Friday, May 9, 2014 We Become a Trawler Today!

I woke up to men talking outside the boat.  Mike, the owner of the marina, warned that he would be up early to gill-net herring to sell.  There is a striper tournament going on during the month of May.  These bait fish are about 6 inches long and cost $3 each or 4 for $10…expensive bait!  Mike says the huge stripers like the live bait. 

Today’s the day our mast comes down…around 8 am.  It was raining
hard early this morning but has quit.  We’re hoping the rain holds off until the mast is down and lashed to the boat.  Our luck might not hold out though because the  skies are very dark grey and threatening.   At 8:30, Mike was ready to get started.  It took the guys awhile to turn our mast so the spreaders were faced correctly…one vertical to the deck of the boat and the other basically horizontal.  They need to make sure neither spreader is hanging out passed the plane of the hull of the boat.  We can’t afford to have either hit the cement walls of the locks!! Once the mast was positioned on the braces, then it’s time to clean up the lines by tying them together and strapping both the mast and boom to the boat so they are secure. Now by 10:30 am, we’re back to being a trawler!

There’s another sailboat waiting in line to have his mast lowered at 11 am.  So, we have to switch docks with this pushy French Canadian.   When I made reservations, I booked a slip for tonight also.  This way we can get an early start in the morning.  So, I can get our laundry done and we can take a taxi to the store…$4 each way for the two of us…not bad but a courtesy car would have been ideal!  Of course while we’re shopping, my eyes acted up.  I could feel a terrible migraine coming on.  We went to the Subway inside of Wal-Mart so I could sit down and close my eyes.  Chuck ordered some food and drink for us and then went to buy me some Advil.  The sooner I get Tylenol or whatever into my system, the quicker I seem to recover from the migraine.  It took a good 30 minutes for my eyes to get back to normal and we then finished our shopping.  I hate these little incidences!  Before we called the cab, Chuck spotted a Radio Shack across the parking lot.  We walked there to see if they had a replacement battery for my camera.  My present battery has not been keeping its charge and I was hoping it would make it until we got home.  But Radio Shack had the battery…yeah!  The cab took 15 minutes to come but we were back to our boat in no time.

We were both ready for some exercise so we walked, in the mist,  into Catskill.  The main drag is about 6 blocks up a hill that follows the Catskill Creek.  The homes along this street must have housed very affluent families during their glory days.  Now, they could use some tender loving care!  Just like many other towns and cities in the USA, this town is very depressed.  

Time to wash and dry 2 loads of  clothes before we head out….