Wednesday, July 27, 2016

Charlevoix City Marina July 27, 2016

We finally made it to the City Marina, about 1:30. Jola and Kerry brought us over here this morning to sign up for the wait list. It's first to sign up, first come if there is a cancellation. We were the first on the list. They finally called. Since 1/2 of the day was over I should have only been charged 1/2 price I would think.

We got Kerry and Jola off about 8:15. Jim was in the dog house for rushing Jola. She thought she had left her sunglasses at the motel. Kerry was upset with me because she thought I was trying to rush her out. What a relief when we finally kissed them goodbye! :-)

While waiting for the marina to call - they said it would be at 10:00 - we tackled the first project, the leak. I had seen a drip from the water heater intake hose fittings yesterday. The nut was pretty loose so we put pipe compound on it and tightened it. No more obvious leak! There was water on the shelf holding the freshwater and wash down pumps this morning. I had dried it before bed last night. I am hoping it was just leftover leaked water. After our motor here, 1.6 miles, I found just a little water by the stringer. Again, I am hoping it also was leftover water. No new water on the shelf though.

Jim and I also installed the replaced AIS unit. Remember that the problem with the earlier unit ws that it degraded the VHF radio performance. We are not sure how this unit works yet. We could not get anyone to respond to a radio check, but did talk to the City Marina on the way in with success, but the test range was very limited. I was very happy to see that Mark from Parker Marine had pre-programmed it for me with my MMIS number and boat info. Thank you Mark!

We had a nice conversation with a fellow sailor, Bill, who has a Vagabond 47 sailboat. It is beautiful, but requires so much maintenance that Jim and I would run if someone offered to give us one. We offered to help him take his boat to his regular slip about 1/2 mile away if we were still here when it was time for him to go. He accepted our offer about 1/2 hour later. He docks his boat at Northwest Marine Yacht Club. We walked back to the Irish Boat Shop with him. At one time Kerry and I actually wanted a Vagabond 47. We had seen one with a tub in it at a boat show.


Bill's boat had a saying painted on a beam on the ceiling. It reads," Those that would go to sea for pleasure, would go to hell for a pastime." Interesting.


There was a nice newer Nordic Tug 42 in the harbor. We did not get to see in it, but it looked nice on the outside. It's amazing how the lines look so much like those of Annie. Not much change as the years roll and the feet grow.


Jim made our first lunch. It was microwaved pulled pork, Stella beer, spicy olive salad and chips. Yum. We called the ladies and let them know we survived our first scheduled meal. We have decided to go to East Jordan tomorrow, probably anchor Friday night and go to Northport Saturday. East Jordan is at the very end of Lake Charlevoix and Northport is at the top of Traverse Bay.

Jim and I took a kayak ride through the harbor. We timed it great because many racing sailboats were coming in for the evening. They are sailing home from the Chicago to Mackinac island Race. They were so beautiful. One black yacht must have been 70', so sleek looking, with a 4 spreader mast. Wow! Later we had cocktails on Annie's upper deck, and every time the bridge opened a new bacth of sailboats arrived.

Jim cooked again for dinner. This time we had Jola's egg plant parmesan.  It was very good. Two dinner's down and we are still going strong.


We took a nice walk after dinner, going out to the lighthouse at the end of the channel entrance. On the way back we saw a sailboat being towed in by the Coast Guard. It was almost sunk. The only thing keeping it up was the air bags tied to its side. We wondered what happened. They were towing it to the Irish Boat Shop where we were last night. It would have been interesting to see it when it arrived.


No new water in the bilge as we go to bed!

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