Patience

So the Yamaha that we hoped to have hanging on the back of the Dink today is still dead. It will be dead for some unknown amount of time yet. It looks like even a day's delay will lead to yet a longer delay as tomorrow's weather window is a one day only offer. The next opportunity to head down the bay without getting beat up by waves and wind? Maybe Thursday. Maybe Friday. Maybe not.

How did we get here? The first new part we ordered was the wrong part. The second new part that we ordered was delivered over a holiday weekend and wasn't installed until this morning. The engine ran for two minutes, died, and would not restart. The current theory is that a control module failure of some kind fried the first charge coil when we were in Chesapeake City. Now it has done in the new replacement charge coil as well. So a new control module and another new charge coil is on order. The new control module is due in tomorrow. A new charge coil? That remains a mystery. In the meantime, the fancy motor mount bracket on the dink remains empty.

One of the many things I didn't know about living on a boat is that it will leave one with just two options. Option first is to completely lose one's mind. Option second is to become a paragon of patience, acceptance, and calmness. I am caught somewhere in between the two. I haven't quite lost my mind. But it may have been temporarily misplaced. I am certainly not any kind of paragon of patience. But I don't have much choice in the matter. The fact is the world will unfold as it will with zero regard as to how I want, or intend, for it to unfold. All I can do is try to make the best decisions based on what I know at this very moment. That the next moment may render those decisions null and void is simply how the world works. It is how the world works for everyone.

So we will sit here for a while yet, holding with the idea that getting this motor fixed, whatever it takes and however long it takes, is the best decision. Had we known the future we could have spent the dock fees we have spent here at docks at the the end of each of the legs coming up. Had we done that we would likely be somewhere in the Hudson River right now, moving away from the coast and done with big water until we get to the Great Lakes. But that isn't what happened. So I guess, so long as we are sitting here watching our decisions fade into a past that didn't happen, I might as well hunt around and see if I can find what little of my mind remains.

We spend a lot of time doing this...

And cleaning things like the very very dirty bug/sun screens

And exploring the Delaware Fort State Park where we found this diving bell. I kid you not, someone had to be lowered under the water in this thing to do repairs on the locks. The only air they had was what was in the bell. Yikes.

And we watch the constant parade of boats that go by

Mostly I sit in the cockpit enjoying the breeze blowing down the side deck while I read and do my Duolingo Spanish lessons.

A view from the flybridge