Sincerely, Denise

GOOSE BAY ON ANCHOR

Wednesday, July 22^nd

So we have a problem with the Garmin on the whaler – the depth sounder is working but none of the charting, which makes fishing a bit difficult. The boys were going to go fishing regardless this morning but at 5:30AM it was socked in pretty good so they had to wait for a little clearing of fog before setting out. Since we’ve been here a number of times, John felt like he knew his way around enough to manage without charting, may have been a bit white knuckle for Greg! I had a glorious lie-in, would wake up then doze back off again on repeat, finally getting up at 9AM! For those that know me well, my usual get-up time is somewhere between 5:30-6:30, every day, so this was probably an indication of sleep deprivation! Just as I sat down with my first cup of coffee for the day, the boys motored back into the bay, John caught a nice fish but lost his brand new downrigger ball – ouch - $55. Apparently, they were busy trying to fix Greg’s reel and didn’t notice the depth came up so basically the steel ball hit the rocks below, broke the line, and that’s all she wrote. We spent the rest of the morning trying to fix the Garmin, downloading new software and charts, and as of this writing it is still downloading. We are hoping, fingers crossed, that this will fix the problem! Mai Tai Tai pulled out this morning but now we have a new boat next to us, anchored a little too close as well, and he’s on top of crab pots! A huge Nordhavn – so another bad choice on his part being too close to us and the pots. We hope this goes ok for all involved.

SUCCESS! After hours and hours of deleting files on the SD card for the whaler Garmin, reformatting, and downloading software and charts, and 4 hours of our life we will never get back….the new information now works on the whaler Garmin! Hooray! We have navigation abilities back. Before it was finished however, the boys went back out fishing and were skunked, two fish lost right at the boat. I am secretly glad because I am the chief fish processor after it’s filleted, and I wash and carve into portions and vacuum seal. I wasn’t in the mood! I did get a nice paddle in my kayak this afternoon into the back (very shallow) bay, where there really wasn’t much of interest except what appeared to be a seagull nursery. I noticed a large group of gulls, stationary and some resting on their bellies on a sandbar. As I got closer two gulls were chattering at me and flying overhead clearly upset I was close (which I really wasn’t). As I paddled close enough to see with binoculars, it appeared there were baby seagulls learning to harvest food on the sandbar while the adults watched. I couldn’t have gotten closer if I wanted to short of getting out of the kayak and walking to shore, it was 6” deep! There were some abandoned docks on shore, a flock of Canadian Geese, and two sets of Mergansers (ducks) that have the funniest get-away routine. They are rather skittish and would take off in a group power swimming away from me when I wasn’t even remotely close. So unique!

We set out some crab pots this evening, and I made a sheet pan taco dinner and passed off half of it to the Abells on their boat as Connie isn’t feeling well. It was a late dinner so after cleanup of the galley, my book and bed were welcome.