May 8, 2015 Comapass Cay and the Land and Sea Park

We decided to stay at Compass Cay for a day so we could do two things: laundry and snorkel in the Land and Sea park.  We actually started the first load of laundry last night and let it soak over night.  I rinsed that and hung it before breakfast.  But we ended up getting hot and sweaty.  So we decided in the future that outside work had to start after breakfast. 

As I finished the second “load”, our forward water tank ran out of water.  That is the one that we fill with the water maker.  Now we have 50 gallons of water and hopefully our generator will run to make water.  We could either start the generator right now and run it for 2-3 hours while we finished laundry, or go play.  We compromised and finished two more loads of laundry and waited to make water, realizing that we’d have to be frugal if we couldn’t make water. 

We left about 1:30 in the dinghy.  The dinghy motor has not been running smoothly.  It wants to die, but will start again.  We spent a little time making sure it would run before leaving, but not confident that the issue had been resolved.  We went north along 2 islands to find what was called the Sea Aquarium/Coral Garden.  The guide books said it wasn’t to be missed if you were in the area.  By about 2:00, we found the mooring ball to tie our dinghy to in front of a small island.  As soon as you were in the water, you felt like you were in an aquarium.  There were fish of all kinds swimming with you.  And since this is a park where there is no fishing allowed, they weren’t afraid of us.  There were also all kinds of coral that they were swimming amongst.  We decided to snorkel around the island since it was relatively small.  As soon as we were to the south of the island, we could feel a current pushing us around to the other side.  Both of us thought “that may be tough to swim against to get back to the boat”.  On the other side of the island, we were able to get out of the current and enjoy the snorkeling.  There were fish, but not like on the other side.  We did see a big barracuda about 5 ft long.  Dave made sure I moved the stones on my ring to the inside so as not to attract him.  When we got to the north end of the island, we tried to swim against the current and turned around.  We figured the way we came would be shorter.  But that was also too hard to swim against.  Dave thought he would climb up and over the island to get to the dinghy and then come get me.  But the rock was real rough limestone and he couldn’t get himself up on the overhanging ridge.  So we went back to the south side, hung on to the limestone and pulled ourselves around the island, kicking our fins the whole way.  Dave made it there first and coached me as to when I could let go and swim to the dinghy.  And he threw a rope to me as I got closer.  Now that was an adventure!  I wasn’t ready to get in the boat right away, but I hung on to the rope so I wouldn’t go far.  i guess our other option would have been to wait for the tide to change about 5:00 and flow in the opposite direction. 

You'd never know what was under the surface, or that there was a strong current

Then we headed back towards our anchorage to snorkel another area that had caves you could swim into.  It is best to swim those at low tide so you don’t have to go under water to enter them.  Low tide was about 5:30-6:00 and it was about 3:00.  We stopped at the mooring balls for this area and could see the entrance to one of the caves.  So we decided to stay.  We snorkeled into a cave that opened up once you were inside.  It even had an opening to the sky.  It was probably about 30 feet diameter.  We snorkeled along the island looking for a second opening.  The second cave was about 50 ft in diameter.  We could swim in,  stand and look around, then swim out.  Outside of the caves, we saw all kinds of fish and coral.  I saw a couple of the largest queen angel fish that I have ever seen, my favorite.  They had to be 2 ft long .  I also saw french angel and grey angel fish.  And there was every species that I have seen in other dives in Cozumel or Florida.  But no lion fish!  Yeah!  We saw lots of schools of fish.  One must have had over 100 fish together.  We saw a huge lobster and one shark.  Dave saw a turtle surface after he was in the dingy, but I didn’t see him under water.  Just as we were leaving, 2 boats showed up to snorkel at low tide.  So we were glad we started early and had the place to ourselves. 

Back at the boat, I snorkeled the area around our boat.  I checked the anchor and looked for conch.  But no such luck.  Mostly grass and sand below the boat.  By the time I got out of the water, I was feeling pretty salty, like I was soaking in brine being prepared to be roasted. 

