Round Lake Charlevoix July 29, 2016

The sunset last night was beautiful. 

Jim usually gets up before me. I think we wake at the same time, but I lay in bed a while listening to Fox and Friends. When I pop out he has his bunk all cleaned up and the coffee on. If I could just get him to like his coffee a bit less strong . . .

No water again in the bilge – yes! Jim took a long walk while I showered. I started to walk to a convenience store and we met. The convenience store was mostly booze and chips, but I got directions to a grocery. Today is a big cook day. Marianna did not give us credit for cooking since all we did was heat stuff already prepared.  So today, I plan to bake a loaf of bread and grill out a steak with baked potatoes. 

We are going back to Charlevoix, but plan on anchoring in Round Lake instead of docking. I was going to buy a pie for desert but I forgot to do so. Jim looked so disappointed. I passed a garage sale on the way to the grocery. I checked it out for fancy tea cups, but there were none. I passed a bunch of Queen Ann’s Lace which I would have picked for Kerry had she been here. She loves freshly picked weed/flowers.

We left East Jordan at 10:10 and were in Round Lake before noon. Jim was captain today and is responsible for our safe and on time arrival. After that things did not go as well. We had to anchor 4 times before we finally got settled where we were happy. The first issue is that the water is deep here, like 50+ feet. Neither of us has anchored in that deep of water. I have 100’ of chain, so for the first time we had to use the rope rode. That was no big deal until we tried to pull up the anchor and reset, and the splice kept coming out of the gypsy.

Our anchor dragged on our first attempt. We had hooked on to an old tree branch, or piece of an old ship or something. On our second attempt we ended up too close to the docks. On our third we ended up too near a powerboat. One boat we ended up too near was a sailboat from Vermilion. Our fourth attempt was successful in all respects. We enjoyed an anchor cocktail to celebrate. We had to get out the book of knots that I bought at a garage sale last year in Venice to learn how to tie a rolling hitch on the rope anchor rode.

It is really beautiful here - bright sun, breezy, blue waters.  It’s a perfect place to anchor and watch the world go by. For lunch we finished up the pulled pork, with chips and bread and butter pickles. I took the bread out of the freezer to rise and the steak out to thaw.

Then it was time to tackle our hardest project, restringing the broken cord on our day/night cabin blinds. We were successful about 1 ½ hours later. Since it was my boat we got to use some of my ideas along the way. Normally when we do projects together Jim only wants to use his ideas – the same way Kerry’s dad was.  

I sat in the sun and read Killing Raegan, by Bill O' Reilly. It was especially interesting as John Hinkley was just released from his psychiatric prison recently.

We had Doritos for cocktail hour tonight. We also had a great "home cooked" dinner tonight. We had grilled steak, baked potatoes and freshly baked bread for dinner, with a perfectly selected jug wine. So delicious! Marianna has to give us credit for cooking today! 

Meanwhile, the ladies are all working on getting the shower just perfect. Kerry is using her military training, Army, to get the duties done. She is having some resistance from Marty, Air Force, who is less disciplined. :-)