Boat Chores

Wednesday, August 17, 2011: Terry was talking to the crew of this big 116’ yacht (mv Sin or Swim) while we were at the Schoonmaker Point Marina, and they had just come up from San Diego. In the salon was a big ol’ granite table. It was so rough, the table came off and slammed to the floor and broke! That’s precisely why I don’t have a granite table in our salon-ha!

We motored over to Alameda to the Grand Marina, where Rick and Gina had saved us a slip across the dock from them. Internet! Terry and I walked the 1.6 miles to the West Marine to trade in our failed fresh water pump, and also buy an extra one, and to a grocery store to stock up a bit.  Endeavor had us over for drinks and we learned how to play “Fill or Bust”, a dice game. Lots of laughter, James beat the socks off of us. He’s dang quick with his math for the score keeping. Terry and Sydney traded verbal barbs back and forth. She really likes to try to get his goat. It’s a mutual thing.

Thursday, August 18, 2011: We are waking up later each day! So we pulled away from the dock in Alameda headed to San Raphael to get our watermaker fixed. When we got out in the bay, we put up our main, then practiced reefing. It made me a nervous wreck because we have never done it before. It was a bit of a rodeo, and wasn’t pretty, but we got the job done. The winds in this bay are amazing! And so many sailboats that are actually sailing! Then we put out just a bit of the staysail and with the one reef in the main we had a nice sail under the San Rafael Bridge on our way to San Rafael. Docked at the little yacht club there for free, then Terry took a cab to the Spectra factory while I did our laundry for the first time. I used that plunger thingy I got online. It worked fine, and now I have laundry hanging on my cute little rubber clothes lines I bought, where you don’t have to use clothes pins. We, motored over to Ayala Cove on Angel Island and met Endeavor, where we moored stern and bow. It’s nice to be away from the dock and at anchor. The whole island is a state park, and is where the immigrants (particularly the Chinese) were held until given permission to enter the country. Kind of like an Ellis Island of the west coast. Dinner, the rest of the movie “Dear Frankie”, and bed.