Thar she blows!

The day began with Donnie tearing into Bessie again.  Nothing major,
just tightening up the fan belt and tending to the small leak on one
of the fuel injectors.  He also lined the engine compartment with the
disposable oil pads to catch any leaks. He doesn't think there is any,
and hopefully, this will just confirm it.  I left to do laundry.



Willis thought he was being helpful while I put laundry up..such a sassafras.



With chores out of the way, we invited Mac & Jean over for a swim and a
game of dominoes.  They were frolicking in the pool...Donnie was
calling them "Jughead and Peahead."



Not too far into our game, a storm blew up from the west...had to go
batten down the hatches and throw out another stern line.



Thar she blows!  The wind was a steady 35 knots.



In all the commotion, Willis assumed the storm position-
he covered his eyes.

After the storm blew through, which mostly brought wind and very
little rain, we opted to go to the Hurricane for dinner.  Willis was
invited, but he declined; he claimed he was so very, very tired.

Dan especially loves Taco Tuesday at the Hurricane, afterall, it's
only his eighteenth Tuesday in a row :)  Dan and Biddi will be
celebrating 44 years of marriage on 4/8, isn't that awesome?!

yep, we love taco Tuesday, too!

So yesterday was a no news kind of day, and today I got two good "news-es".  The first one is that we have a weather window, so Thursday we are casting off for the Dry Tortugas.  We plan to go diving and hiking at Fort Jefferson.  Hopefully, we can troll for some fish along the way.  More good news- Mac and Jean are going with us- we talked 'em into it!  That should be a riot, having the in-laws on an extended ocean sail!  I can just see Paps now, he'll have a life jacket wrapped around every limb on his body!  Either that, or he and Willis will be hanging their heads in the head together getting seasick...I surely hope not.

And there's even MORE good news!  Emily is flying down in fifteen days to come stay on the boat with us over the Easter holiday.  She'll get to experience boat living and beach life up close and personal.  I've been trying to tell her that we don't live like hobos!  I can't wait to show her all around the island. 

So, what started out as a ho-hum sort of day certainly ended on several positive notes!!!  Tomorrow I get to plan and provision the boat for a five day trip...my favorite OCD thing to do...plan and organize :)))