, found our T head dock, connected the hose, spent three hours getting AC to the boat, due to a little negligent switching, and helped Nancy and Dave onto the boat like we’ve been here waiting for weeks.
We really needed a break from nonstop boat repair, although I just finished blowing up another bilge pump because of bizarre boat color coded wiring and my own ignorance. While they partied I had to row the dink over to the repair shop against the wind and current in the rain. Oh, the burden of command.
Nancy and Dave threw a great party for Marce but they had a long drive and left early to make it back.
The next morning, round two, sees us with the boat comprehensively torn up, trying to wash the salt off Escape Velocity. Marce has the washer going and the watermaker humming, clothes hanging everywhere, and still no starboard bilge pump when we hear “ahoy there!” My sister and brother in law have come for a visit, a sight for sore eyes, and another great time. We had to vacate our dock space by three so we had to cut short the fun. We motored up the creek to a beautiful anchorage we’d heard about from local boaters.
Nice old schooner anchored behind us. If we had the dink, this would be a great place to explore Point Judith Pond.
Now we wait for a call from the Honda shop. We’re getting good at this waiting thing.
Nice view included @no charge.