I HATE SHOES

Chris and I left Newport and motored out of Narragansett Bay on Wednesday morning, still a little groggy from the bon voyage blowout the night before. The wind was expected to build out of the southwest that afternoon and I wanted to be at Block Island before that started. And after a blissfully uneventful five and a half hour motor sail, we were anchored. We spent the next two nights there waiting for the southwest breeze to tire itself out and a fresh northerly one to take its place. On Friday morning we weighed anchor and set out for Cape May. The breeze was a gentle 5-10 knots until compeltely dying at noon, the sails came down and the motor pushed us along until it filled in, this time from the northeast, at around sunset. During that afternoon, I witnessed something I hadn't seen before at sea. What started as one or two small flies buzzing around the boat had turned into what seemed like at least three dozen, of all varities, as well as a couple of flying ants and wasps. W...

After buying a used filter housing that kinda, sorta fit my engine and spending thirty something dollars on fittings, I threw in the towel on that option for a host of reasons. The weather cleared Friday evening and I had a revelation that I didn't need the hard copper piping since this was all upstream of the injector pump. A trip to West Marine ended in a bulkhead mounted Racor at 2 micron filtration downstream of my existing 30 micron Racor, plumbed to the fuel and injector pumps with flexible hosing. It worked perfectly. Elizabeth came into town on Friday and after picking up some supplies for lunch we were planning to sail to Block Island. When the key was turned and the ignition button pressed however, nothing happened: dead battery. I had read about, and knew I had, a manual crank starting option that I had not attempted before. With Elizabeth at the compression lever and my hands cranking as fast as possible, it started on the second try! By the time we had this sorted an...

First and foremost Sunday marked the first true sign, in my eyes at least, that the sailing season had begun and winter has officially kicked it: we went for a sail. Green's charter business On Watch Sailing  is open for customers and to shake things out after a long, cold and snowy winter he invited myself and Elizabeth to join him and his family on Lyra , their Reliance 44. We sailed down to Hammersmith Farm and up under the Newport bridge and got some great pics for his website. The shrink wrap came off Saturday. After nearly 5 months guarded from the elements of a New England winter that included a blizzard in the top five most severe of all time, a half dozen snow storms and lots of the delightful "wintery mix", she emerged unscathed. I wish I had the opportunity to paint the decks or something before her unveiling  but most of my projects this winter happened below. Most recently I completely redid the head, which started a few mo...