August 5, 2021, Thursday, Jefferson Beach Marina, St. Clair Shores MI

Well, today started a little differently. I got up about 5:30 to use the head. Back in bed I noticed that it was still pumping, which was not good. It's a toilet like on a plane that works with pressure, and the pressure would not build up. I shut it off and went back to bed. And of course I laid there worrying about it. Can't have a cruise without a functioning head. Then I wondered how I would get it fixed if it was broken. Then I started thinking about things/systems that could break on the boat that one could get along without. I decided there were not many. So, I got up at 6:30 and fiddled with it for awhile and it appeared to start working correctly again. Then back to bed. It worked all day after that.

Again today I was up and had the blog posted and first coffee finished by 8:00AM. I even got an Atta Boy from Big Jim for timely postings. Peter came over a little later for a double hit of cappuccino. He brought a plate of cookies from Marianna with him which was very nice. 

I talked Kerry into getting up with a tempting pot of tea and the prospect of shopping. We all took off on our bikes a little after 10:00 and were gone until 3:00. First stop was at Mike's Marine where I bought teak oil for Kerry to treat our interior wood and Peter bought another pair of boat shoes - just like the pair he bought yesterday at West Marine. They have been hard to get so apparently it pays to pounce when the bird is in the hand. A nice gift shop was next. Then we were off to an Ace Hardware about 2 miles away. On the way back we stopped for lunch at Shores Inn which looked like a pub and had a wonderful open air patio. We had a fabulous pizza. I ordered a 20 ounce Guinness only to hear shortly from the server that their Guinness keg had just run dry! I tired to get one last night too without success. Now I am on a mission.

We had a nice tour of St. Clair Shores on our trip. We found nice neighborhoods, stores, shopping etc. Overall we raised our opinion of staying here even though the marina is a negative. Not because it is bad, it's just a big concrete commercial marina and not what we prefer. They do have lovely residential canals here in St. Clair that lead right to the lake, like in Vermilion. We all took naps once we were back at the boats.

Anne called on her way home from work, about 4:15. She was all fired up because her friend, Joy, had blown up their long planned vacation with the kids for next week. Anne had gone through all sorts of gyrations to arrange her schedule to accommodate her friend who now just canceled the trip for 'questionable' reasons without telling Anne until a week later. That got us up and going again.

We went to Brillig for cocktails and dinner at 5:00. Peter had said cocktails at 5:00 and appetizers at 5:30. On schedule, Marianna brought out a huge tray of good food. I did not eat too much because I said I would not be hungry for dinner. It turned out this was dinner - oops! Well, I was able to eat a lot more once I knew that. 

We sipped on peach schnapps after dinner which were very light and refreshing.  Then Peter and I went on a long ride in his dingy to look at all the boats. It was a long ride because there are 900 boats to look at! We saw a nice 39' Nordic Tug which is a boat that Marianna really likes.

We decided to depart at 9:00 tomorrow. At some place, here or Algonac, we will stop for fuel and a pumpout. The trip is around 19 miles if we take the shorter route that goes by the Old Club on Harsens's Island. I plan to let my Navionics phone app chart the course and follow it like I did coming here. We've traveled about 90 miles so far.