SHIP'S LOG:
There seems to be a lot of work making the adjustment to being home. After setting up two dentist appointments, one to fix a cracked tooth and one to get a cleaning - the cracked tooth was coming first - I actually missed the first one which was Wednesday morning at 9:15. I thought it was next week and only realized it when my phone gave me a friendly reminder five minutes before I was to be 20 miles away in a dentist's chair. Well, such is life and it isn't like I was really, REALLY looking forward to it anyway. Still I had to reschedule it and that will happen on Friday morning. This one I should make.
Then there was the matter of 8 months' worth of snail mail to go through. Most was trash and got properly dumped. Some was important like my Social Security stuff. And some was very important like the registration renewals for the boat, the dinghy, the car and the motorcycle. Boy, I hope Publisher's Clearing house comes through - you know, I COULD be a WINNER!
After going through the mail, the best thing I could do was go for a sail and that's exactly what I did. It was really wonderful. No plotting, no courses laid in, no bridges to go through, just tooling around in familiar waters.I went five miles that-a-way and then five miles this-a-way, and then five miles back to TYC. No schedule, to anchorage or marina to make, no crazy fishermen, well not many. Just a nice sail under wind power alone! Almost too great for words!
And best of all, I am now off the dock. My mooring is in place and I was able to tied up on it and now am really at home. It's good to be home.
I wasn't surprised when a storm moved in last night. It was that type of day, weather-wise-hot and humid and screaming out for a good thunderstorm. And that's what we got, in spades. Lots of lightning, and I mean a lot. The flashes seemed almost constant. A lout of thunder, but not particularly loud. A lot of rain, but of short duration, and WIND! It was really honking there for awhile. I think we might have gotten a couple of sustained gusts of over 35mph. At the beginning of the storms, I was just sitting in the cockpit watching it come. I always liked doing that. After the first gust hit, I went and got my safety harness and PFD. i didn't put them on right away, even though ABISHAG was slewing around pretty well. I actually had to remind myself that I wasn't tethered to a 35lbs CQR anchor at the end of 120 feet of 5/8" anchor rode set in some creek or other along the ICW. I was secured to a bridle made of 3/4' line, attached to 30' of 3/8" chain. attached to 15" of 1" chain attached to an 800lbs mushroom anchor that has buried itself over four years in the bottom of the Thames. I wasn't going anywhere in this blow and, since it was a fast moving storm, I didn't expect it to last all that long. It might have lasted 15 minutes max, though its arrival and departure displays were quite a bit longer. I was nervous or frightened by it, rather I was attentive. I have ABISHAG ready to move in case events made it prudent, but having already been through several storms which made this one seem almost wimpy in comparison, my reactions were more along the lines of simply being prepared.
After the storm passed, I went to bed. Another came through later in the night but I didn't even get up. Everything was already in place and I saw no sense in getting up and monitoring the storm. It passed and that was that.
I have been living on ABISHAG since a year ago May and now am extremely comfortable and at ease on her in all situations. Truth be told, if I didn't get overly concerned with the weather on the trip from Manasquan to New London, there isn't much that is going to cause me much in the way of anxiety. I figure that God is in control of it all and if I use the gifts and the common sense God gave me, and the skills I have developed over the years, especially over the last 8 months or so, then, to quote Bab Marley, " Every little thing is going to be alright!"
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