You know sometimes you go through periods where nothing seems to go very smoothly? Perhaps Mercury is in retrograde, or some other astrological alignment is misaligned, causing things to break down, go wrong, and be annoying. Or maybe it is just a little spell of bad luck, who knows. We have been going through one of those periods. Every day seems to hold some new complication to make life feel difficult. Thankfully, however, many of these problems COULD have been completely disastrous, but weren’t. Like the time last week when Cap’t K was going across the bridge on the scooter to a business appointment and noticed that our boat was missing from it’s spot in the anchorage. Yes, that’s right. Missing. Not there. Gone. WTF?!?!

Alarmed, he turned around and went out in the dinghy to investigate. He found Way Happy a ways away, aground on a sand bar. How did this happen? It wasn’t even windy. And we were on the mega anchor rooted to the bottom. It turned out that the shackle connecting our boat to the mega anchor had failed and Way Happy drifted off completey separated from the anchor. The biggest, heaviest chain in the world isn’t any good if the shackle breaks!! Cap’t K called me at work to tell me the news. Of course it was during a super busy time at the restaurant, and I was in the middle of taking care of 5 tables and rushing around like crazy. Not a good time to leave for a boat emergency. So somehow Cap’t K, managed to get the boat off the sand bar by himself (I still don’t understand how) and re-anchored Way Happy safely. The mega anchor and chain was now lost on the bottom again for some other sailors to snag on someday.

And then there was the time I was on my way to a relaxing yoga class and got in the dinghy and started zooming towards shore, only to notice that the dinghy was filling rapidly with water and the stern of the boat was starting to sink down into the water. Panic ensued and it was all I could do to get to the dock as fast as possible. When I managed to arrive safely, I realized that something had jarred the drain valve open and that’s why water was coming into the boat. Nothing serious, but by the time I had baled out all the water out of the dingy I was too late to get to class.

And maybe I shouldn’t even mention the time that Cap’t K accidentally put water into the diesel tank. Or the other morning when we had to get up at 4:30 am to deal with a fouled anchor line that was caught on the rudder of the boat.

But it’s not all bad. Some good things are happening too. For one thing, we had some friends come and visit us this weekend! Our cruising friends Roark and Sherri, who we traveled with last year on Wee Happy, came to see us in St. Augustine. They stayed overnight with us on Way Happy and they were so excited and impressed to see our new boat. Actually, “jealous” was the word Roark kept using over and over! It was fun to have people be so wowed by our boat, as the novelty of the bigger boat has worn off a bit for us by now. They also have a 27 foot wee boat, and they know as well as we do how challenging it is to inhabit a space that small. They walked around the boat in awe, saying things like “OMG, you can stand up in the bathroom!!”, and “look, they have a real sink!”

And Cap’t K has a new job opportunity. He is trying to get a job working on the Schooner Freedom, a 85 foot sailing vessel that does tours here in St. Augustine. He got to go out on it on Saturday, which was quite a treat. Hopefully he will be taking some shifts on it soon, keep your fingers crossed that it comes through. The temp job he is doing is not so great. In fact it is horrible. He is confined to a small cubicle in a large office building doing very boring computer work and I think it is really bad for his mental health.

Our new scooter still needs a name, but is doing well, aside for a few moody days when she dies for no reason. (must be Mercury again) I have started riding her too, even though I am scared of motorcycles.

So, on schooners and scooters we are moving forward.