Settling In

A brief update, for I have not been allowed to linger as I would like, we've got a date with the volleyball net:

So fly tape is a torturous tool, yet absolutely effective method of getting those daredevil and blood thirsty flies that dare to linger in our cabin waiting for a bite.   I didn't feel very proud to have these hanging around our boat, and getting our hair madly stuck multiple times, or hear the poor buggers stuck with no place to go, but man, it was relief at it's finest.  Not to mention a little bit of a sickly-sort-of-humor when the tape would heat up in the sun and the goo would melt allowing the flies to become free for a moment, but as soon as they landed, their poor feet or wings were covered and they were just then stuck to another place in our boat.

Can you tell yet that flies have been some of our greatest entertainment in recent days?  I feel insane for spending so much time talking about it!  OKAY..onward

We have "more time than money" as I always say, so thus enjoyed a 6 hour sail from Copper Harbor to Eagle Harbor with a steady 2.5 knots.  Oh may I mention, this 6 hours, was for a 15 mile stretch.  Maybe laughable, but when time and patience are a surplus and money isn't....well..you would probably do the same.

Eagle Harbor was beautiful and complete with sharing a 1/2 pound pesto burger at the only place with food in the whole town.  Flies started to subside and sailing became more romantic than insanity.  As we woke early to leave, and headed out of the harbor, we couldn't help but notice extremely dark clouds in the West.  Immediately doing a 180 back, checking the weather on the way...yep severe winds and thunderstorms headed our way.  Not a great time to set out.  So we enjoyed loitering in the harbor as an awesome downpour passed, tucked in and as safe as could be, then motored...sadly but safely...to the Upper Entry of the Portage Canal, about 25 nautical miles.

This is Corey proud and sweaty to cause all the traffic in Houghton/Hancock to stop on our behalf, for our sailboat does not make the 32' clearance of the bridge.  First time Zephyrus has had the honor of a bridge lifting!

We finally got food to my delight.  And Corey finally cooked a meal, to my delight.  And to my not-delight, he also dropped our radar-deflector overboard (this helps us to show up on the radar of freighters as sailboats don't have much surface area) that my dad made...then the following morning dropped one of our only eating bowls over.  (Bringing up bad memories of the wok from two summers ago)...for such an athletic man, how can he have such butterfingers?  So we learn to laugh and forgive slowly and surely.  Sometimes boat life causes you to see the substance of your relationship....and that's a great and terrible thing. ;)

So as we loiter in Houghton to wait out the coming storms, on a free wall, with plenty of wakes from the men who flex their muscles in jet-boats...it has been a beautiful time to remember the joys of living on a boat.  Doing some upgrades (below) to the boat and lots of other stuff I will probably get poetic about later, because I am now 10 minutes past my "time" when Corey "ordered" me to come back for supper.  haha...we have found, we are terribly slow at everything beginning the moment we started to live on this boat....you can't take a slow sailor out of the sailor.

Our tentative plan, always weather depending, is to leave Saturday for Ontonagon.   

YEA!

M