Dave tried adjusting the idle on our dinghy Mercury motor.  We have had a Mercury before and he had to find a hidden screw and adjust that because of the same problem.  So he will hunt further another day.  Dave started the grill for chicken and I brought in the laundry.  There were lots of flies in the cockpit, so we couldn’t enjoy eating outdoors or watch the sunset.  We were able to run the generator and make water.  So we are all set to head north to Nassau.  It will take us two days on the water with anchoring one night.

May 7, 2015 Lee Stocking Island to Compass Cay

This morning we left the anchorage about 9:30.  I was able to answer a few e-mails before leaving.  Not sure we’ll have internet access for a couple days.  As we were leaving the anchorage and heading towards Adderly Cut inlet, we heard something on the radio about WWII airplanes.  We thought that two boats were talking to each other.  But within about 10 minutes, we saw 3 WWII airplanes pass by our boat.  I turned to see if the noise was from another boat and saw them behind us.  That’s something you don’t see everyday.

We knew it was going to be a light wind day and from the north.  Since we were heading NNW it was almost on our nose.  WE used the jenny and the main to assist and back off the engine, but we never shut the engine off or we’d still be out there. 

It was a very calm day at sea, so I was able to go below and prepare potato salad for dinner.  Dave was able to put out his fishing lines.  And while I was below, he yelled to me that he had caught a fish.  So I hurried outside to help him.  He had about 150 ft of line, so I had time to ask him what else he would need.  We both realized we really weren’t prepared to bring in a fish.  I got out the gaff hook to be able to hook it and bring it in.  But then what?  As he brought it to the boat, he figured it was a barracuda, which he would release anyway.  But as he lifted it out of the water, 1/2 of him had been recently removed, and he still had some fight in him.  Dave was able to shake it off of the hook to let it go (to it’s death).  So it seems that a bigger fish took a bite out of him once Dave had it on the hook.  We were kind of thankful that we didn't also catch whatever was trying to eat him.  So after all that excitement, Dave ran a second line off the other side of the boat.  But he didn’t get another bite the rest of the day. 

the fish is splashing beside the dinghy

don't you just love that blue water?!

pardon my thumb, I was afraid of dropping the camara

It's actually out of the water, just missing half of him

The reason we won’t keep barracuda is because we could get ciguatera.  It is an illness you can get from eating reef fish.  Especially fish that eat other reef fish, like barracuda, because the poison level intensifies.   And there is no test you can do to see if it is carrying it.  It causes fever, etc, but also affects your central nervous system.  I couldn’t find details easily, but will add them if I do.  So in the meantime, we are avoiding larger fish, especially if they typically live near a reef. 

About 6:00, we headed in towards Conch Cut.  The guide books tell you about rocks to watch for, and it is reassuring to see them where you expect them, but also something you have to stay on top of as you enter or exit an inlet.  We decided to turn south around Compass Cay and head towards a marina, but anchor outside of the channel.  The channel to the marina had markers because you have rocks on one side and sand on the other, sound familiar?  There is a rocky corner we had to round to follow the channel.  We were glad we didn’t meet a boat as we rounded that corner.  Then there was a beautiful bay to the west of the channel that we anchored in.  We had a beautiful view of the sunset from our boat. 

May 6, 2015 Georgetown to Lee Stocking Island, Exumas, Bahamas

We decided to head north today after Dave went to shore one more time.  We thought we should buy two 5 gallon water jerry cans to have on board just in case we can’t use our generator to make water.  We would use them to haul water to fill our tanks.  Top II Bottom was supposed to bring them from their larger store further away.  They didn’t, so it was their loss.  We’re leaving without them.

