Mystic continues to be beautiful, and we are enjoying our stay here. Yesterday we had the divers come and look at the propeller. They found the towing line from the dinghy loosely wrapped around the prop. We are lucky that it wasn't tightly wound or it would have seized the engine.
Last night it rained and we stayed on board and had a lazy night. This morning we woke up early and explored the museum grounds before it got too crowded. We were on board the Charles Morgan when the 24 hour continuous reading aloud of Moby Dick (in honor of Melville's birthday) was finished. There were about two dozen people, with their own copies of the epic novel, following along. Very neat. The Charles Morgan is the last remaining whaling ship. It has been completely restored and it was amazing to explore her three decks – including where they stowed all of the oil from the whales.
We had lunch in the "greens" as part of the wine and food festival that is going on. Yesterday we also got some locally grown vegetables from the farm stand, which we will have for dinner tonight with grilled chicken.
This afternoon Bill and I took the dinghy into town and to get a few provisions and see the museum from the water. We came back and then went to the last planetarium show of the day.
Bill figured out the cause of the strange smell that we have been experiencing recently. There is a bilge in the aft part of the boat where the stuffing box drips into. The “drip, drip, drip” is happening more frequently than it should and the stale seawater is leaving a bad smell (possibly a result of the fouled line around the prop?) Thankfully we are going to be in Rock Hall soon where the boat will be hauled and worked on. Bill has submitted a long "to do" list to the Island Packet folks in advance so the generator, tank indicator, and other ongoing issues will be fixed. The main thing that we will have fixed is the damage caused to the awlgrip (blue paint) from the cruise ship dock and weather in Bermuda. For now, we added some bilge cleaner, which appears to have helped the smell.
We have plans to leave Mystic tomorrow morning. We are going to try to leave in time for the 7:40 bridge opening. I say "try" because we are packed into the slip tight tonight - there is less than a yard on either side of us and we are bow in (meaning Bill is unable to use the bow thruster to get us out of the slip.) The weather report states that the wind will be blowing us onto the dock. So... for now, we are not sure whether we will be able to get out of the slip until the boat behind us leaves. Bill predicts it will take about 8 hours to get to Port Jefferson, NY so unless we leave fairly early, we will have to come up with a plan B.
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