Ray did some catch up at the office while the skies were clearing towards partly cloudy. Then Shelly and I came to the boat to do a few more annual turn up rituals. Bedding got set up, troubleshooting the electric windlass was needed, etc. Then we pushed off for another short jaunt on Great South Bay.

There were three other boats out there. Pretty sparse.

Upon our arrival back at S-Dock, Shelly took care of the removal of last year’s Town of Babylon marina stickers, and afixed the 2018 season pass. We are trying to figure out what the sunset will look like tonight. Just the right combination of clouds and sun is best. Too early to tell for this evening’s daylight epilogue; it could go either way. Here you can see “Captain” Shelly with her water and an empty B-Mary cup after our chores were completed for the day.

We spent most of the day cleaning and organizing everything aboard Shellerina. By 5:00pm it was time to push off and take a ride!

After a little jog up Neguntatogue Creek, shown above, we took the boat out on Great South Bay to excercise the engine and test everything out. Everything worked great: Hydraulic tilt/trim, trim tabs, shifting, steering, gauges, etc.

There were no navigation buoys out yet. So we relied upon our GPS “breadcrumbs” memory tracking from last year to stay within the dredged channels of a generally shallow Great South Bay.

This year we decided to try and get one more year out of our aging canvas camper top. So long as the sun is shining, the cool breezes of the early season do not bother us. This dark canvas helps us enjoy many extra boating days despite varied weather conditions.

Even though this year’s launch date, April 23, was a full month later than our earliest launch date two years ago, you can see that we are the only boat in the water on S-Dock, so far. Can’t complain; we are envied to be in earlier than most!

The boat went in at 5:00pm,

Shelly came by the S-Dock with our first meal aboard this season.