Adagio Cruising: August 25, 2013

We had a short trip this weekend. Just 45 minutes from home to lovely, and secluded feeling Hope Island. It's a state park with virtually no amenities and is only accessibly by boat or kayak. Steve, Kevin and Cindy left shelter Bay at about 8:45AM Saturday while Kathy went off to Burlington to help staff the "Girls on the run" booth at the Burlington Back-To-School- Fair.

We dropped the anchor on the south side of Hope Island. While we waited for Kathy to finish her Burlington duties Cindy went knee boarding. We also played a few games. Kathy called to say she was on her way. She was bringing Cindy's friend Morgan and also Kevin's friend Madoc. We dingied over to the boat ramp on the "mainland" and got everybody. It was a very fun having their friends on board, but it was also not our usual boating experience. Having two more kids on board certainly adds to the energy level! The kids got a safety and rules briefing as soon as we got on board, and they certainly seemed to pay attention as we had virtually no rule breaking :-) The kids were great. We had no safety concerns.

On Sunday Cindy went kneeboarding again and Morgan went tubing. The weather was fantastic on Sunday with clear blue skies, no wind, and warm temps. That all changed at about 3:30 right after we dropped Madoc off back on shore. Morgan was returned to shore about 11:00AM. Anyway, around 3:30 the clouds rolled in and a breeze kicked in. It drove us back inside the boat where I (Steve) fell asleep on our settee. After dinner we motored back home to find another boat in our slip. Yikes, there was no other place to park out boat. Every place we could fit already had a boat tied up. Fortunately, the people were just returning to the boat after dropping somebody off. Phew! I'm not sure where we would have gone had they not returned right away; there aren't many places to park a 54' boat (overall length, bow sprit to swimstep) in Shelter Bay.