Our New Toy!

Boy, have we been having fun!  On Wednesday, Calvin finally had a day off from work so Max and I had a great time introducing him to the yacht club.  The boys had a ball playing on the beach, playing tennis, playing basketball and eating ice cream.  I enjoyed a good book!

All week, we have been talking about the boat, preparing for the boat, paying for the boat and dreaming about the boat.  Finally on Saturday, the boat became a reality and officially ours!   Calvin had to work all weekend so he couldn't join us for the pick up so Max, Josh, Coco and I ventured out!  We had to pick up the boat in Ashtabula and then sail it to our yacht club.  This is about 51 miles by car but we found out that it takes a very long time when you are sailing in a boat, directly into the wind.  We loved it though!  We were thrilled with every thing about the boat and it handled beautifully!  We were exhausted though by the time we arrived in Mentor, almost 10 hours later!  We certainly got a work out, especially when the boat was listing at 30-40 degrees and we were trying to keep ourselves upright!  Coco loved the boat except when she could not get her footing, she was then simply worn out!

Our beautiful yacht club greeted us with a gorgeous sunset and we pulled smoothly into our new dock.  We quickly cleaned up and secured the boat before driving home for a much needed shower and good night's sleep.

On Sunday, we were back at the yacht club and out on the boat!  We took an easy sail to the west and could even see downtown Cleveland off in the distance.   Once again, it took us longer to get back that we expected though but we managed and even made it in time for our dinner reservation at 7:30. We enjoyed a fantastic 4th of July buffet meal on the patio of the club.

We met lots of our dock "neighbors" and found ourselves to be in a very friendly group of people.  Mostly sailors with boats similar to ours but a few motor boaters are thrown in as well.  We enjoyed a perfect view of the yacht club fireworks from the deck of our own boat!

We then spent the night on our boat!  It has beds for 5 and since we were just 3, we were all very comfortable and the temperature was just about perfect!  Unfortunately, the lagoon was noisy all night long because of holiday celebrations so sleep was not perfect.  We also discovered that the gentle little, "tink, tink" sound that comes from the ropes hitting the mast in the breeze which we find so pleasant during the day, is not so pleasant during the night and sounds much more like someone rapping on the boat near your head all night long!  At  4 a.m., Josh was able to crawl around in the dark and tie some ropes to get it under control.  We will know better next time!  This morning greeted us with yet another gorgeous and breezy day!  We spent the morning, sipping our coffee, chatting with neighbors and reading our books before getting the boat back into shape to leave for a week while we go on vacation in Michigan.