Thursday, May 21, 2009

Another gorgeous spring day! Maureen stayed back at the motel to work on the blog while Gale drove to New London to meet Casey at the USCGA mail room. We had ordered a cover for our Magma grill and had it shipped to Casey’s address in hopes that it would arrive in New London about the same time we did. According to the UPS tracking system, they had attempted delivery yesterday but the facility was closed due to graduation. UPS delivered today and we were pleased that we did not have to go chasing our boat grill cover all over the country!
Gale returned to the motel around 11 am when we checked out and hit the road. Traffic was moving along so the drive took only about 2-1/2 hours. When we were back in the area of the marina, we stopped first at Frank’s Wood Signs. Gale was hoping to get a sign made with our Coast Guard documentation number routered on a board. According to the regulations, this board must be permanently affixed to the hull. Fines up to $10,000 can be assessed if the boat is not in compliance. Unfortunately, Frank was not feeling well today and his wife said he wouldn’t be able to make the sign with such short notice. Our next stop was at a small marine dealer which we had noticed on our way out of town on Tuesday. We had been having some problems with our dinghy outboard and Gale was thinking about trading it in for a smaller Yamaha motor. Unfortunately here, the dealer didn’t take trades but would be willing to broker the motor for us. We weren’t sure we wanted to do this.
Maureen dropped Gale off at the marina and headed for the grocery store for provisions. Gale was going to work on the documentation number board for the boat. When she returned to the marina lot at 5 pm, Gale and Lucy were waiting at the top of the pier. They were actually waiting for ‘George’ who was coming to work on the dinghy motor. We had met George on Tuesday when we stopped at a marine dealer looking for a mechanic. He had been working on a motor outside and Gale had given him our phone number in case he might be interested in doing a little work “on the side.” George was able to repair the motor in about 30 minutes! Everyone was happy: George had a little extra cash in his pocket and we had a motor we could use!
We had planned to leave Atlantic Highlands marina tomorrow morning, but we both felt like we had been pushing too hard for the last several days. The weather report for tomorrow sounded like another lovely day so the decision was made to hang out until sometime Saturday.