It Was A Fast Week!

SHIP'S LOG:

The weather was too good this week not to spend it sailing! In one sense, it was/is getting more like August weather in that the winds are getting/have been lite, though, thank goodness, there has been little in the way of humidity.

Friend Ray came and took a shot at getting the refeer running. He found most of the problems and felt that the repair should be easily accomplished. I have absolutely faith in his ability as a mechanic and a repair-er of all things mechanical, it is just that his finding the time to do it that may be the problem. But it will get done when it gets done.

The main hatch over the salon leaked during the last rain storm we had and I decided that it was going to stop. Last year!!!!! I thought I had gotten that problem solved by really gooping the seam between the lexan lens and the aluminum hatch frame that holds it. Needless to say since I am commenting on it, it didn't quite work. So, fresh from my re-caulking experience with the teak deck, I decided to re-caulk the hatch. So I dug out all the old caulk, cleaned the channel/seam been the lens and the hatch frame, tape the the area to be caulked, put int he new caulk , worked it into the seam, leveled it off and waited 24 hours. Looks good, very nice and neat, and now I have only to wait for a rain storm to see if it works. That will happen on Monday or Tuesday.

In the lite wind, sailing can be either very relaxing and/or frustrating. Thursday I sailed toward the Race. It was a slow, relaxing sail and I was just entering the Race when I decided to turn around and head back to TYC. The Race is not the place to get caught without wind. It was a slow, 1 - 1.5 knot trip back to TYC. The sun was hot and the sea was rolly and after about an hour, with no prospect of more wind, the iron genny came on and I motored back to the mooring. Usually I don't use the engine if I can sail but I realized that I wasn't getting any extra points for sailing at 1knot back to the mooring 3 miles away!

There was absolutely no wind for the Wednesday night races. 20+ boats went out and "bobbed" about around the Queen Merry before the race was called at 6:30pm. Nothing worse that racers that don't get to race. One captain motored all the way out the mouth of the river to check the wind there and radioed back that he was getting 6 knots of wind over the deck and he felt sure it would eventually "fill in." His call came after the race was called much to his disappointment. Then again, the wind never did fill in in the river and it would have been more a "drift" that a "race" had they run it.

One of the things you have to deal with when living on a boat is communication. Cell phones make that easier but computers and access to the web are a little more problematic. I have an air card for the computer and that pretty much guarantees access any time and any place, but air card time can be expensive. So, I make use of the free wifi at the Club. I have to go ashore to use it as it doesn't broadcast much beyond the porch at the club. It is also true that computers and computers no matter where they are. My laptop which is the computer I use on the boat has been fine but recently began to act strangely, downloading the same updates from Microsoft and then being unable to reconfigure them once they are download. Then it has to "revert" the changes and downloads become pending , to be loaded the next time the computer is turned on. I contacted a tech service and they spent most of Wednesday trying to "apply a fix." They said that they did it but it turned out that the computer was smarted then they are. They took another shot on Friday afternoon, but "Bob," "Jim" and "Harry" we unable to make the necessary corrections. Sanjy, Mashtou and Hari eventually had to admit defeat and turn it over to their"escalation" team. I have an appointment with them on Tuesday and they "guarantee" they will solve the problem . . . . .then again Sanjay, Mashtou and Hair did the same. We will see what we see. I can use the computer with no problem save for when it goes through that downloading-configuring-unloading problem.

I went looking for a seat for the dinghy. For some reason it had disappeared, when or where I don't know, but it is gone. The dinghy is from Silver Marine and is not widely carried so finding a seat from Silver Marine was a pain. I went online and got a couple of leads but nothing materialized. I went to two local marine supply stores and one had a comparable seat for a mere $242 dollars. The other had a seat for $43! Guess which one I bought? Getting an "air floor" for the dinghy (that disappeared last year in a storm) was even more expensive so I decided to get a heavy duty air mattress and use that instead. It is not like I use the dinghy all that much but it is necessary to have it usable because the time will come when I will absolutely need it!

MASTER'S PERSONAL LOG:

The summer is coming to the end and I am still hemming and hawing over whether I am going south or on the hard in up here. When the summer was still in front of me, the question really wasn't a big deal. Now, with only weeks left of good (read "warm") weather, a decision needs to be made soon. I have been looking at marinas and shipyards to get an idea where to haul, if I haul, but I find that depressing . . . and expensive. I think I will not think about it today and go sailing instead!