Day 53: Sunday, October 28, 2012
Underway: At Marina Motor Off: At Marina Miles Traveled: 00 Stayed At: Marina
First Things First: Saw our first palm trees; ate our first Satsuma oranges (the area is famous for them).
Mile 16 to Mile 16: Today was a work day – at least it started out that way. It’s still too windy to leave for Mobile Bay so, after making cinnamon rolls and some blueberry muffins for breakfast (in our camping oven), we started on our project list. We cleared the decks by unloading the big anchor, the extra gas cans, the dinghy, the dinghy floor, and the extra motor so we could scrub the boat and test the dinghy. We assembled the dinghy for the first time since the beginning of the trip and tested the motor for the first time ever. The motor worked great but water was leaking in fast by the stern floor seam on the dinghy. Not a good thing. After drying the dinghy out we tried to seal some obvious problems with some marine caulk. Hopefully that will slow it down. The front tube also still leaks air so we will try to track this down later.
We scrubbed the decks and pretty soon Aurora almost sparkled in the bright sunshine (I took pictures to prove it). We were finishing up our boat projects when we met Billy – he lives near the marina and has a small Bay Liner power boat two slips down from us. He volunteered to take us into town anytime we needed to go – he was just puttering around – which was a really nice offer. He was also interested in the Big Anchor and chain for his sailboat. He also said he might have a smaller anchor we could use as a backup main anchor. We enjoyed chatting for almost an hour and learned about some cool places to stop along the Gulf Intercoastal Waterway– we are definitely not going to get to Tampa by boat before our flights in late November. Billy has lived in the area for many years and has been involved in a number of businesses including owning marinas, real estate, restaurants and many other entrepreneurial activities.
Billy came back later in the afternoon as we were finishing lunch and getting ready to do laundry. He wanted to buy the anchor and invited us back to his house (which we had walked right by on our long walk yesterday) to check out his anchor collection to see if one might work for us. Well, our work day quickly turned into another great adventure and we ended up spending the rest of the day and evening visiting with Billy and his wife Sandy sharing stories, craft ideas, recipes, Satsuma oranges (amazing), wine and dinner (Cindy made ebleskivers which were a big hit).
It was fun to spend time at their beautiful home. Their house, which faces a large private lake, has a covered deck all the way around the house. The inside was beautifully decorated and decked out in fall/Halloween decorations – we miss this part of being in a “real” home. It was a very relaxing afternoon. We left late in the evening with full tummys, a bag of fresh pecans, a dozen Satsuma oranges (from one of their own trees), a small anchor, a long list of must-see places to visit, a bunch of great stories, some new friends and minus one big anchor. I wish all work days turned out this fun.