Dave took a bag of garbage to shore with him to dispose of for $2.  As he was headed to the dump truck, he saw another boater that he thought he had met earlier and said hello.  It wasn’t him, but this boater had a larger garbage bag.  The boater suggested that Dave could put his bag inside his large bag because it’s only $3 and they’d each save some money.  So Dave gave him his $2 he would have spent anyway.  Then Dave said, I’ll carry the bag, since the boater was hanging on to the money.  Dave thought the boater would follow him, but Dave turned around and he was gone.  So Dave had to pay the $3.  Now his $2 bag just turned into a $5 bag since he also gave the boater $2.  He laughed at the situation and went on his way.  He found out after this that he couldn’t get the jerry cans.  So he headed back to the dinghy dock and the same boater was getting water from the free faucet.  Dave started a conversation with him again about not being able to get jerry cans, thinking he would say “hey we screwed up on the garbage and I owe you money!”  but nothing was said.  So Dave brought it up.
Dave: hey, by the way, I just paid $3 for the garbage after giving you $2.
Boater: oh yeah, well here is a dollar back.
Dave: So…. that means I just paid $4 for my $2 bag of garbage
Then the boater wanted to give him $3 and it was getting more comical because it was such a simple mathematical problem and the boater just couldn’t figure it out. 
Boater:  (jokingly) you took the bag, so it’s your fault
Dave:  That makes me CEO of the garbage and I can make the rules
He ended up giving Dave his $2 back and $1 more.  So in the long run, Dave paid the $2 he would have on his own, the boater paid $1, and Dave carried the garbage.  “Who’s on first?”

We ended up leaving at about 11:00.  There was a light wind in the harbor.  It took about an hour to get out of the harbor because you have to go north a ways to get around Stocking island.  The wind was better but from our port stern, so Dave put out the gin pole to hold the genoa sail out to the side so the wind would push us from behind.  Well, the wind was stronger than he had anticipated and I thought for sure that he was going overboard.  I didn’t know whether to laugh of cry.  But he made it. 

There is the monument at Monument Beach where we anchored the first night we were here

Dave handling the gin pole and about to go overboard. 

Dave added chafe gear to the life line right by his knee

This morning on the net, there were about 15 boats that said they were leaving the harbor.  There were 6 that were going to cross the Atlantic together.  How exciting!!  We wish we could have been in on some of their planning to see what was all involved.  So, a couple hours after leaving, a boat coming up behind us hailed us on the radio.  He was from Georgetown and was on a trawler, a motorized boat.  He was just wondering if we were staying on course because he wanted to pass us.  Dave assured him we were and said to look for our wave as he goes by.  Well as he went by, Dave grabbed his hat off of his head to wave at him and it was attached to his shirt with a hat clip so it doesn’t blow away.  Well that ended up pulling up his shirt and making a goofy wave.  They guy was probably happy to be out of our path. 

We had been watching some dark clouds north of us and watching them move east.  We thought they would move fast enough that we would miss them.  But about 3:00, the wind changed 180 degrees and was now coming from the north at 20 mph and much cooler.  So we brought in the sail and put up our side curtains to protect us from the wind and rain.  We only had some light rain right away.  We turned into a cut about 5:00 to anchor for the night inside the island of Lee Stocking.  Now it started pouring rain and Dave had to go out on the bow to set the anchor.  It started to let up just as we finished anchoring.  And we were treated to a full rainbow.  It was so big, I couldn’t get the full rainbow in one photo.  And when I looked at the photo later,  I saw a double rainbow in the photo.  Dave said he didn’t see the double rainbow at the time, either.  Beautiful, quiet anchorage with only one other boat. 

rocks at Adderly Cut inlet

beautiful rainbow, didn't see the double one till we look at the photos

Dave had a fishing line out all day.  And after anchoring, he spent about a half hour casting.  Pretty soon he said “I guess you better not count on me providing supper.”  That’s when I told him supper was ready and brought it outside to enjoy the evening.  I’m not planning a meal with fresh fish until I see it IN the boat. 

