Sun Aug 7: QC to Portneuf marina

Some days it’s possible to feel welcoming and enthusiastic about the character-building opportunities that have been thrust, willy-nilly, upon you.

This was NOT one of those days... Rather, it was a Terrible, Horrible, not Good, Very Bad Day. 

The day started with a Lock Debacle of grand proportions - although, to be fair, it could have gone way, WAY worse than it did.  We made several mistakes getting into the lock - which we are pretty salty about because we know better. First, we should have taken time to get a better idea of what the wind was doing.  Second, we should have waited until the second boat into the lock got settled, before entering.  Third, we should have just waited until the next lock cycle so that the port dock was open. Shoulda, woulda, coulda...

The first two boats tied up on the port side, which seemed good to us, since I prefer to drive to the starboard side in a lock. It turns out they were on that side for a reason, and if we had waited we would have been able to also lock on that side, just behind the second boat.  But NOOOOOO - I headed for the starboard side and as soon as we were halfway in the wind just SHOVED us to the port side. In order to get a line on the cleat before we hit the other boats (and not just a tap) Rick did a Spider-man leap from the boat to the dock in the lock and braced with his whole weight.  But once the midline was on, with no stern line on, the boat was on a pivot and the bow slammed into the dock and the stern headed right for the other boats. We scrambled to get a stern line on and Rick heroically finally got the entire 20,000 lbs under control, with no damage to the others, or to the dock wall/doors/dock.  Our bow,  however, now has a quarter size piece missing.  We  haven't messed up a locking that badly since our first year.  And we could feel the eyes of the lock master, the other boaters and all the spectators just BORING into us.... So we started the day shaken and demoralized ...

Here is my inelegant drawing of the interior of the lock.  Notice that only one of the boats is a hot mess.

We were starting to shake off the self-flagellation when we became aware of the storm building up in front of us.

It's a lovely day - BEHIND us.

And this is what it looked like in front of us.

Waterspouts.  AWESOME....  Just what we need.

See the little tiny dot in the center of the radar?  That's us.  And the encircling, terrifying specter? That's the rain about to hit.

Once the rain hit visibility was reduced to 30 feet and the giant ship in front of us completely disappeared.  To add a little spice to things, it was windy enough to blow our solar panel right off the roof (luckily it got caught on the deck and we didn't lose it).  I got so nervous I put my life jacket on, and built a ditch bag (which really should be ready every day). Between the storm and the Great Lock Debacle we both just about gave up on boating...

We limped into the Portneuf Marina - too frazzled to continue on...

They can’t all be halcyon days, I guess. Although I’d like to speak to whoever made that a rule…