Fri & Sat – 14^th & 15^th June

Frightening how the time is running away as we sit here sorting stuff out, but the good news is that Friday was altogether a better and more positive day.

It started badly with the US post updating the tracking to confirm that they had sent the package to the wrong sorting office, this was followed up on Friday afternoon by an email saying that it had been re-sorted and then on Saturday the next update declared that it had been “missorted” again! Very frustrating as there is absolutely no way to contact them or even to get them to put the package on one side so we can drive over and collect it ourselves. Plan B2 is to visit the little local US Post office here in the ‘village’ and see if they can help us by showing them the tracking history. We are beginning to think that we may have to head off and ask David to forward this to us at our next known stop in Rhode Island – but not use USPS!

Then we got a call from the sail maker…… oh dear, this was less impressive still. The final truth is that despite the fact that this was all arranged last October with frequent reminder emails, the boss at the company had actually failed to order all the hardware required for this job and so although the sail is ready and pretty much everything else, there is one last, crucial item which is due to be delivered to them on Monday (where have we heard this before….) so there is little chance of all of this being sorted before Tuesday now. They were hugely embarrassed and offered to pay for us to stay over in a marina/yacht club in Oxford of the Eastern Shore (New Jersey) but frankly we have other issues outstanding here,  and this is just one more thing on the list, so we declined that offer but made it clear what we thought of this.

So with massive black thunder clouds building from the North, we felt the day was not looking too good, when David arrived and declared that he was available to work on all the projects pretty much for the day.  The sun came out and 8 hours later we sat back having made huge strides on all manner of problems and were feeling considerably chirpier. The riggers from Atlantic rigging appeared on cue with our bits from Selden and Stephen promptly shinned up the mast and replaced the cracked bottlescrew (turnbuckle).  He did at least take a boson’s chair this time, but when he had come to check the fitting for size on Monday, he simply climbed the mast without any help or safety rope.

We have replaced both of our propane gas tanks with new aluminium ones, but of course they are a slightly different size which means that the cover is now too small.  So Sarah unearthed the second-hand sewing machine she acquired last year and spend a fruitless hour studying  instructions and a newly purchased book, scratching her head, knowing that the domestic machine needed some inspired jury rigging for heavy usage. Seeing (and hearing) her frustration increase and her tolerance levels fall, David opted very wisely to phone Candy who came round from the marina they are moored in, sat down,  resolved all the issues instantly and gave a sewing master class.

Bob and Janellen on Blue Heron kindly invited us over for drinks in the early evening which was very welcome (they had also given us supper on Thursday night) but they were very keen to see over Serafina before they left in the morning. Not a problem, except that Serafina was a complete tip with everything lying about in every cabin and all over the deck as we had simply finished working for the day and walked away, plus we were off to a ‘swap meet’ (see below) in the morning at 0700 hours. So we nipped back and whilst they went into town to buy some pie, (!) we broke all records in tidying stuff away and cleaning, we even managed a high speed vacuuming so that even we were amazed at how smart she looked when they returned. It was during this mad rush that an Osprey appeared just behind us, carrying a huge fish in its talons and crying out very loudly – probably pointing out that the light was now too dim for a good photo and if we even thought about reaching for the camera it was ready to fly off! Honestly they know….

On Saturday morning we went along to the ‘swap meet’ or ‘yard sale’ as they are known (we call them boat jumbles) taking with us a number of things we needed to clear out of our bilge and lockers. David and Candy had booked a table to sell their stuff and kindly let us join them. We managed to sell a couple of our items but there were very few visitors on what was a blisteringly hot day. We did sell our Mini B scuba kit, but as it happens this was bought by Bob and Janellen on Blue Heron which ironically is moored on the slip opposite us here on Pier I.  So despite having supper on their boat on Thursday and drinks again on Friday night, we somehow never got round to talking about the dive kit we were trying to sell!  And they are doing the opposite to us, replacing their hookah system with scuba kit – we could have just done a straight swap 8 months ago….

Sarah has turned her attention to the flag staff that holds our ensign (flag) and having stripped it back to bare wood, has been lovingly varnishing it – 5 coats and counting.

So there is light at the end of the tunnel, but it is still rather dim.