May 5, 2015 Georgetown computer day

Yeah!!  The sun was shining again today.  This was our chance to go to shore and finish up any business before heading back north. 

After docking our dinghy, we walked to the hardware store, Top II Bottom, to get a hose for Dave’s back up pump for the generator.  While he was there, I walked across the street to shop at the “straw market”.  It was a large tent with about 10 different venders selling t-shirts and other souvenirs along with straw baskets and purses that they were making.  I tried on a few straw hats with some color because Dave thinks my beige hat with a big brim for sun protection is ugly.  After looking at a few with Dave, we decided all I needed was a little color on my existing hat.  So he is going to braid me a cord to put around the hat brim. 

Since it was now lunchtime, we had lunch at the Red Boone cafe.  You order at a counter and eat outside.  I had a chicken sandwich, but Dave tried their conch burger.  This time the full conch was tenderized, battered and fried.  It was tasty, but I think I liked the one where it was chopped and made into a patty better. 

Then we went to J&K Productions to spend some time on the computer.  Dave wanted to update our laptop and update our navigation charts.  I ended up doing some updates on the mac and our phones and iPad.  Then I spent some time researching places for company to stay in the Abacos next winter.  I had fun checking out various vacation homes.
 


Dave also was able to use their phone to call his mother for 20 cents a minute.  He was used to talking to her several times a week.  So they had a nice chat.  She was really surprised and enjoyed hearing from him. 

We passed a couple of stands where men were selling produce.  We saw something new to us and asked about it.  It was a saparillo.  It looked like a cross between a brown potato and a kiwi.  They let us try one.  The fruit was very sweet.  So we bought 4 for $2.  They said to wait until they are soft and ripe to eat.  If you put them in salt water from the sea and then in a plastic bag, they will ripen faster.  Dave asked if that was true or if they just tell that to all the sailors and then laugh behind their backs.  They laughed with him.  I never know how people will respond to his sense of humor.

We took everything back to the boat before Dave returned to fill fuel jerry cans with diesel.  I have a “dry bag” that is a back pack that I put the mac computer in wrapped in a towel for protection.  Dave has a regular backpack with padding that he put a laptop in.  But in the dinghy, he put his whole back pack into a heavy garbage bag to protect it from water in the floor of the dinghy, or spray.  Heaven forbid, anything would go overboard.  It’s always scary taking the computers to shore. 

We had dinner outside just after the sun set.  We looked across the harbor to another anchorage.  There were about 15 boats with their anchor lights on.  Dave looked at them and said they lined up as if they were musical notes.  Then he began to sing a tune moving up and down with the heights of the masts as if they were notes going up and down.  I just sat there shaking my head.  That is until the mosquitoes started to attack. 

This is the second time we have seen these.  They are little jelly fish about the size of a thimble.  The water was full of them.

May 3 & 4, 2015 Georgetown stormy boat days

May 3, 2015
I was really looking forward to going to church in Georgetown.  But it ended up being too rainy and stormy to take the dinghy to shore for church.  My mother would have made it happen.  She probably would have left an hour early to beat the rain.  And she would have stayed in the church praying until it stopped. 

We decided to make mango pancakes using canned mango.  I didn’t realize that Dave didn’t care for mango when I bought two cans of it.  But we were impressed with canned mango.  They tasted a lot like peaches, only a little softer.  I guess we have never had a ripe one living in the midwest.  We have several cans of fruit, so I am going  to quit buying expensive fresh fruit and start to eat up our stores. 
Dave fixed a leak on the diesel engine.  It was leaking antifreeze around the radiator cap.  He put a better clamp on the hose and will watch it to see if that takes care of it.
We ran the generator again and the water maker.  So far, so good.
I spent time updating my blog.  It took awhile to get Dave’s story straight about climbing the mast and working on the furler.
Dave had been wanting chili.  So we started last night with soaking beans.  Today we heated them and put them in a thermos to cook longer with no fuel.  Works good if you have a good thermos.  Then Dave put together the finishing touches.  It was great. 
We spent the late afternoon, early evening cleaning the bilge.  We never did wash it out to get rid of the salt water.  We have been storing some items in flat buckets in the bilge.  So it was nice to get those buckets off of the port settee and back into the bilge.   We only store things that are self contained and could get wet on the outside with out being ruined, like extra mayo, mustard, wine, juice in cans.  And all of those things go into ziplock bags before going into the buckets. 
 
