Wed May 26: Kent Narrows to Swan Creek mooring ball

 In which we FINALLY come unstuck ...

It took a massive effort, but we finally pried ourselves away from the dock at Kent Narrows.  Do you remember that scene from the Steve Martin movie, The Jerk? - 'all I need is this trashcan....and this....oh, and this....'   It was sort of like that.  So many delays - There was a load of laundry, I needed to get some work done while we still had good power/internet, Rick needed to buy (WHAT?  WHAT could we possibly need that we haven't ALREADY BOUGHT in this forsaken neck of the woods?) something something (had to make another run to a hardware store so as not to have hardware-store-withdrawal) and a bag of oranges for the friends we are planning to meet soon. It took forever to decouple the water, power, lines, etc - we had forgotten, again, how to do things. It was frustrating - nothing was happening, you know, Wright Aweigh!

This one amuses me on a couple of levels.  Like, do it quickly, or give the right of way!

But, nine-years-later, we were on the radio asking the Kent Narrows Bridge operator for permission to pass and we headed north.  Mr Weather reported that the lovely day was going to 'fall apart later' (a technical term, I assume) so we only went 15 miles, and then tucked up in Swan Creek on a mooring ball.  You know how I love a good mooring ball.  I know it's safe, I know we won't have endless anchor noise and it's usually peaceful.  Other then the machine pounding in a piling, making my expensive dental work rattle, it was peaceful.  It's a generations-old family-run marina, which we like to support.  The owner told us that Memorial Day was going to be the busiest they had seen since 2007, right before the crash. Lots of pent up demand ...

I'm not going to lie - we were pretty much sitting in puddles of our own sweat.  Rick said 'but we went north - it's supposed to be cooler north' and I pointed out that we had come all of 15 miles north'....but after the sun went down the storm rolled in, and brought cool air.  As well as menacing winds and tornado-ish clouds.  The 30-35mph gusts made me so nervous I had to go down below for a little while, and hide under the covers.  That always-spooky sound of wind moaning through the sailboat rigging, at the near-by marina, didn't help.  It was like the time my friend, Deb, visited us and started thinking of all the derelict boats and couldn't sleep for worrying about ghosts coming aboard.

But soon the wind passed, and our favorite part began - rain, thunder and a spectacular lightening show that lasted for 45+  minutes.  It was wonderful to have a front row seat to nature's raw show.  We ended the night be watching Eurovision: Fire Saga.  OMG - so silly; Will Farrell, need I say more.  But the show nature put on was the better one...

Lightening in the distance.