It took us a couple of hours but we caught up with Heart’s Desire and Always Saturday, two of the sailboats that we anchored with the night before. It is both comforting and quite fun to travel with other boats. These two boats are from Kentucky originally but now the boats are the owner’s only residence. They travel south for the winter to cruise the Caribbean and then continue the Loop during the summer months. They are permanently traveling together and they welcomed us as we fell in behind them. Deb and Tom of Heart’s Desire have made this trip several times before and are expert guides along the river. Deb is the best communications officer that I have ever heard. She is just a delight and ever so efficient in her role as the lead boat.
Our anchorage this evening is truly a small creek in the Choctaw National Wildlife Refuge. We were the only three boats anchoring in this location and the area was serenely beautiful. Both shores were heavy wooded and while we heard birds, we did not see any at all which I found to be quite odd.
Due to the fact that this creek is narrow, it is advisable to use both a bow and stern anchor. However since we lost the Fortress anchor and we do not have an extra, the plan was that we would tether the stern of the boat to a large tree on the shore. Now this is where the fun begins…I lower the dinghy, Mark takes a line and then paddles the twenty feet or so to the shore (please note that Captain Mark is wearing his earphones this time). What makes this so funny is that Mark does not turn on the motor on the dinghy because “it is not that far” and he has only one oar because the other oar is not in the dinghy. So he paddles the dinghy like one would paddle a canoe but the little boat just does not seem to go where Mark wants it to go. Each time he gets close to the shore to try to lasso the tree branch the boats lurches in the opposite direction.
As I am watching this I was overtaken by the giggles and the more Mark paddled and lassoed, the more I giggled…I could not stop – the more Mark struggled the funnier the whole situation became. Of course, Mark did not think it was funny at all but seeing me in such a fit of laughter he had to admit that the whole scene was rather comical. So he gave up trying to lasso the tree and then decided that he would try to use the dinghy anchor as a stern anchor. This worked for a little while but it was just too small to hold the weight of the tug. It was a totally calm evening so we felt rather confident that we would not swing into Always Saturday during the night.
Jackie and Elsie of Always Saturday invited us to their boat for dinner. Elsie made ham and beans and Jackie made his specialty of homemade fried cornbread, which was to die for... We had a fantastic time getting to know Jackie and Elsie. It is so much fun to discover how much we all have in common, how and why each of us are boaters and have come to be making this journey. Best of all, I found out that Elsie is not only a knitter but that she use to own a yarn shop!
Hours on the water: 6.5
Nautical miles traveled: 40
Number of locks: 0
Time spent waiting at locks: 0
Tomorrow's Destination: Three Rivers Anchorage
What we're listening to: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
What we watched: 0
Lesson for the day: Laughter is the best medicine
Obligatory knitting report: Mittens for Wunder Kids
No comments:
Post a Comment