The weather hasn't been the best over the last few days – overcast and grey with rain – and we've been stuck inside the boat for the most part passing the time by knitting (me) and playing the guitar (David,who must be trying to get his callouses in shape for Shoal Bay). But even in this weather, the solar panels managed to put something back into the batteries. It may only be 3 to 5 amps every hour, but it's enough to run the fridge and then some. We still have to run our generator to top up the batteries, but that's turned out to be a blessing because we can also turn on our electric mattress pad while it's running leaving us with a nice warm, dry bed to get into.
We had a little excitement Sunday afternoon. It's been busy at the dock with boats coming and going as well as three float planes –one of which came within a few feet of wiping out our shrouds with its wing when it aborted an attempt to berth in front of us. It was close enough that several people along the dock were concerned and Ming came down to see what was happening. The plane ended up taking a spot in the middle of the dock slipping in between four other boats. T he pilot's efforts turned out to be for naught. The plane was from the US carrying American passengers without passports, so they weren't allowed to disembark – wonder how they'll get back into the US.
It was nice enough Sunday evening that we managed to drag ourselves off the boat before dinner and walk down the dock to join happy hour with Leah and Ray Bradford, a lovely couple from Nanaimo, and a group of others. But it's been raining and quiet since then. The good news is that the barometer's on the rise (1021 MB from 1007 MB) and showing sunshine which means we should have a spell of fine weather coming our way. We're not in a hurry to leave, so we'll stick around to enjoy it before making the long trek to Ballet Bay, our next stop.
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