Day 46: Sunday, October 21, 2012
Underway: At Marina Motor Off: At Marina Miles Traveled: 00 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: First time using a courtesy golf cart to drive around the marina; first time seeing people on standup jet skis do complete 360˚ flips; Cindy finished her first Nook book (Mash Angels from the library – excellent); met our first cruising family.
Mile 216 to Mile 216: Today is a down day – we have some shopping and projects to do before we head into the wilderness for the next week or more. There is only one “marina” in the next 240 miles so we need to be prepared and self sufficient for a while.
We met our first cruising family at Demopolis Marina. Bob and Katya have been traveling with their two girls Annamarie (3) and Emma (11 mo) on a 33’ S2 sailboat. With four people onboard, they are probably as squished as we are on Aurora.
Today was a well deserved “down” day although we usually work harder on our down days than when we are cruising. I started a load of laundry early, cleaned Aurora’s hull and bumpers, glued and fixed our floor boards, and “fixed” the dinghy (our deflatable) again. We decluttered the boat again and found about 30 pounds of stuff to send home or give away. Someday we may see our waterline again. I also made $50 today. I had gotten a nice, heavy duty (heavy is the key word) winch while boat box diving at Green Turtle Marina that I knew would come in handy someday. Well, we had it sitting on the dock while decluttering and someone wandered by and offered me $50 so I took it. A good deal for everyone. We also made a Wallmart run to provision for the next 240 mile run to the Gulf of Mexico. I can’t believe we are getting so close to the ocean.
In the afternoon, we spent several hours catching up on the blog in between chats with whoever ended up wandering in/out of the clubhouse. It would be easy to stay a long time in a place like this (and some people do). Maybe we’ll try that on our next Loop around on Aurora 2. (We can dream can’t we?)
Even on our down days we still end up cooking dinner just before dark. We were roughing it today though since the marina has a nice big chrome multiburner grill next to the clubhouse. We decided to grill a batch of pork chops, added some red potatoes, a salad and strawberry margaritas and we had a feast. We even got to eat at a real table inside the cool, comfortable clubhouse. A nice ending to a productive day.
