Wildfire

On the drive home from the marina we were listening to XMSirius chnl27 which is The Bridge. Yes I am getting old........ The song Wildfire written and recorded by Michael Murphey came on. How appropriate. The wildfires in Canada are sending us some substantial smoke. The entire area has a thick haze that, on occasion, smells like smoke.

We got an early start on Friday. My meetings were done early so I "took the rest of the day off" and we got going before noon. We got to the marina and the haze was so thick that when we cleared the inlet you could not see Kelleys Island or any of the Bass islands. We fired up our radar so that we could see fishing boats before we were on top of them. We are a slow boat so we have plenty of time to react if we come upon anyone and our wake is so small we would not disrupt anyone very much if we passed close.

It was a bit windy so the lake conditions were a bit unsettled and so was Rudy. He does not like it when the boat is rolling around so I turned on the stabilizer fins and that calms things down substantially. He was much happier and came into the pilothouse and jumped up on the bench seat behind the helm so that he could see out into the smokey haze.

We hailed the dockmaster as we entered the inlet at Middle Bass Island and we got docked and tied off. The usual suspects were there already and our new found friends/neighbors Charlie and Cassidy were there with the kids. They have a Cruisers Cantius 45 anmed Summer Mission. We said hello, got Rudy off for his arrival rest stop and then had our arrival drink. Time to make dinner. Shrimp Stir Fry. Chris found shrimp skewers at Buehlers that have a yummy glaze on them. Add some onion pepper mix and put it on top of riced cauliflower and add a glass of wine and you have dinner al fresco in the cockpit. We did deploy the new Mahogany table and that will work nicely long term.

We walked Rudy and played ball. Back to the boat, chit chat with our neighbors and then fire up the Apple TV and settle in for the night. I did look for the missing power supplies and found the bag tucked in the cleaning supplies cabinet since that same bag had a jug of cleaning fluid in it......

Saturday was spent generally digging into the storage under the settee in the salon and getting the Starlink back on the pilothouse roof and fired up again since we now have the power supply for the router. We plugged it all in and got it all connected and working. Good to know that the Apple TV gets a good strong WiFi signal in the cabinet under the TV with the door closed. Excellent! I also did a little work stuff just to see how it all would go and the Proof of Concept is complete. Starlink will definitely allow me to work while we are in motion.

Next thing we did was to take a very close look at the cable routing from the satellite mount into the fly bridge console down through the cable pass and inside the pilothouse. We think we figured it out. We did not have an electricians tape/snake so we could not actually route the cable on Saturday. We will buy one Sunday when we return to home port. We also are thinking that we will need a piece of starboard as a platform that will sit ontop of the round base of the satellite dome which will allow us to fasten the wedge mount for the starlink to the flat platform provided by the piece of square starboard. Incase you are wondering, starboard is a plastic composite used in the marine industry for all sorts of applications that require tolerance of water. It replaces plywood.

After all of this work we took Rudy for a walk and over to the public access "beach". It is more of a kayak access but it is big enough to be considered a beach. We walked back, had a pre-dinner glass of wine and then it was time to get things ready for dinner. We are having burgers and sides. We are going to pack everything and have dinner on the deck at the club house. Before we go to dinner we brought the Starlink down off the roof and placed it on the front deck so that we did not have to mess with getting up on the roof at night.

We get packed and head to the clubhouse. There is a posted sign that has the rule on it that pets are not allowed on the deck. We knowingly broke that rule since there was nobody there. The Commodore Mike walked out of the clubhouse on to the deck and told us about the rule and I said that since no one was there we chose to break the rule but if someone showed up we would leave. So we packed our stuff and started to leave. We ended up chatting for another half hour and then back to the boat.

We watch 50 first dates and then off to bed. A couple of hours into sleep I woke up to the burgee making a ton of noise as the wind picked up and it was blowing around. I got up and took it down and then back to bed.

Up at 6am and take Rudy out. The wind has been blowing out of the ENE all night and the lake is a little lumpy. I get back to the boat and Chris is up and about. We both look at the weather forecast and decide that we should wait until 10:30 or so to shove off. The wind does die down a bit but the lake conditions are still a bit lumpy. The 44 Sundancer that was next to us left and we watched as they headed out. We will need our stabilizers once we turn south and go a bit broadside to the waves.

We get set and head out. Before we leave both of our other neighbors shove off. Charlie mentions that they are headed over to the state dock for a pump out. It is free. Well, our tax dollars pay for it. Anyhow we decide not to go over to that pump out. We will use the pump out facility at Skipperbuds. That is a decision that we will be happy with once we get back to home port. We get going and head out nose into the waves. we follow the return route through the marked channel between the islands and then once clear we turn and head due south. I had the fins going before the turn. The wave direction is out of the north east so we turn south and the waves are now behind us quartering from the port. A much more stable orientation. We were seeing 3-4 foot waves on our bow and that made the boat motion a bit uncomfortable for Rudy. He was curled up on the salon couch. Once we turned and the fins took over the boat motion smoothed out and he came up into the pilothouse and Chris invited him up onto the bench seat. He hopped up and stayed there for the duration.

Summer Mission, the Cantius 45, passed us on the way and we encountered a little small boat traffic but nothing that required us to alter our track or speed. We entered the East Harbor inlet and 4 boats formed up behind us so I kept engine RPM's over 1000 so our vessel speed was 5.5mph which is good for the no waked channel. All of the boats stayed formed up and we entered the E Dock cut into the marina. No one is at the fuel dock so we decided to tie off and get a pump out. When we mention "No one" is there we mean No One. Not even the marina employees. So with help from some of the E Dock crew we got situated and then the marina employees arrived. Come to find out, a boat over on C Dock was sinking. They got the pumps and other stuff working and getting more water out than was coming in. So we got our pump out and then shoved off, spun around and then got docked. As we shoved off from the pump out dock, Summer Mission came in and docked. As we backed into our slip they came over and helped. I dock better to the left than I do to the right so this time was much more coordinated and straight forward.

We got plugged in and then it was time for an arrival beverage and lunch. After lunch I drove over to West Marine and bought the Inverter Charger that we will install next weekend. I also bought an electricians snake from the hardware store that is two doors down from West Marine. we got all of that loaded into the boat and then unloaded everything from the boat that needed to go home.

Another nice weekend spent on the boat. We are starting to think about longer cruises. We are thinking of a cruise out to Geneva Ohio once the Starlink is fully installed. That will allow me to work while we are in motion. That trip would take about 10-11 hours at our speed. So we will start to look at weather and my work week and find a weekday opportunity to head out. Maybe a Monday thru Thursday or something like that.

Out and back to 16..............