Rainy day boat guests (2013-06-22)

The plan was to have guests out for the day last Saturday, have a nice run down the river and enjoy some food and friendship.  Mother Nature had another plan for us though...

Her plan included rain and numerous thunderstorm watches.  So, being the flexible soon-to-be cruisers that we are, we set up the cockpit cover, broke out the folding chairs and had a great day snug and dry inside the boat, all the while safely tied up at our slip.

We had quite a crew on the boat that day as well.  Both of our kids and their significant others, and two couples that Dar knew from her yoga class put the total occupancy up to 10.  It was surprising how comfortable we all were in the salon (with a bit of overflow space in the cockpit being used).  It was good reinforcement for my rule of thumb for guests on the boat;

-- M/V September Dream -- 

Entertains 10, feeds 6 but only sleeps 2.

Our daughter and son surprised us with a couple more "Bon-Voyage" gifts.  They gave Dar a Sea Eagle SE-330 inflatable kayak.  This was a very appreciated gift as Dar was still coming to grips with having to leave our hard shell kayaks behind.  This kayak is able to carry two people or up to 227 kg, is rated for class 3 rapids (I have no idea what the rating refers to, but it sure sounds impressive - and something that we're not likely to experience, except perhaps by accident :-)), but packs up into a relatively small package. 

My gift was a GoPro Hero3 White Edition video camera.  I had mentioned being interested in a waterproof camera after having seen our daughter's in Jamaica this past winter.  Of course, now I'm going to have to start getting creative and begin making some videos.  I figure I'll just strap it to the flybridge and have it going all the time so that it will capture our sailing off of the edge of the world and flying past the elephants and the great turtle [1].

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[1] Check this link out if you are trying to figure out what I meant... :-)