It was another rough start to the day’s cruise.

Captain Tom, the leader of the cruise, got his tank filled with gas. Problem was that he has a diesel engine. He was telling the story of the time someone almost filled his tank with gas to the young gas station attendant. Wait..what??!? You didn’t want gas? He already put in 3 gallons of gasoline.

We were waiting for Captain Tom to fuel up before heading out when his son-in-law came rushing over asking if we had a siphon. It took awhile to find something to siphon the gas with. I heard the harbor master speak hurriedly to his wife on the phone asking her to find something that could be used. Captain Tom was patient, didn’t swear at the young man, and kept his cool. This fiasco delayed us by a couple of hours, but we weren’t on a schedule.

In the meantime, we shared our horror stories about running and sailing. Quite a few of the sailors are athletes as well.

This morning the winds were ideal with 2 to 3 foot waves. Our destination today is Fish Creek, a tourist town.

I’m not feeling as anxious today, although I am wanting to write something for our vow renewing ceremony. I didn’t get very far. Paul and I will be celebrating our 20th anniversary in a few days. As a ‘writer’, I want to create something meaningfully deep and profound. No pressure! I want to celebrate on the exact day and time we were married 20 years ago, but the weather looks iffy. Paul and I are planning on jumping off the back of Captain Tom’s boat afterwards.

We won’t be celebrating the day with family and close friends, but with complete strangers. To be honest, I wouldn’t invite half of the people that I did to my wedding if I got married again. Granted, some of our guests passed away.. I wouldn’t have the same people in my wedding party. I don’t know if they would even be invited, sadly. Friendships change, people change..The people I consider my best friends now I didn’t even know 20 years ago.

It is hot on the boat today. I was tempted to jump into the water that is over 100 feet deep. The sun beat down on us. Paul tried to make a shelter from the sun out of tarp. I simply took off my shirt (the other boats were far away). I leaned over the side and tried unsuccessfully to dip my toes in the bigger waves. 

The sky grew dark and it looked like we might be hit with storms on the open water. We started the motor, but once again it wasn’t working right. The motor died before making it into the harbor and we almost hit Captain Tom’s boat. I pushed our boat off of his carefully with my foot.

We were so sweltering hot when we got to the marina that we walked to the public beach nearby. The marina was packed with big boats. It seemed very crowded and hard to get to the beach even though it was close by. We could hear thunder in the distance but we didn’t care. The water was cool and refreshing. The storms parted around us.

Later in the evening we walked to a nearby pizza place for supper, but it was over an hour wait so we went somewhere else. Afterwards everyone went to bed early, but I was too upset to sleep.

Alex texted me during supper that he wanted to quit his job. He ended up staying out with his friends until 11 PM and had to get up for work in the morning at 4:30 AM. It had me stressed out.

I talked about it to a few people in the group. Captain Tom said that if you haven’t raised teenagers, then you can’t explain it. But if you have, no explanation is necessary. Captain Tom said when his son was 17 he left home for several weeks and wanted to drop out of school. As an adult, he is a successful business owner. Strangely it made me feel better.

Regardless, I slept poorly that night. Despite my worry, Alex made it to work on time.