Our First Night on a Mooring Buoy

Our evening moored at Spencer Spit was great. A cocktail on the top deck, sunset, water, wildlife, trees…it can't get much better. A sailboat was anchored a ways from us, but there were still no other boats at the mooring buoys on this side of the spit.

We tried out our generator this evening (runs great, super quiet, even quieter outside). I'm glad we're adding solar and an inverter though…kinda nice not to have to turn on the generator when you're underway just to make a quick espresso. 🙂

The evening was pretty (the STARS!!). A little later the wind picked up, and the boat hook that hangs on the ladder to the top deck was rhythmically slapping the side each time the boat rocked, so Kevin went outside to move it to the floor of the cockpit. Pretty soon he says in the "loud whisper" voice, "Come out here!!!" It's dark except for the stars and the light on top of Frost Island reflecting in the water, but I can hear it: loud breathing to my left. I look over as my eyes adjust to the darkness and I start to make out a shape in the water where the breathing is coming from. It's a fairly good sized harbor seal (I think), light in color, and curious. I talked to him for sec and he quick swirled under the boat to the other side. We followed. It was so cool! We were out there for about a half hour hanging out with the seal and the stars. There may have even been a couple seals…or maybe that was just his bubbly underwater ghost. It was hard to tell.

The boat rocking in the wind and waves and current was so nice all evening, but what we didn't realize was that down in the stateroom, our heads are basically right against the front of the hull, where the waves are slapping the most. It's quite loud, and made it a little hard for me to sleep. (This is probably what all those boats taking up the mooring balls on the on the other side of the spit already knew.)

Because I didn't have a good image of what the boat was doing during all that slapping and rocking, I had some really crazy dreams — pirates in ski masks getting ready to board our boat, giant eels, tiny claustrophobic locks, etc. At some point I decided to go up to the pilot house to look outside. I could see our boat slowly swinging side to side on the buoy (and again! those stars!!). Once I had the visual of, well, no pirates or eels, I was able to get a bit more sleep, but we'll want to pay more attention to the local knowledge for next time.

This morning it's foggy and rainy outside, but we have work to do anyway. Happy Monday!