This morning's report from the weather dude talked of gloom and doom just around the corner. That coupled with the over-population of boats off the Monument Beach lead us to up anchor and move around back behind February Point, where we anchored all by ourselves in 6 feet of water.
Once the boat was put to bed, Amy made me a breakfast death dog (hot dog) while I removed our #2 propane tank from the locker. It ran out of gas last night while I was making Chesapeake Bay Buffalo Wings. Tomorrow is propane day, so I thought I'd be prepared.
Once breakfast was finished, I hopped in the dinghy and headed over to Volleyball Beach. I haven't played ball in 4 or 5 days thanks to a combination of lack of players and a swollen foot, but today I was feeling pretty good so I gave it a try.
We had 6 players and pretty high winds, but the games were good. I was the sole American on the court and I'm proud to say, America only lost 1 game out of 9 or 10. USA! USA! USA!
After ball, I sat under the trees with Grouper Style (Ollie), Jamie (Nomada) and Matt (Mattina) sharing a couple of beers and mostly just watching the day drift by. At 1 pm, I dinghied over to the houseboat Tangelo to test fit a motor cover for the big boat and to borrow their dinghy for half an hour to take the second round of measurements for their chaps.
By 2 pm, I was done and speeding home across the harbour. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw motion. The super sensitive, Dream Catcher dingy collition avoidance radar detector (C.A.R.D.) started shrieking! "Danger Will Robinson, Danger!"
I had just started to back off on the throttle when "BLAMMO!" I smashed into a seagull doing about 25 knots.
The hapless bird got caught on the nose of the dinghy and then proceeded to bounce up and directly into my chest.
"AAAAAAH!" I cried out.
"BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRPPLT !!!!" my fowl friend responded.
The force of the impact sent the bird careening out into space much like Darth Vader's Tie Fighter at the end of Episode IV. I cannot report as to whether or not the bird survived the encounter as by the time I got slowed down and back under control, he was no longer visible, but I can however, report that I did not spill any of my beer.
Sorry bird, but alcohol abuse is not to be tolerated.
Back on the mother ship, I went for a swim to remove both the volleyball sand granules as well as the miscellaneous seagull particle matter from the impact. Afterwords, I showered off on the transom and then spent two hours online surfing the net and working on a few small projects I have outstanding.
At 4 pm, we loaded back into the dinghy and headed up to St. Francis for Tuesday night Texas Hold-em poker. We had a huge turn out, filling all 45 of our seats just 5 minutes into the hour long sign up session. We've definitely got some serious poker addicts down here.
The game was completed start to finish in 3 hours and 20 minutes. In the end, neither Amy nor I scored mega-bucks, but I was told that a good time was had by all.
We were home by 10:30. We would have been here sooner, but our flashlight died on the way home and we had some difficulty navigating our way. To bed at 11 pm after running the weasels. More to follow, end of line ....
P.S. - Today's picture is of our new, super secret, ocean side hide away where we have been taking megabrella on pleasant days. I have reversed the picture, left to right, in order to protect our location's identity.