Saturday

After a very breezy and rainy Friday evening, we awoke to calmer, semi-cloudy conditions and decided to go to Suttons Bay for lunch (via boat).  We wanted to see if everything that had been installed was working properly.  We tied the dingy in our slip and took off.  As I may have mentioned, I never moved our previous boat of 11 years in and out of the slip...not once.  However after a couple of lessons with Ryan at Bay Breeze Yacht Sales, I am the official "docker" while Ron handles all of the lines.  We had a nice ride to Suttons Bay.  Water depth is up to 300 feet in many places.  Having an electronic chart plotter and radar lets you identify shoals (very shallow water) and other obstacles.  When entering a new harbor this is the scenario...Ron calls the harbor on the radio, "Suttons Bay, Suttons Bay...this is Adagio".  Suttons Bay responds and then asks the length and draft of our boat and assigns us a slip # and tells us whether it is a port or starboard tie-up.  (I prefer starboard tie-ups) While Ron gets the lines out of the rear storage compartment and reattaches them to the cleats, I steer slowly into the marina and look for the slip # on the end of a dock.  Since our boat is a single screw, our bow thruster is used for maneuvering.  Ron gives me verbal directions (no yelling allowed) and I follow the commands so that we can arrived unscathed.  We had lunch at Martha's...a great little place, and then returned to our slip at Centre Point Marina (Bay Breeze).  The 4 story building behind our slip hosted another wedding last night....a very noisy crowd.  Even though the weather was cool and calm, we decided to close up the boat and turn on the air so we could go to sleep.