After one heck of a first day, we were hopeful that Day 2 would be more mellow and enjoyable.

The plan was to head to a small anchorage just down the way from where we were. The area is called Dobbins Island. We visited Dobbins two years ago on our ASA 104 course, with Captain Dave and R & R Chartering. Since we have been there before, we figured why not check it out again, but this time on our own.

We slept in today, since we didn’t have to rush because the weather said it would be mild and sunny. After a low-key breakfast of oatmeal we prepped our stuff for sail-mode. It didn’t take too long since we hadn’t really cleaned things up from the day before, so we were out of the anchorage within an hour and on our way.

As we pulled out of the channel and into deeper waters, we raised our sails and attempted to sail towards our goal. However the wind was pretty much nonexistent. And in our boat, light wind is equivalent to no wind. So we decided to motor-sail the rest of the way there. It took us about 2 hours to go 13.5 nautical miles and we were anchored before 11AM.

Once we got there, we were so pleased that the day was super calm and sunny and there were no marinas around us! Dobbins is located in a relatively open area, where there are several patches of land with homes, but not much else. There is a beach there also, and a lot of people go to play on kayaks or power boats. It is extremely scenic so we were really pleased! Wish we had a paddle board or kayak or something to go play around in the water, but that’s okay because we really just wanted to sit back and soak it in.

Its really funny moving from place to place in the boat. There is this mental transition that happens every time we go from sailing-mode to life-mode (i.e. – after anchoring). Sailing mode requires a lot of gear in the cockpit but everything down below must be stored away (or it goes flying). In life mode, all that gear just gets in the way, and makes it feel cluttered and uncomfortable.

We have dedicated the back part of the boat, aka quarter-berth, as the garage. So all the useful sailing tools (and other tools) live there. If we aren’t careful and diligent, it gets really messy and cluttered really fast. So anytime we land at an anchorage, the first thing we do is clean up the sailing stuff, get things organized and then take out the ‘living stuff’, so we can be comfortable. Its a bit tedious but that’s just one of the joys of living this way.

So, once we situated ourselves for life-mode, I whipped up a really yummy batch of vegetable soup and then we sat out on the deck, reading and relaxing and people/boat watching. We also managed to accomplish chores like laundry. That’s still a little weird, washing clothes in a bucket and pinning them all around the boat to dry in the sun. We also managed to get some showers in! That was super weird and fun – showering on deck. Since there were other people around, we had to wear bathing suits, but still – kind of a fun experience.

As we sat, we saw a Beneteau pull into anchorage that looked A LOT like our friend, Captain Dave’s new boat. Once it landed, we could see the stern (that shows the name), and you would never believe it…but it WAS Captain Dave’s boat. NO WAY! What a small world.

We tried to hail him on our VHF, but he didn’t seem to have it on, and looked like he was in the middle of a class. How funny that he pulled in the exact same place that we had our class two years ago! We decided to row our dinghy over to his boat, since it was just a few hundred yards away from us. He was shocked to see us, and we chatted for a few minutes (since they were about to eat dinner). It was really cool to see him – so funny and random how life is.

That night we sat out on the foredeck and shared a beer as we watched the sunset. The stars came out and the evening breeze was a welcome relief from the warm day. It was PERFECT.

Seriously talk about a complete 180 from yesterday’s experience. This is our kind of anchoring – and our kind of cruising (I guess we could have used a little more wind), but it was pretty much a perfect day, and one that we hope to have time and time again on our cruising adventures.