Day 3, Enough Drama for a week in a day

We started off the day simply enough by raising the anchor and rejoining dredged path.

The first situation that arose was a C-130 Coast Guard plane flying overhead taking a banked turn over us twice. That was quite a sight and we were wondering who they might looking for? Shortly after the second flyover we discovered that the VHF radio on our boat was transmitting a distress signal that we did not knowingly turn on and did not know how to turn off. Time to turn the radio off and go with the handheld. I guess we still have some things to learn about the boat!

Next, the first session of rain set in while we were underway, up until this point we had dealt with rain while at the dock or at anchor (on the hook, I just like referring to the anchor as a hook. I think it makes me sound like I know what I am talking about). This meant, you guessed it, I finally got to try out my new foul weather gear ( foulies) . It would have worked out fine had I purchased the boots as well, soggy feet kinda ruined the effect. At least I was better off then my shipmate Rod, his gear wasn’t actually waterproof. Dennis had good gear stayed dry and had boots, but was still grumpy (this seemed to be a theme).

From here on out things got interesting enough that taking pictures became unimportant. We are using Navionics Marine Navigation software on our iPads which proved to be an excellent guide. We had a miscommunication about what the different markings meant which lead to us running aground. No big deal, just a lot of animated discussion as you can imagine.

Mid afternoon several of the boats traveling along with us decided to anchor for the night. We took a vote to push for the next stretch which we would end up motoring in the dark. I voted we go for it and on we went. During the next 3 hours we experienced thunderstorms and lightening in the dark. We had times of zero visibility and had to motor along picking our way from navigation buoy to buoy. We came up with a good system, Rod on the iPad watching the course from below (to keep the iPad dry). I relayed and translated (more that later) what Rod told me for Dennis who was at the helm, while keeping the lookout for buoys. It was a little stressful. Ok, it was a lot stressful, but we made it in to the marina without a hitch!