Stella is still floating!

Wow, is summer sailing by.  Stella has been seeing way too much of the dock.  Well, we are changing that up this weekend!  We have a boat day scheduled for Friday!  12 guests and a forecast of 80 degrees and partly sunny!  Oh yeah, she will be happy.  Planning on anchoring on a sandbar and swimming into the beautiful sandy beach.  Then, let the games begin.  We are going to have a timed race up a huge sand dune.  So far the fastest time up is over 15 minutes with no heart attacks!  My goal will be to capture the climb on my camera while I am sipping a margarita!  Can't wait to share the outcome with everyone.  And while climbing up is a challenge.....when coming down most people make the mistake of trying to go fast and wind up tumbling down and eating sand! Hehe, we will see.

Blue skies and calm water,

Tracy

Stella was violated!

In general, you don't hear of too many boats getting broken into.  A couple of reasons, one is they are docked at a gated marina, a good decision in many cities. Another is that boaters are pretty aware of who and what belongs on their neighbors boats.  Where you dock your boat becomes your summer home.  Your neighboring boaters are your new "roomies" sorta speak.  And we watch out for each other.  Boaters also will take care of a problem if you aren't there, it is unwritten, and all boaters have received help or given it at one time or another.  So the code goes, and it works.

At our new dock we started locking Stella.  We never really did before as we were in a gated community.  But as we have gotten to know our new dock friends and the area we became lax.  Saturday night after a late night on the lake, we left Stella about midnight.  Not much going on at the dock, super quiet actually.  We didn't lock her.

Turned out we should have.  Capt. David arrived Sunday morning with the boys to fish off the dock.  Stella's canvas was unzipped and unsnapped.  Now, if we had had a storm, it might not have concerned David because wind has unzipped and messed with canvas tons.  But it had been calm, he had zipped and snapped Stella himself.  So, David was not sure what he was going to find inside.  Well, it seems Stella had a couple of late night guests.  I had cleaned the boat the night before when coming in, so nothing was out.  But this morning there was.  A couple cans of half empty beer, they must not have liked my "weak" 55's, and our Margarita Mix which I think they thought had alcohol in it was missing as well.  David quickly looked around Stella for other missing items and it seemed  there were none.  So, it turned out to be minor, our guess is kids saw us leave late and wanted to get some beer.  I am surprised I wasn't super mad, David thought I would be, but I was happy no damage was done.  I blame us for not locking her and now we are going to get some kind of light for our finger dock to deter teenagers from using Stella as a make out area!   I just wish Stella could tell us what really went on!!

Blue skies and calm water,
Tracy