today i am very pleased and proud to announce that pam and i successfully docked cricket with no pressure, no mishaps, no bad feelings! the dock we docked upon was into a fairly narrow opening, into a cute little river that extends up into the town of oxford. it is lined on both sides with boat docks. lots of pretty boats. lots of not so pretty boats. sail boats, motor boats, pleasure boats, work boats. plenty of reason here to feel the pressure, but we took plenty of deep breaths beforehand, and drove in, and docked her. it took two passes at the dock, but we both knew we'd finallize the docking procedures when we were good and ready to do so! yeah for us!
the reason for docking the boat today, instead of simply finding another easy anchorage was not simply for the practice, or to make us feel better about such manoeuvres. nope. we really wanted to figure out our electrical issues once and for all! we pulled up to the dock, walked to the oxford marina buildings, found the offices (more challanging than it sounds. everybody there says, "it's in that blue building over there," but all of the buildings are blue! and the office doesn't say "office" anywhere on it). anyway, when we entered we were greeted by a great big rottweiler dog, with a long string of drewl hanging down his starboard jowl. a very nice greeting, as far as we were concearned. we found out later that this dog's nickname was nettles, after the long stringy nettles jellyfish all over the bay. we were directed into a room with a couple of chairs, a desk and a man behind the desk. as soon as he spoke, we knew we were in the right place! not only was he friendly, and interested in hearing our whole boring story about our electrics, but he also had the best english accent. could listen to it all day, and we did get to hear quite a lot of it, because he took plenty of time with us to explain in patient words we could understand all about how our electric system works. wonderful! he also tested this and that, and fixed a few things that have been annoying us, and causing us to be very electrically "shy." at one point he had his head buried in one of the spots with batteries, voltage regulators and the like, and we saw him pull out his wire cutters and heard "snip." pam and i both gasped, and he said in a very cheery voice, "don't worry! i'm a professional. this won't hurt a bit!" he was right. our battery, the one that didn't start our engine in a crucial time of need was soon charging up like it should have been. it was great to find a competant, friendly, wholistic boat healer.
we celebrated with a pint of homemade ice cream each, and motored our way to nearby latrap river. that is where we are now, anchored in a pretty little "lagoon." there are three other sailboats sharing this harbor with us with their anchor lights shining on the tops of their masts, reflecting on the water.
earlier this evening we had a lovely visit from our news friends, the urban couple, who are also anchored in this bay. we laughed, told stories, and they taught us how to play cannasta. such amazing community on these waters! we are blessed!
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