Rainy day

Today was the day we were to leave on, although at sundown. Our departure is now looking like mid day this Saturday. I had a nice morning reading as Larry made 2 trips to buy gasoline. His boat has a gas Atomic 4. We topped up the tank and have the 3 five Fallon jugs full. That's 40 gallons total. As I stayed back on the boat I made coffee for the first time and only the second time since leaving Minnesota. Who says coffee..caffeine is addictive? I guess it's because lately I only have one mug each morning unlike the past. I enjoy the taste and like it but here I am using generic instant on an every now and then basis. It was threatening rain all morning but held off. Larry made one more dingy run to bring his boat neighbor Al to the marina to catch a bus. The dingy is a 2 person ride. Once we were both on our way to the marina it began to drizzle and after showers when on the Internet we had heavy rain for quite a while. It provided a longer than usual online session. It finally let up so back to the boat, then off again to another dockside restaurant. They made really good hand squeezed lemonade. That's 4 times now we've eaten at a restaurant.

Speaking of boat neighbors, we are on one of the first moorings in a field and north of us is an anchorage area. Many of these boats are long time live-aboards that never move and have thick build ups of marine growth. Some are home to people working near to the marina. Two of the closer boats are interesting in that one is only used as a storage vessel and the owner has another boat anchored or moored nearby to live on. He comes in his dingy either storing some new junk of taking some item he had stored. Then there is a boat which had it's mast tip over and it's just lashed across the deck. It's been like that a few months and toppled over due to un maintained standing rigging. He only lives on it so it's not like he'll step the mast again. He has 2 pet cockatoos who you can hear squawk now and then...especially when he comes home to his boat... They welcome him and you can hear him say things like "you better not have gotten into anything" as if they are free in the cabin not in a cage? It's a very entertaining place. It's interesting to note that the marina charges $330 a month for a mooring which includes a lot of services but the anchorage fee is not that much less at $275 a month, I assume for the same services.
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The captain and his boat neighbor Al in the bow waving good bye. The nice French catamaran is Al's. He bought it new in France and sailed it across with a couple volunteer crew. He's just living here not about to set off as we are. He was flying back to New York for family holiday time.

The boat to the left is the storage vessel and the de-masted boat has the 2 cockatoos on-board.