As we were the first launch of the day we had stuff yet to do. We anchored of Spanishtown just off the reef in about 15 feet of water and Rick did some of the chores we should have done on the hard. Once complete we took the wind on the nose and motored to Gorda Sound and took a ball at Leverick. It will make for a more comfortable night as it is blowing a tad.
I have verified that tonight’s entree is not goat…it has gills and looks like red snapper.
Rick continues to fret and clean things. I have migrated to worthless and I can go there so easily now it is scary.
We are contemplating our new reality afloat. It is SO NICE! You have to pretend that Rick said it like that.
The Compass
Those of you who recreate on the water know how important a compass could be. Even though we have an abundance of devices; Ipads, Iphones, redundant gps, Ricks ancient GPS and the main GPS multifunction…it all could fail. The most important thing to know on a boat is where you are and if you know that you then know what direction to go, IF YOU HAVE A COMPASS.
We have a compass and Rick says it still works. In the past it was down some fluid. So Rick believed the guy who said drill a hole in the top and then fill it with vodka. OK, so a leaking compass lets add a source for the air to help the leak…don’t get ahead of me, of course the liquid leaks out.
We now have a dry compass, the only ‘DRY’ component of this vessel.It makes a squeaking noise when it tries to seek the magnetic pole of the earth…But Ricky says “It still works”.
The surveyor is with me, he says it does not still work and should be full of liquid and liquid that is not Vodka. He points out to Ricky that Vodka has many uses but filling the compass is not one of them. The fluid in a compass is a secret mix of glycerine and alcohol. Apparently the combination of those fluids knows where north is?
The surveyor as he did three years ago, put a check mark beside the box for replace compass and that ended it. Except Rick told the surveyor Greg would find a replacement for a 1978 Danforth binnacle compass on EBAY. Rick has never purchased a thing on EBAY and thinks it is a big box store like Costco. When the surveyor left Rick pronounced, it still works. 
The glass orb resembles one of those glass balls that profess to tell the future. I’m pretty sure what the future will bring if we have to dead reckon with that dry glass squeaking orb…
We could write numbers on the orb with magic marker and hope that the magic built into the marker would also tell us where North is and where we are going…Even the rats are thinking of leaving the ship. Wilson, Achmed and the parrot are staying regardless, they don’t want to miss anything.
Since I read this post to Rick he has informed me that we in fact have several compasses. One at the nav station, he has a hand held range finder, the binoculars have a compass. OK, we are not without compasses, only the one that is where you drive.
Rick also says he has his internal compass, some genetic thing????
Latah