Day 3- Chillin in the Chincoteague

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We decided to head north to Maine this summer to get away from the heat of Virginia's summers. Well, we're not there yet! Today in the charming village of Chincoteague it was around 90 with a heat index of 100. So we turned on the air conditioning in the starboard hull where our bunk is and just relaxed. We read books, napped, discussed plans for the next few days. Just about every other sentence was "Boy, I love this air conditioning!". Shelby especially enjoyed it; for some reason she doesn't shed her heavy fur until October every year; we're always concerned about her in the heat.

One of this year's most wonderful upgrades to our boat gear is a portable countertop ice maker. It's a real game changer!
In 30 minutes it can make a nice little bucket of ice, and it doesn't consume huge amounts of power from our boat's batteries. As a bonus, without the need for ice cube trays it frees up a lot of precious freezer space. (Our boat's freezer is about 1/2 cu ft). WIN!  We are definitely savoring iced beverages.

It was nice to pull a bit of home out of the freezer for lunch- crabcakes from the fruit of our own dock. Our daughter Andrea & granddaughter Violet caught the crabs when they visited the week before our departure, so that made them extra special.

There was an afternoon walk to a grocery 2 blocks from the waterfront to get jugs of drinking water. After last year's insect adventures in Connecticut I wasn't sure I wanted to walk down this street!
Along the way Brent & Shelby stopped to check out a seafood market they spotted and came back with steamed shrimp for dinner. The proprietor brought Shelby a big bowl of very icy water and put a fan out for her to lay under. She was in no hurry to leave that shop.

The one challenge of where we are right now is that the access from our boat to land is a big step up and too wide to get across no matter if its high or low tide. Bring in the dinghy!
It makes a good bridge to let all 3 of us get to shore, and we can raise the drawbridge to our floating castle at night by putting it back on the davits at the back of the boat where it usually rides.

After darkness settled in Brent & I walked about a mile to an ice cream store we had heard about. When we got there the line to place an order for a cone extended far down the block, so we sadly turned around & walked back towards the boat. We had loaded  empty gas cans in our wagon so we could stop by a nearby Valero station & fill them on our way back.  The line at the gas station was much shorter than for the ice cream shop, so at least we were successful on that errand. Yet somehow it was a bit less satisfying than a scoop of mint chocolate chip.

We decided to hang here to enjoy July Fourth in this pleasant spot.  We just aren't feeling the need to hurry.

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