Zen's July 5th report
on the 4th

Things were quiet at the marina when we arrived. A Sunny day, not too hot, gentle breeze blowing. It would have been a good day to sail. However, that was not the plan. It was house, er... boat keeping time. Whilst Lady Zen vacuumed and got below deck in order. I installed my newest creation, the cockpit bug screen. Last week or so, I installed a snap-in place door cover. This screen used the same snap placements to hold it in place with the door removed. NICE!!. Worked great. Later that evening a bunch of "lil flying biting critters" lives were saved from being turned into blood splats by being blocked entry into the private areas of s/v Zen. I was saved the karma of having to dispatch them to the dead zone! So it all worked out.

Then it was set up the Barbie and ready some shade for chow time, finish prepping the food and fire up the grill

For those you can not tell what is.

King Salmon ( large red piece), fresh herbs from Zen's garden ( lemon grass, basil, garlic onion chives, plus red peppers, and garlic, red onions & Japanese eggplant. which have all been marinated in a garlic/pepper/lemon sauce.






All done!, Salmon with fix'ns, corn on the cob, baked yams, spring veggies salad, wine. Yum yum, Yeah, yeah, I know the chop sticks are not American, so what it's my boat!

Things were a bit overcooked. I'm not use to the grill as yet. Next time, less time. This is not the best photo, turns out I had the camera set on movie, which looked cool having the flag waving, but since I could not do that here I extracted this frame.












Ah, all stuffed now, a fun picture with the "zen sign"

Then a short walk around the park to see all the folks and festive stuff. Next some tunes on an internet jazz station ( we got a wireless connection for the day), some reading, margaritas, ( yeah, yeah, it's my boat remember& I hate beer) and a nap, before show time.





Finally dark now around 9 something. Not as many people around on the docks this year. Perhaps because last year was such a disappointment of a show. Many figured it was not worth it I guess! Still a fair amount of drunks around though. Glad I'm not on the road when they drive home. We will wait until the park is clear and they are long gone.
This year was better as far as the fireworks. No big lulls in the action. From s/v Zen we can see three cities shows. Ours right in front of the boat and two others towns just across the water.
This was our best 4th., s/v Zen was clean & comfortable, good food, no noisy folks on ether side or across from us, bugs were kept at bay not bugging us, we counted our blessings, it was a good day.
I hope everyone else enjoyed themselves. Sorry about your trailer Tillerman. Hmmm I wonder if that was some type of Cosmic American Revolutionary Brit payback :-)