Double Wave...

You know: that excited wave with both hands.

We had a "cold front" come through in the middle of the night... about 10 minutes of rain and some gusty north wind.  This morning, it was a beautiful 72º, clear sky, low humidity, and a cool north breeze.  The wind was supposed to ease up after noon, so the plan was for a boat ride.

A dryer issue came up this morning.  Dry issue?  Yes, thanks for asking.  One of the knobs came off... according to Joan, it was one of the rather important knobs, necessary for controlling the dryer.  Why not just put it back on?  You're just full of questions today, aren't you?  Inside the knob is a plastic shaft with a metal piece... the plastic had come apart to the point the metal was just spinning inside the knob.  Apparently, this is a bad thing.

Joan, being the fix it type, deduced that a small hose clamp would hold it together and allow it to function... with the added bonus of being within the knob, so it wouldn't show.  No, we didn't have a hose clamp small enough.  Really, we both looked.  I hopped on my e-bike and rode to NAPPA to pick up a couple small (the smallest they had) clamps.

It worked.  Good thing - we could probably order another knob, if they still make knobs for this model,  But, we plan on heading out of here in the not too distant future, and sure as heck, it wouldn't get here in time.  Plus, there were wet clothes in the dryer that needed to be dried.  And now they could.

Lunch out at the nearby Mexican restaurant, then out on the boat.  At the end of our canal, the dredging operation working on our canals has moved their pump boat...

I'm guessing they won't get to our canal before we're ready to pull the boat out.  Hoping so, anyway.

We made our way out into the ICW, heading to the ship channel.  A US Coast Guard boat was coming in...

Check out the small boat "garaged" in the stern.  The breeze didn't let up much, but it was still very pleasant out.  Some chop in the ship channel...

We saw about a half dozen shrimpers heading out...

The "classic" pelican shot...

Not a lot of other small boats out today; this sportfisher came at us, kicking wake and belching smoke...

Our first view of dolphins...

We had them to ourselves for a while, then were joined by one of the commercial dolphin watch boats...

We stayed with them for a while, then decided to head back towards home.  I mentioned the clear sky earlier - you can see the oil platforms being worked on in the Port of Brownsville, about 15 miles away...

Heading back towards the turning basin, we came upon another group of dolphins...

Joan and I were both shooting and got another of those "double captures"...

DSLR on top, pocket camera directly above.  More dolphins...

The double wave?  Again, thanks for asking.  As we were ready to turn and head for home, we got a "two tail" wave good-bye...

Yep, we can contentedly head for home now.  Yeah, some birds along the way...

Back at the dock, the depth finder transducer was in need of being scrubbed.  It is the only part of the boat below the waterline that isn't bottom painted... and the water temp has been warm, making the slime grow even faster.  We pulled the boat up a bit further than usual at the dock, I held it in place while Joan wielded the scrub-brush.  Then, back to where we normally tie off (where the gate on the boat lines up with the lowest level of the dock), and I took over the scrub brush to knock off the slime on the inside of the motor bracket.  Less to do when the boat comes out of the water, probably next week.  Yeah, boat ownership is very glamorous.  ;-)