After a week of anticipatiing our shakedown cruise from Pasadena, MD to our boats' new home at the Baltimore Yacht Club in Essex, we awoke this morning to a disappointing weather report.  The forecast called for thundershowers beginning at 1:00 pm.  First we checked on the internet.  Well, they are not always right so we next consulted our marine radio.  They were saying the same thing.  But what about the Weather Channel?.  Yep, sure enough, thundershowers at 1:00, you could bet the farm on it.  The first part of the day was to be partly cloudy also.  In addition, winds were calm and were not expected to pick up much all day.

We needed some time to familiarize ourselves with the rig anyway and a good scrubbing really was in order.  The boat had been sitting undercover, in the water, all winter and smelled like mildew, deisel, and a holding tank that needed to be pumped out.  The decks were streaked with black and bird crap and chipping Cetol.  We decided that whatever time we had today before the rain came down would be spent attending to these tasks.

After breakfast we loaded up the car with cleaning supplies, stopped at Subway on the way to pick up a sandwich for later and headed for the boat.  We spent a couple of hours with me scrubbing decks and Lance figuring out how things worked. Around noon we decided to stop for lunch. 

A bimini was laying on the deck, which the former owner said they never used.  We wondered why.  Shade would be nice for lunch so this seemed as good a time as any to try and put it up.  (Oh, did I mention that at this point it was 80 degrees with full sun, not a cloud in the sky?)  We got the bimini up.  It didn't take long to figure out why it had been unused.  You couldn't stand up in the cockpit anymore.  It was difficult to crawl out from under it and with the straps leading fore and aft, you would have to be an acrobat to crawl over all of the obstructions to get to the foredeck.  You couldn't access the mainsail from the cockpit either, and you couldn't even see that much under it because it was low and there was probably only a foot between the top of the cabin and the bimini.  We enjoyed the shade while we ate lunch but agreed between us that we thought the comfort of the shade while sailing would be outweighed by the dangerous conditions that would be created for navigating the decks.  But it might be nice to have while at anchor, we thought we would keep it aboard for that purpose.

After finishing lunch we returned to our tasks.  After a couple of hours we realized that it was now 2:00 pm, the sun was still shining brightly, there was a nice breeze blowing and still not a cloud in the sky.  Well, surely it was going to start pouring soon, we would just continue to work until it did.  Over the course of the next hour or so I spent cleaning the decks, I tripped over that damned bimini probably 4 times.  Now I'm wondering if any value it may have is going to be worth me being aggravated by having to navigate around it all the time.  I suspect it will be gone soon.

The rest of the afternoon, UNTIL 6:00 PM was spent joyfully making the boat ours.  We threw away lots of stuff, cleaned everything we could reach, rummaged through everything and just generally got to know the boat a little better.  It was a glorious day, and even though we had missed an opportunity to sail and still hadn't seen a single raindrop, we considered it a good day and felt good about the progress we had made.  We figured tomorrow's journey would be that much more enjoyable because of the improved condition of the boat.  It was almost a perfect day, screwed up weather report notwithstanding.  Until we got ready to go............

Earlier in the day Lance had adjusted the docking lines to make it easier for us to bring the boat a little closer to the dock so that we could board easier.   We were getting on and off a lot, usually with our hands full of whatever was coming aboard or heading for the dumpster.  At the time there was no wind at all and the boat just pretty much bobbed peacefully wherever we put her.  By the time we were ready to leave the wind had picked up considerably.  The weather channel said gusts to 19 knots.  We didn' t realize it but the dock lines were loose enough that the boat was able to come into contact with the dock.  And come into contact with the dock it did.  I went forward to find our rub rail being ripped off against the dock.  By the time we were able to readjust everything, we had lost about a foot or a little more of wood on the starboard side.  I cried, Lance felt horrible.  Not the best end to an otherwise great day.  The to do list for the boat was long enough already without this additional project.  But, we take all of these experiences as opportunities to learn something (after we're finished kicking ourselves, that is).  Our seamanship when it comes to line handling at the dock will no doubt be improved in the future, and we will learn how to scarf in a piece of rub rail.  Fortunately we have some that we removed from the CD-22 we are renovating.  It's even weathered about the same and should be a much better match than a new piece of wood would be. 





We could have stayed home on the couch watching television and had absolutely nothing go wrong all day long.  But I would rather have the day that we had.  You put yourself out there to do something fun and have a little adventure, and sometimes things go wrong.  It's better than the boring alternative.

Tomorrow we will be heading down early to make the trip home.  The weathercast is for temps in the mid 60's, partly cloudy and winds 7-10 knots.  We shall see if they do a better job for tomorrow than they did for today.  (By the way, it's 11:22 pm and it just now started raining, only 10 hours late....)

Fair Winds!!
Becky