180 miles by land

I drove 180 miles with the van and trailer to pick up the boat. One quick back of the envelope calculation later and I figured we did well over 200 miles on the boat. That's actually pretty surprising as we weren't really trying. I felt safer on the boat than on the highways. Life is better at 5.5 knots.

The marina was packed on a Saturday. The only trailer parking was in the overflow lot behind the marina. At least they run those little extended golf carts as shuttles. They weren't real happy that I had to block one of the ramps with my boat, then shuttled back to the van and trailer. Apparently, they have some sort of system that they didn't tell me about.

It's not easy loading a boat at the best of the times. Even working alone, I was able to load the boat at least as fast as the ramp average. With a parking lot of impatient fishermen watching, I'm glad it went well. They weren't too used to seeing sailboats there. In two days at the marina, ours was the only one to come in. The magic bus hippy ban tow vehicle raised a few eyebrows. Most folks were pretty cool, so it was fine.

My lovely wife has a Monday appointment for her broken tooth. Hope they can do something for her. No firm plans will be made until she's on the mend.

We were into our fourth week on the water, and it had settled into a lifestyle. I'm tan, lost a few pounds, and feel great, heck I feel strong. Water life agrees with me. We'll get back to it.

-Sixbears