We haven't done much of anything today. It was a rainy, miserable day. Because our boat is open cockpit, we would have been out in it all day if we'd gone down the river. So we decided to stay here, since the anchorage is nice and secure and quiet. We read quite a bit (I finished Robinson Crusoe), I had a nap, and we played Phase 10 with the folks. Pretty lazy day. Except for the epic battles with the leaks! Woke up around 5:00 this morning to drips of water hitting my pillow. We tightened the windows hoping to keep the water out, but that didn't do much good either. When we finally got up around 7:30, we went to work figuring out what was going on. For the window on my side in the v-berth, there was a seam in the gasket that's on the bottom. And water was coming in here. So I pulled the gasket out and turned it around. Then I put Vaseline on all of the gaskets, hoping to make a more watertight seal. Seemed to work! There hasn't been a drip from my window since this morning. I'm calling it a win. And we've got leaks in other places, too. We're not sure where all of them are coming from, so we'll just keep gooping up the possibilities with caulk until we have a dry boat. This process could take months. Keeps us busy, though. Right?
I was going backward, so this brings us to yesterday. Went through a lock. Again. Moseyed down the river for a while, then caught up with a barge. Usually the barges go faster than we do, but this section of the river was very curvy, so they had to slow down. The barge was going just slow enough for us to catch him, but just fast enough that we couldn't pass. And it was turbulent behind him! So we slowed down and followed farther behind. Finally got to our anchorage. Mom and Dad were already anchored happily. So we aimed for them, depth finder on. It was fine, 10 feet, 8. Then beep! beep! beep! 3, 2, 1 and bam! We ran aground! This boat never stops that fast! And we had so little warning, there was no avoiding it. Fortunately, there was a breeze strong enough to blow us right off the shoal. Depth went to 6 feet, then 8. Alright, we're back in business. Gave it a little throttle. 6, 2, 1, 0 beep! beep! beep! thud. Aground again. Can you believe that!? But the wind blew us off again. And we made it into the anchorage after that without incident. We tied up to the parents' boat, where we've been ever since. I'll admit, I'm not looking forward to getting out of here in the morning. I'm sure we'll be fine, but there will be that doubt and hesitation when we leave. If we run aground again, it'll just be embarrassing!
Still going backwards brings us back to Saturday. At one point, a sailboat passed us. When he went past, he called me on the radio. Just wanted to chat. Super friendly guy! Invited us for drinks if we ended up in the same anchorage that night. Unfortunately, we didn't make it that far, but I'm hoping we might catch up with them at some point. Also said when we get to Pensacola (where he's from), we should give him a call if we need a ride to the grocery store. Boat people are awesome! Made me feel all warm and fuzzy.
Saturday night, we anchored again. Once we were secure, I decided to row around on the dinghy. It was pretty there, so I wanted to explore. I'll leave you with some of those pictures.
Oh yeah! That cute picture of my parents on their boat reminds me. They have a blog, too! Here's the latest entry
Yay! Parents! :)
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