The Countdown continues

Last week was a busy one.

I finally got all of my Captain's license paperwork together and submitted to the very helpful folks at the Custom's House in Baltimore (the exams were easy compared to all the paperwork involved).

Joe Voss of Cummins (a great guy and mechanic) was able to finish up the repairs to our main engine and we were able to leave for our docking and close quarters boat handling class in Baltimore on schedule.

We had a bumpy ride to Baltimore with 25 - 30 knots of breeze out of the north, and put in at Anchorage Marina for our boat handling class with Mother Goose (Bill Shermer) of Blue Goose Charters http://www.bluegoosecharters.com/.

Had a bit of classroom work to start with, but Linda was soon at the helm and way out of her comfort zone. I was assigned as the line handler. I soon found out that Linda is a far better line handler than I and was reminded of that on a pretty continuous basis by Mother Goose. We spent two days with Bill and received some excellent instruction. Hopefully, it will all sink in and make us better boaters so that the rest of the folks out there won't have to run and hide when we start trying to dock.

While we were there, our friend Bruce Barbara just happened to be in town for business, so we met with he and some co-workers for dinner at Bertha's Mussles in Fells Point. They took us back to the boat and we gave them the grand tour and had a couple glasses of wine on a gorgeous evening.

We also found the best place ever for margaritas and appetizers in Canton ( a few blocks from the marina) - don't miss Geckos if you find yourself in this area (their version of Nachos is to die for) http://www.geckosonline.com/NewSite/index.html .

We had a nice ride back home and used our new SPOT (highly recommend by Dan & Biddie of Biddie & the Beast) to try out the tracking feature. It worked very well and the folks we shared the tracking link with thought it was pretty slick - especially the link to the track in Google Earth.

Then it was back home to get the Jeep ready for our son Derrick to pick up and take home to Utah. He arrived Friday at 4:00pm, and after a dinner (that he paid for!) loaded our extraneous TV's, stereo's, etc. and started the long drive back to Salt Lake City around 9:00 that night.

Our local "do everything" guys finished up all the power washing, deck sealing, interior and exterior painting so that the house is ready to rent.

I also managed to finally get all the parts and pieces back into the correct place after undertaking the task of replacing the impeller on our 9.9 HP Mercury outboard. I now know a lot more about outboards than I had ever intended to find out.

We are now getting ready to leave with our friends Jim & Karen Mullins and Dave & Lisa Kapp to cruise over to Galesville for a restful evening on the hook. This will be a bit of a shake down cruise as long tall Dave will get to try out the forward bunk for size and comfort.

Next week should be a bit less hetic, but we still have to get ready for the yard sale and finish packing stuff that is going into storage.

That's it for now.

Gerry & Linda
Monk's Vineyard
AGCLA Member #5108