July 27, 2021, Monday, VYC

I had planned to leave for Lorain by 7:00 today but I noticed at 6:10 that it was light enough to start the undocking process. So I got up and at 'em and quickly got Kerry up and involved. We pulled out right at 6:30. Leaving the dock was a little tricky because of a cross wind and narrow channel. We used our marriage savers to communicate and had a perfect un-docking maneuver. 

The trip to Parker Marine in Lorain was very pleasant. We had a following sea with 1-2 foot waves and just putted along at about 8 knots. Because we had to go no wake in the Black River our overall speed for the 29 mile trip was 7.4 knots. We arrived at 10:30.  Dick Parker was there to help us dock. 

Dick offered to drive us to Vermilion but once he said they were going to work on Annie right away we said we would be happy to just wait. Dick assigned Mark Thomas to the job. Mark is our favorite repair technician. He is so good and treats Annie like his own boat. It is no understatement to say he has spent a couple of hundred hours working on Annie. He literally has rewired the entire boat.

Mark quickly determined that the hatch hinge screws would not be coming loose and that the only way to fix the problem was to remove the hatch - drastic surgery. But as it turns out, the hatch frame was very poorly sealed in place. So in about 5 minutes it was out and the top was reattached. We cleaned the surfaces, put down new silicone and fitted the hatch back on. As luck would have it, a screw broke in half as Mark was securing the hatch in place. So we had to remove the hatch, clean off all the new silicone, dig out the broken screw and start over. In short order the hatch repair was done - again.

Kerry made lunch for us once the job was done. We like Mark and had a nice visit. His dad was the sailmaker George Thomas who we use to buy our racing sails from when we sailed dingys at Atwood Lake.

We motored out of the Black River at 2:30 and were in Vermilion by 4:30. It's 13 miles from Parker Marine to VYC. Again it was a nice ride. We listened to music on Alexa as we motored home. Our current favorite song is "Seven Spanish Angels" by Willie Nelson and Ray Charles. I also listened to some of my Pat Dailey favorites. So far on this trip we have gone 86.5 miles. It is our second cruise this year and the second time we came back earlier than planned because of a maintenance issue. 

Once we were docked and organized I made refreshing martini's for both of us. Jimbo called just as we started sipping and accepted our invitation  to join us. After cocktails and pistachio nuts we set sail for dinner at Rudy's, picking Jola up on the way over. I tried unsuccessfully to talk Jim into coming over at midnight and turning the hose on our hatch to see if the leak was gone. 

We were tired once we were back on Annie. I started writing this blog and Kerry read for awhile. I was in bed by 9:00. Again we slept in air conditioning because of the high humidity. We will go home tomorrow morning.

This weekend we start a 2-3 week cruise with the Orros. We have reservations for every night except the first because of limited dock availability. Kerry and I need to decide when we will leave. They are staying on Middle Bass Island on Friday and Saturday nights. We may go to East Harbor to anchor or PIB on Saturday and join up with them on Sunday.