Thursday, December 1, 2011

Underway Again

We finally wrapped up everything (well almost everything) at Turner Marine and cast off early Tuesday morning. We had a great experience at Turner getting the mast back up, changing shaft zincs, participating in their Thanksgiving lunch on Wednesday, hosting Thanksgiving dinner aboard our boat on Thursday and producing a video for Turner Marine.
Temps were in the low 30's overnight so it was a tad chilly getting underway. But we have a full enclosure for the cockpit and it keeps us pretty warm, especially if the sun is shining, which it was. The wind started to pick up just as we we turned south on Mobile Bay, a nice low teens breeze from aft. We set just the jib and managed to sail at 6 to 7 knots most of the way down the bay. A great way to get back to sailing after 2 months as a power boat on the rivers.
We decided to stop at LuLu's on the GICW (Gulf Intra Coastal Waterway) for lunch on our route east. LuLu is Jimmie Buffet's sister so we both dove into the "Cheeseburger In Paradise". They were excellent. While sitting at our table overlooking our boat & the GICW we had our first dolphin spotting. It's shaping up to be a great day! A perfect sail, a great lunch and our first dolphin sighting. Don't count your chickens yet...
Speaking of chickens we met some fellow cruisers at the dock. A young couple on a floating shanty complete with a pair of chickens! Really, it was a wood shanty on pontoons. They came down from Pittsburgh!
We cruised on a short distance to Ingraham's Bayou for the night. A very nice anchorage. We have a Lectrasan which is a waste treatment system for our head (toilet). It only works with salt water so we haven't used it since we bought the boat. We're now in good salt water so time to fire it up. Well, coincidentally, the toilet decided to crap out! The plastic impeller cracked. I had to disassemble much of the mechanism that flushes and macerates our solid waste. A big happy birthday from Jabsco (the manufacturer)! I epoxied the plastic impeller and we await the curing of the epoxy before re-installation. Luckily we have 2 heads...yes it's true; two heads are better than one.