A “Love”ly Cove

We got fuel and water at Robinhood in the morning and, despite the foggy weather, decided to head out to a nearby cove we’d read about where a local family keeps two guest moorings available for those passing through. No payment required–but they ask that you add a message or poem to a bottle attached to the mooring pickup stick (see photo above).

Such a fun idea! We pulled in, picked up the mooring…and then immediately realized we had forgotten to move the dinghy from our stern beforehand, resulting in the dinghy painter (the line attaching the dinghy to the boat while we tow it behind us) getting lodged somewhere underneath the boat. In 62 degree water. Sigh. This could be really bad news, if it was caught on the keel, or worse, tangled around the propeller. I crossed my fingers that it was only stuck on the rudder. Patrick suited up in his wetsuit and diving gear to jump in and take a look. Not gonna lie, it was a little tense.

And lo and behold, he popped up immediately to say it was just looped around the front of the rudder and he could easily pull it off. Thank goodness! Then he said since he was used to the cold water already, he might as well check the zincs on our propeller, so he headed back down. What he found was that our collar zinc around the prop was pretty shot. I grabbed the spare zinc and some tools and we got him kitted out to dive down and put a new one on. He attached the allen wrench to his wrist with a lanyard and the bracelet Cecelia made for him, and brought a piece of the old zinc up for us to look at.

He was glad to practice his diving, happy that we had averted disaster with the dinghy line, and also pleased that we had done something good maintenance-wise.

So with that over with, we checked out our surroundings. The cove was pretty. The Winslows are the family that keep the moorings, and their house and dock are right on the water.

We saw a lobsterman come by to check his traps.

We also saw a mama and baby porpoise swimming in the cove.

We realized in the afternoon that our forward head was acting strange, and motored over to a nearby marina for a pump out. It didn’t go very well, which meant we were now dealing with problematic head #2 (our aft head was still out of commission). Not great, but survivable for the time being.

We went back to the cove and picked the mooring back up (no issues with the dinghy this time). Before dinner, we checked out the messages in the bottle on the mooring and added our own to the mix.

The fog rolled in (again) and the weather forecast predicted a storm the following day, so we planned to just hunker down and stay in the cove for another day and night.

The next morning, Cecelia learned how to make toast, and we stayed cozied up in the boat while a big rain storm came through. We decided it should be inventory day, and we inventoried all of our spares on board. A good use of time.

I worked on a macrame fruit hammock for most of the day (it’s done now; will debut the finished view in another post!) while Cecelia played and Patrick read books. It was a pretty quiet and slow day, but that’s how it goes sometimes with being on the water and having your activities subject to weather!