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| Wrinkles in her first marina slip. |
Another name for this post would be, "Manuevering A Full Keeled Sailboat In Tight Spaces Really Sucks!" We tested out the cooling system repairs today and all went well. We still have a pesky vibration in our propeller shaft, but that will have to wait for another day. We hailed the Fisherman's Village Marina on the VHF to get permission to pull up to their fuel dock for pump-out services. They told us to come right in and pull up to the dock. It seemed pretty straight forward, accelerate straight at the dock, hard turn to port, stop smoothly. Hey, that went pretty well!
As we pumped out our holding tank a party boat pulled in directly behind us and a sport fishing boat decided to wait his turn right off our port bow. OK newbie cruisers, how are you going to get this boat out of here now? The attendant pushed our stern off a foot or so as we tried to gather some way and steering ability before we ran into the party boat 10 feet behind us. Not bad, we missed. Forward gear, hope we don't swing our dinghy davits into that nice party boat as we turn to port. Six inches to spare and now let's see if we can miss that sport fishing boat directly in line with our turn. Give it a little more throttle and hope she turns. About to crush said sport fishing boat we go to full reverse gear with some starboard rudder. OK, didn't smash him either. Back to forward gear and we a clear by a couple of feet. Piece of cake.
We motored around through the marina toward our assigned slip for the next three days. Pulling into the slip without other boats in the way was actually quite nicely done. We're learning a little more each day.
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| Tonight's Air Conditioning |
The temperature outside is just brutal here. We showered (Oh baby that felt good!) and strutted to Harpoon Harry's for lunch and some nerve calming beverages. Tonight we are using our crude air conditioning system. One block of ice in a bucket with a fan blowing over it. Oh yeah, were livin' it up.
Posted with Blogsy
Sounds like you're learning to drive that thing-you didn't end up with a fishing boat or lawn chairs on the bow!
ReplyDeleteMy grandmother used that same air conditioning system. I remember that it worked, but I was only 5 and everything my grandmother did when I was that age was great. Let us know how it works for you! Hope you keep cool.