Day 342 Relax and explore.

 

We spent the morning either reading (Tracy) or napping (me).  The first thing I knew it was lunch time.  Now that's "living the dream"!!  

I had to call Nobeltec on our navigation software problems since they have been trying to fix a few bugs we have developed.  They had sent me a new DVD of charts and needed to walk me through the installation since I'd screwed it up and the program would no longer even boot up.  Once Travis and I got together, he straightened me out as well as the program and with his help, we loaded all the new charts into the computer.  Since this was a new edition of the same program that I'd been running, we needed installation codes and unlock codes so that I would have access to the charts.  The old series of charts(Cape Flattery to Mexico was no longer a set area so he bumped me up to the entire West coast from Alaska all the way to Baja Mexico.  WOW!!! It was great.  Now we have all the charts we need to take us as far North as we want to go plus, the program works great.  So far, all the bugs are cleared up.  I'll be playing with it over the next few days to refine the information it shows me.

Once that was done, we launched our taxi--"Puff", loaded on the outboard "Dragon" and off we went for shore.  We putt putted around for a while and finally pulled up on a "beach"(gravel).  Since we were on private property, we didn't stay long.  Just time for a short hike and back into Puff for the ride back.  We did learn that it's better to wear boots when trying to get in and out of a dingy at the shore.  That water can be cold.   It was getting late and I still needed to tear down, lube and rebuild the windlass for the anchor.  Once back at Zephyr, off with the outboard(don't want it suddenly missing in the night) and on to the windlass.  

It didn't take long to strip it down, clean and lube it up with water proof grease.  Once back together, she rotates just fine and shouldn't cause us any more problems.  It can get frustrating pulling into an anchorage and the anchor won't play out when you need it to.  Our anchor weighs in at 65 pounds so that wheel was really stuck well.

We closed up the "patio" (cockpit) to keep in the Suns warmth and settled back with a nice bottle of wine and cheese.  A steak dinner was the menu for the evening.  A great way to spend our first day at anchor.  

Today, off to another inlet.  We'll see where the winds take us.

(remember, if you click on the photos they get bigger and easier to see)