Where the hell did all this stuff come from?

To be honest, all this stuff came off the boat last fall, was carefully packed away in our basement and is now back, ready to be put away.

And there's more in the v-berth, even our purple sheets.

This is our first weekend at our summer marina and like lots of others, it was time to unload and get ready for a great summer.  Our work plan for Saturday was for Bill to haul stuff down and then thoroughly vacuum the boat, wash the windows, etc.  It is much easier to have one person vacuum and we used our baby shop vac to suck up whatever had accumulated over the winter.

We should mention that the weather was terrible with rain just about all day on Saturday and lots of wind. Long Island Sound had a gale warning up but that's okay because we were nice and dry as we waltzed around with the vac.

With the interior of the boat clean, Frances arrived just in time for cocktail hour. This is also part of our work plan. Bill cleans and Frances puts everything away and makes the boat livable.

There would be no cooking tonight so we went for a fairly good pizza, delivered right to the boat.  We weren't the only people on A-dock to summon the pizza guy, believe me.

Frances made up the sparkling clean v-berth and we hit the sack fairly early.

On Sunday morning, Frances broke out the pots and pans and served up an excellent omelet while Bill dug into The New York Times. After breakfast, Frances washed the dishes and stacked up everything in her favorite dish drainer. That woman could fit dinner for eight in that thing!

Then the unpacking began with the most important things installed first. That round glass thingy that resides on the cabin door was first...

And then the bird, actually a wind chime.

With that out of the way, Bill applied himself to cleaning the cockpit and doing a little touch up in the engine space.

Then it was time to stop working and join everyone else on the dock in helping our friends Ron and Sue bring their 27-ft. Carver, Obsession, in for the first time this season.

Frances prepared what has almost become a tradition on our dock: once a boat docks for the first time, the gang on the dock holds up paper plates to score their docking skills. As you might imagine, everyone gets either a "9" or a "10."

This docking wasn't going to be easy since as soon as Ron turned to back in, the very strong wind was going to hit is starboard side and push him away.

And that's what happened, but Ron's long experience and the extra hands on the dock got them in safely.

Here's the crew talking through the usual after-action report.

These are people who, among others, make boating fun for us. From left, Bob, Mike, John, Sue, Joanne, Barbara and Frank.

Speaking of Frank and Barbara, here's a picture of them (at left) with their new boat, an absolutely beautiful 1997 Silverton 351 that they brought down from Rhode Island just three days ago.

We join everyone on A-dock in wishing them the best with their new boat.