WInter's Comin' On Slowly

SHIP'S LOG:

Right now, it is only like winter late at night. We are, I suppose, in Indian Summer(strange phrase, don't you think?) where the days are warm( up to 68 yesterday), the evening cold but comfortable, and the late night cold. One gets up in the early morning and notices frost on the car which disappears as soon as the sun hits it. Still, there is frost!

A year ago, I was heading down the ICW thru North Carolina, passing through Camp LeJune and its life fire range that crosses the ICW lane of travel, on my way to Mile Hammock at the southern end of the camp.It was warm enough for shorts and T-shirts and, sadly, mosquitoes. Yesterday, I was up on ABISHAG, still at the dock, folding up her sails in preparation for taking them to the sail loft. There was no place close by the boat to lay them out on the grass and do a proper folding job. Lots of mud from the floods and lots of gravel in the parking lot. Plus the fact that trying to manhandle a Genoa or a Main in a mess bundle was more work than I wanted to deal with. Thus it was that i had to do them on the deck. The Main was relatively easy as I simply laid it out over the Bimini and pulled it from one side to the other, folding as I went. The Genoa was a whole different story. Much larger than the Main, it was also made of much heavier cloth and was all twisted from the rapid stuffing it under went down the hatch in the snow storm. It took a bit of time just to unfold it, let alone try to flake it. I am not sure how much it actually ways, but probably pretty close to 25lbs if not more. And it has a mind of its own. If it could get caught on anything on deck it did. If it could re-twist itself as it was flake , it did. Like someone facing a trip to the dentist, it obviously did not want to go. But with a lot of pulling and wrapping and "a few words of encouragement," I was able to get it into a relatively concise bundle, small enough to fit in my car. The smallest sail, the Mizzen, I folded and inside in the aft cabin and left it there. It wasn't used enough to require a trip to the loft. The last piece that needed to go was the dodger(windshield). The clear vinyl in it that is intended to allow you to see ahead when it is raised and in place, had been destroyed on the trip. It was old to begin with and the cold of last December and the high winds caused any number of rips. As the vinyl ages, it gets hard and brittle and just cracks. I had been using fiberglass reinforced packing take which work surprisingly well, though after exposure to sunlight for about a month, the UV destroyed it. Replacing allowed me to complete the trip but as a long term solution, it was a bust. SO it was off to the sailmaker to get a new piece put in place.

Hopefully this Thursday, whether the boat is in the water or out, I will empty her out with the help of my good friend, Russ. And that will be that. We are down to 6 boats in the mooring field, including two with engine problems. Even the launch has been put away for the winter. Ugh, I hate winter!