Lemonade from lemons

Lemonade from Lemons

Yesterday we headed to Melbourne to accept Al’s gracious offer to tie up at the Melbourne Yacht Club for the night. It was still pretty cold, but the wind was more at our backs, so it was a much more comfortable ride.

We are making good time, so it may be a fairly short day.

Then…the engine starts making a new and different noise. Check it out, but can’t see anything wrong. But it gets worse, so shut down the engine and Reggie climbs into the hole for a closer look. Hmmm. A bolt lying on top of the battery box? Oh, and here is another one. Two sheared bolts, not really a good thing. There is the first lemon.

Squeeze it, add a little sugar and we are sailing for the first time this trip! Not very fast, but at least the wind is not on the nose. We are able to sail into the harbor, but the wind is a little too fluky, and the harbor quite narrow, so we slowly idle to the dock.

The Melbourne Yacht Club is nice and the people are friendly. Another glass of lemonade, with showers to boot. Al takes us to get our new fenders pumped up and pick up a few groceries. Once Missy is finished with the Yacht Club Board Meeting we all go out for a tasty dinner.

Today we are waiting for the mechanic to arrive. There is one right here in Melbourne, as luck would have it! Thank you, I would like another glass of lemonade. Projects are getting checked off of our list while we wait for the engine dealer mechanic to show up. 

However the sweetest glass for me is the wildlife here in the harbor. Manatees are real! We have looked and looked for them in our travels and never seen one. We had finally concluded that they were snipes. There are so many here! I never get tired of watching them swim by Submit. There are also dolphins and tons of pelicans. I was entertained for an hour or so by a young man in his little boat fishing here. He pulled in maybe 20 fish. He never sat down, just cast his line and reeled it in.  When he hooked a fish the pelican would try to get it away from him. He would yell at them, wave his arms and sometimes even push them off of his boat. One got tangled in his line during one of the scrimmages. No one was concerned. The pelican just calmly waited while the fisherman untangled him and then pushed him overboard. It was quite an action packed show.  Oh, yes, occasionally he would want to move just a short distance, so he grabbed his snow shovel to paddle to where he wanted to be. I was sorry to see him go.