February 16, 2014 spinnaker

After spending Valentine's Day doing laundry, working on the boat and eating leftovers, we had a fun weekend of playing with the Killions.  They brought their boat from it's slip on the Caloosahatchie River to our bay overnight Saturday.  Thank you, Killions.  Having you join us forced us to clean up the boat, put away projects, and play for the weekend.

It was windy Saturday, about 20mph.  So we spent time on each others boats in the afternoon and went out for a great dinner in Fort Myers Beach.  That was our late Valentine's dinner, not so crowded today and we were treated by the Killions.  So that made it even better.  Nice walk on the beach at sunset and back to our boat.  The boys played with the single side band radio.  We heard broadcasts from New York Harbor and from Panama City, Panama.  The girls played cards on our table that was cleared off for the first time in weeks.

Sunday was a beautiful day for sailing.  The winds were light, only about 6mph, but a great day to try our spinnaker sail.  It is a large sail and handles differently than the sails that are fixed to the boat.  It works great when the wind is from beam to run (more behind you).  So you often see them on boats that are racing.  It will be helpful if we have a long distance to go and the only wind is behind us.  But if there are two boats on the water, there will be a race no matter what.

I forgot a couple more projects that Dave did while I was away.  He replaced our alternator along with a "smart charge regulator".  It helps keep our batteries charged to the best level.  Marine engines are just automobile engines adapted to boats.  So this will improve the life of our batteries.
He also moved the lights over our heads in our V-berth.  They were closer to the bow, but we sleep with our feet to the bow since it's narrower there.  The other end is almost as wide as a king sized bed.  He also put in a 12 volt outlet on my side of the bed (his side had one already).  I can now charge my phone there.  We have to have the generator running to use our 110 outlets.
He added a Pactor device that changes data into a radio signal, so we can send e-mails though our single side band radio if we are off shore and can't use our regular wifi.  We have a radio call sign that has to be used with that.  Dave sent out a practice e-mail to a couple people and got replies.  So it works!!

He's so handy, I think I'll keep him  :)

Lunch provided by the Killions.  Brian likes to skipper our boat.

 First time sailing with the spinnaker.

Devyn jumps right in to help.  But we couldn't get her to talk on the VHF radio.

 

The view from our cockpit of the full moon rising on Saturday night.