I have been putting off cleaning our fans for about a month.  We have 5 that are suspended from the ceiling.  Dave offered to take them apart and put them back together if I cleaned them.  That was really slick.  We may clean them before the chunks of dust go flying if we do it that way again. 

May 4, 2015
We were up early again this morning to hear Chris Parker’s weather report.  It sounded like this tropical storm wasn’t going to be too bad in our area, and was moving NE.  In Georgetown, it would be more like a cold front.  We did find out that we’ll have more rain today than tomorrow.  So we planned to just hang out most of the day.   
We also listened to the cruiser’s net at 8:00.  Someone was looking for foul weather gear for their crew for crossing the Atlantic Ocean.  Someone else, with a foreign accent, said they had 2 sets of “water proofs”.  But give them about an hour to find them.  They are somewhere on the boat, they just weren’t sure where.  We got a chuckle out of that because you stow things everywhere.
Dave checked his fix for the leaking antifreeze.  It is still leaking.  So Dave will look at that another day.  He is forming a plan and rounding up what he needs.
Our biggest accomplishment today was making bread.  We used a recipe from another sailor.  The hardest part was finding the right temperature of water to be sure our yeast was active (100-110).  I had an open jar of yeast in the refrigerator that I thought may be getting old, and it was.  So I had bought packets of yeast before leaving Florida.  They worked great.  While the bread was rising and baking, we watched two movies.  We haven’t watched one movie in a long time, let alone two.  It rained off and on all day, so we were just plain lazy. 
We ate the wonderful hot bread with the rest of the chicken soup.  I think we’ll be making bread more often, now that we finally tried it and were successful. 

May 2, 2015 Georgetown Pump repair and chicken dinner

We woke up early this morning, so we listened to our weather guru, Chris Parker, at 6:30 am on the Single Side Band radio.  He owns Marine Weather Center and provides weather forecasts for the Caribbean, the Northwest Atlantic, the East Coast of the US, including the Gulf of Mexico.  His broadcasts start at 6:30am and every half hour move on to another part of the ocean with the last one starting at 9:30 am.  If you are a paying customer of his, you can call him for the weather in a specific area that they are in during his broadcasts on the SSB radio.  Or ask for advice for making passages (off shore trips).  You can also e-mail him for advice.  There were a couple boats out in the open water near Bermuda that wanted his advice with this upcoming storm.  It’s nice to know there is someone you can check with when you don’t have wifi capability off shore.  I don’t know if Chris ever sleeps or takes a vacation.  We have been using his services for a couple years now.  Besides the morning broadcasts, he send out 2 e-mail every evening, one for the Caribbean and one for the Bahamas and East Coast.  And if there is any storm activity, he’ll send out a daily update on that.  The only time I remember him not giving a daily report was when he was updating equipment.  Maybe that was an excuse for him to get away. 

