Ah, At Sea Again

At Sea
N 39 03 W 074 32

The simple act of leaving port to put to sea is always so exhilarating. At times the exhilaration is mixed with a bit of trepidation. In all cases though we experience great anticipation.

Today has been an exceptionally fine departure. We trusted the weather forecast and waited until late afternoon. It worked, the still air stirred and turned in to a nice breeze. Now, if forecasts hold true, we have 3 to 4 days of following wind 10-15 knots. That would be ideal. We've been doing a steady 7 knots ever since leaving Cape May.

Where are we headed for? North. We'll just continue until the wind runs out. That's as explicit as we want to be at this point. We've already seen Block Island, and Narragansett Bay and Buzzards Bay, so we have no special urge to stop there. If we pass Boston without stopping I'll have to patch over family relations with my sister Nancy who lives there.

By the way, our fridge is working fine now. I think that ever time we turn it off and let it warm up, it leaks refrigerant gas. As long as it stays cold, it doesn't leak. Now, I have cans of refrigerant and the tools to inject it on board. Yet one more step towards self sufficiency.

Earlier in the day I felt like I was going to have a heat stroke. We needed some critical groceries immediately. All right, I'll tell the truth. We needed spaghetti sauce. There is no greater panic on board Tarwathie as when I hear the dreaded words, "We're out of spaghetti." It seems that when we stocked up on food in Solomons with the specific intent of going a month without a grocery store, we missed buying spaghetti sauce. I won't say who forgot, but it was a crew person and it wasn't
me.

Buying groceries in Cape May is a pain. We launched the dinghy, took down the outboard, then I motored 1.5 miles to land at a beach. Then I was supposed to take a bus to the store. A kind man in a local store had a bus schedule. I would have to wait 2 hours for the bus to town, then another 4 hours after that for a bus to return. Yuck. What poor service. I walked the 1.5 miles to the store. The temperature was 95F, the heat index was 105F, the sun was relentless and there was very little
shade en route. After buying spaghetti and ice cream, I planned on riding back in a taxi. No dice. The taxi company said 25 minutes wait. The ice cream would have melted. So I walked all the way back, retrieved the dinghy, and motored back to Tarwathie, and lifted up the motor and the dinghy. The whole exercise took 3 hours. Whine whine whine.