David's boat was due in today. So when we woke up this morning and saw that it was rainy and generally icky, we decided to stay on the boat. Instead, we invited them over for dinner. The Parade of Lights is scheduled for tonight and it worked out well last year. Because of this, everyone arrived around 2:00 PM. Around 4:30 PM, squall lines hit, so we stood an anchor watch. Due to the number of boats anchored around us, we stayed outside where we could see. About the time dinner was ready, the storms departed after only moderate winds & no lightening, thankfully. Dinner was a smashing success. We finished in time for the parade of Lights and Fireworks. After everything was over, we dropped everyone off at the dinghy dock, came back and fell asleep. On November 26, we decided to spend a quiet day on the boat in preparation for leaving Monday. We did the customary last run to the market, and then went through the boat to make sure that things were ready for us to leave. We listened to the radio and it turned out that the weather window that we thought was there wasn't. We settled down for an afternoon of writing logs and relaxing. On Monday, November 27, since we didn't leave, we arranged to have lunch with David and Yvonne. Since that wasn't until after noon, we took advantage of the dinghy dock and dropped the trash off. We took a quick ride down to the inlet to check things out. Things looked relatively smooth out there. We came back to the boat and looked around for another dinghy dock (the town started repairs on the dock & closed it during the day) to meet David and Yvonne; unfortunately, there isn't a closer one except for the Bridge Tender Marina. This is a long (15 minute) no wake trip, down the channel or a quick trip through the marsh. After they called to let us know they were headed out, we headed over to meet David and Yvonne. In an effort to save some time, we cut through the marsh as we have done countless times. Mike ran us aground, twice! Not only did he run us aground, he ran us aground at 20 miles an hour both times. The first time, we were able to get off using just the paddles. The second time, we were so hard aground that the engine had partially risen! After several attempts with the paddles, I finally got out and pushed us to deeper water. We must have been having an extremely low tide! I volunteered since I am heavier and the dinghy will float higher if I am not in it. (Mike wants to note here that he normally gets the short end of the stick, since he is the smaller one. This means that he normally gets to crawl outboard of the engines, when something needs to be done on the side I can't get too) After that, needless to say, we were a tad bit late meeting David and Yvonne. Lunch was a lot of fun. After that, we came back to the boat, loaded the dinghy on deck and settled down for the evening. The weather sounds right on for us to leave tomorrow