Today, Dave found another pump in his spare parts that he thinks will work for the generator.  But he couldn’t find the hose he wanted.  So he will go to town Monday to find that, weather permitting.  We are also thinking about picking up 2 five gallon water jugs to have on board, just in case the partial fix, or the alternate pump don’t work.  He realized that there has been a slow leak for awhile and the salt water had started to corrode the shaft.  So eventually, he will want to rebuild or replace the original pump.  Right now, the generator is running with the one seal he replaced.  But there is still a minute leak where the shaft has been grooved by corrosion.  He sprayed anti-corrosion fluid on it to get by.  If it really starts leaking again, we’ll go to the auxiliary pump.  But back in the states, it will be repaired with a repair kit ($200 vs $500 for a new pump).  We are having a reality check as to what we need to have on board to be able to take care of ourselves if we were to go farther away from the US.  Shipping parts can be expensive and take a long time.  And you never know if you will actually receive them in some countries.  So some people have friends bring parts with them when they visit.  Also, you may have to pay a custom’s import tax on anything you ship or bring here unless it is an engine part. 

We had bought chicken on Thursday and thought we better cook it today.  Dave usually grills it, but it was getting pretty windy and he was still putting things back together outside before the weather got worse.  There were 4 hind quarters (we like leftovers), so I didn’t think there was room to bake it in our small oven.  I can’t remember the last time we fried chicken.  He suggested I boil it.  I was thinking “boiled chicken, yuck!”  He really did spoil me by being my chef for over 20 years.   So I put on my “big girl panties” and used our precious data to google a recipe for chicken and dumplings.  Pretty soon Dave commented from outside how wonderful the chicken smelled.  He remembered as a child asking his mom “when will it be done?”  And was thinking the same thing now. 

With the limited space, shuffling of things to get ingredients and pots and pans, dirty dishes piling up, I was ready for a beer with dinner.  I wondered how my mother kept from drinking.  She planned and cooked 3 meals a day for 7 people for many years.  Plus caramel rolls, bread, pies, cakes, cookies, you name it.  I really took her for granted. Miss you Mom! 

these were actually taken a few days ago, but I don't think I posted them already

May 1, 2015 Georgetown wifi and sail repair

This morning, I decided to go to shore and go to J&K Productions.  You can pay them $5 for unlimited wifi for the day.  I took the dinghy in by myself.  We did move the boat closer to Georgetown, Kidd’s Cove, so the ride was much easier.  J&K’s was about 2 blocks from the dinghy dock.  It is a small concrete building.  You have to duck to go through the door.  It was about 12 ft by 24 ft.  It had shelves with a few grocery items towards the front half.  There was a wooden table in the middle and 2 folding chairs.  The back half  had shelves with assorted electronics and lots of laptops.  There was a counter for business and Julius and K??? owned and ran the place.  They seemed like they were around 30 years old.  They are open 9am to 7pm Monday through Saturday, if it doesn’t rain.  Rain leaks into the building and they have to close.  There was a big electrical box I plugged my computer into.  It was sitting on a ledge along the wall because there had been rain water on the floor the night before. 

I was the only one there to use the wifi.  Others came and went with assorted business: proofing business cards, printing something from an e-mail, somebody brought in a thumb drive for some business, etc.  And it sounded like Julius did work for people at their place, too.  I was there from about 11:00 to 3:00 updating things on my phone and laptop.  I did some e-mail correspondence,  looked up several things on a list I had made, caught up on Facebook, etc.  By the time I was ready to leave, it had just started to sprinkle.  I noticed as I walked back to the dinghy that there were about 15 cars lined up for the gas station.  Maybe the station’s tanks are filled on certain days. 

Back in Kidd’s Cove, I started looking for our boat as it started to rain.  The one I thought was our boat, I overlooked because there was a guy climbing the mast, and that couldn’t be ours.  But as I got closer, I realized it WAS.  Dave was just coming down the mast as I arrived at the boat! 

Dave had noticed as we were sailing here that the luff, or front of the  genoa sail, wasn’t tight.  Usually you can fix that by tightening the halyard.  But Dave noticed a section of aluminum on the furler was coming apart.  So Dave tried lowering the sail to add a shackle which would pull it up at a different angle, putting less stress on the aluminum sections of the furler and hold the luff tighter.  He thought the levering was pulling the aluminum sections apart. When he lowered the sail to do this, they sections of aluminum came apart to the point where he couldn’t lower the sail.  He tried shaking the furler to get the pieces to line up again.  He did this back in North Palm Beach when he was cleaning the sail and it worked.  It didn’t take long for him realize that they shouldn’t come apart, which changed his plan of attack.  All this time, the sail is flapping in the wind and Dave could see a storm approaching. 

