Friday, July 12, 2019

Day 10 - Onward to Kellys Island


It was a busy night on Bella Blue for all except me. I sleep like a rock on this boat, and unless there’s an explosion or somebody starts scratching the bottoms of my feet, I probably won’t wake up. Last night those north-east winds created a relentless swell that bounced the boat around like a carnival bumper car. In fact the boat was getting kicked around so much that Magnus fell off the couch where he was sleeping and landed on the floor. Ana told him to go sleep with Stella, which he did, but then she started complaining he was too hot and sweaty so she wanted to sleep with us, but there’s not enough room in our bunk, so instead she shoved Magnus to the bottom of the bed where he lied crossways. That was fine for a while but then, for some unknown reason, he started tugging on Stella’s legs and waking her up. So Ana went to sleep with both of them for a while, but then he started pulling on her legs too, so she abandoned them both and while she was up went outside to readjust the fenders because the boat was bashing into the dock posts. Tony too had similar issues and used up a roll of duct tape sticking pool floaties and foam squirt guns to his dock posts. But like I said, I slept right through the whole night so all of this is second hand information.

After breakfast the rest of my gang walks into town to check out a few more stores while Tony and Angela rent a golf car and do an island circuit. I stay back and fiddle around with things on the boat, and then at noon we shove off and proceed to the gas dock for a pump and dump at the Boardwalk marina which is the only place with diesel and a pump-out station. Of course, their concrete dock is flooded and there’s an inch or two of water on the concourse which everybody has to wade through. Our diesel fill-up goes great but we have a minor accident with the pump out machine. I finishing pumping out our holding tank and hand the hose back to Magnus, who in turn hands it to the dock hand, but the system has a little hiccup, or burp, or something, and a gallon or so of “content” oozes out of the hose and onto the flooded dock, right in front of the diners having lunch in the waterside restaurant. The dock hand tries spraying it away, which would have been fine on dry concrete, but in this case the aftermath is water bound so his spraying action just spreads it around, turning the water brown. Magnus is simply grossed out but Stella is completely horrified and embarrassed and runs back to hide in the boat and tells me I better not put this in the blog. It’s all part of the fun.


The north winds are still strong and provide a lovely sail over to Kellys Island, which is less than ten miles to the east. Stella pilots the boat for the first half and Magnus does the second and we are soon docked at the Portside marina on Kellys Island, helped in by the Cabin Fever crew as they have already arrived. Once we are settled we walk into downtown, which consists of two streets and maybe a dozen retail shops and restaurants, and browse around. The general store has a surprisingly robust plumbing, electrical and hardware section and I browse the stainless steel screw drawers while the sweet a/c pumps chilly wind onto my ankles - what a dreamy feeling. It reminds me how much I hate socks. Which reminds me how much I hate winter, so I go right back outside and let the sun beat down on me.

It is time for the golf cart tour so we rent a six seater and take off for a circuit of Kellys. There’s not really a lot to see (especially if it’s not your first time) but always entertaining nonetheless. We stop for a quick walk on the beach on the north bay and then another stop at the nearby Glacial Grooves, which yes, does sound like a funk band, but it’s actually a bunch of glacier scarred rocks that will draw out the inner geologist in you.


The gang decides to go out for dinner so we head to the Island House restaurant - a place we’ve visited several times before and always had fantastic food. This time, though, it is hit and miss. Tony has a spectacular walleye meal, I have lamb which is pretty good, but the girls’ vegetarian portobello burgers are not great and the kids’ food is just ok. Maybe they lost a good chef? The ice cream we have at the shack by the marina does make for a nice dessert.

As we are starting on a dock walk to check out some boats, poor Stella wipes out on a partially submerged dock section covered in algae and scrapes up her elbow, but more devastatingly, gets a bunch of green slime mashed into her fashionable outfit. After some motherly patch up, she is feeling better, and we all call it a night.

No comments:

Post a Comment