The furler for the forward sail had five sections of aluminum that are screwed together and attached to the forestay.  There is a slot in the aluminum that the sail goes into.   Since shaking the forestay to get the section back together didn’t work, he realized he was going to have to get to the top of the forestay to fix this.  He decided to climb the mast and see if he could reach it about 8 feet away from the mast.  He used a climbing harness and ascenders and a chest harness.  Once he was at the level of the section he needed to work on, he put his feet on the mast and leaned out horizontally to reach this area.  Once he could see the problem, he realized he needed an allen wrench because the screws had come loose in the upper section.  So down he came, about  45 feet, 6-10 inches at a time.  Back up he went.  This time he tied a halyard to his chest harness, which allowed him to lay horizontally longer to work with both arms, instead of hanging on with one.  And he had tools in his pockets which are now horizontal also.  All this time, the sail is flapping in the wind.

For some reason, several boats stopped by to see if he needed help.  One guy was ready to climb on board once he realized there wasn’t anyone else on the boat with him as back up.  Smart guy.  But Dave refused any help.  And then they would want to visit longer, taking his concentration off of what he needed to do.  When he was back on the deck the first time and ready to climb back up, a guy from Australia wanted to visit.  He even asked him “do you think you’ll get it done today?”  Dave didn’t know how to politely tell him “yes, if I could just get back to work.”  Dave did enjoy visiting with him.  But it reminded him of being on a farm.  He said everyone wants to stop and visit. “Oh, I see you got your tractor stuck there.  Can I help you? Think you’ll get it out today and get your field done?”

So back up top, he was able to repair the section of aluminum and tighten any other screws within reach.  He also added the shackle that will hold the luff of the sail at a better angle.  He was just coming down from that job when I arrived at the boat shaking my head.  He reassured me that the most that could happen would be that he would swing freely, then stabilize and climb again.  He wouldn’t hit the deck or fall in the water.  I did ask him to please not do this again, unless I am at the boat.  When I left for town, he didn’t think he would have to climb the mast.  It would be simple 30 minute fix.  But he is a rock climber from way back and never felt he was in danger, like me and the other boaters thought. 

We let the little rain shower pass and let the wind slow down before putting the sail back on the furler.  Now he needed my help.  He fed the sail into the slot as I raised it using the winch.  This was my upper body work out for the day.  It started out easy, but got harder the higher the sail went because of the weight of the sail and because the sail is filling with wind and is being pulled sideways.  As the sail was going into place, Dave could see that the next section of aluminum was doing the same thing.  He tried raising and lowering the sail, with my help, to get the pieces back together, but no luck.  He will have to figure out how to get to that area.  It is too high off the deck and too far away from the mast to reach it on his own.  Maybe he’ll let me help him this time. 

We think all this goes back to when the boat was set up for us in Alabama.  We didn’t know at the time what was or wasn’t done correctly because we didn’t know that much about the boat.  So in the long run, Dave is glad with the turn of events, because things will be done correctly.  He’ll tighten all 5 of the sections of aluminum.

Fixing the furler was supposed to be an easy, quick job so Dave could move on to working on the generator pump.  With stormy weather heading our way, it moved this job to the top of the list.  He didn’t want the sail flopping in the wind any more than necessary.  And you don’t want to roll the sail on the furler if it is wet if you don’t have to.  We’ve already tried to get rid of mildew on the jenny sail. 

Dave came inside about 5:00 when it started to rain.  He fell asleep sitting up.  So I made a simple dinner of leftovers and sent him to bed. 


My only regret is that I wasn't at the boat today to get any pictures.