This was a weekend full of gifts. First, the weather gods must realize how badly we want to be further south this time of year. Unprecedented January weather made it feel like an early summer's day around the docks. Shorts and t-shirts were the norm, and don't forget the sunscreen. With hatches open and Prudence breathing in the fresh air, we spent time in the sun-drenched cockpit and soaked in the radiance.

The second gift was a relatively clean bill of health on our standing rigging inspection. Our boat has Navtec rod rigging (as opposed to the more common wire rigging). Therefore, we hired a rigging expert to give it a thorough inspection. David Crawford and his son Ian (from Crawford Yacht Service) showed up bright and early on Saturday morning. As they inspected each terminal and chainplate the feedback was nearly 100% positive. Comments like "exceptionally clean" and "showroom quality" abounded. In the end, only two items required further attention. The chainplate on the inner forestay showed a little water intrusion and needs to be rebedded. In addition, the tuning of the rigging is a little tight on the inner forestay and lower backstays. David and Ian plan to address both items for us, leaving us with a high level of confidence in our rig, an important contribution toward piece of mind knowing that the mast is going to remain vertical. One step closer to being cruise-ready.

The third gift was every sense of the word 'gift' in a much more literal sense. One of our newest dock-mates, Brent Varner, bestowed upon us a brand new Force 10 stern-rail grill (shown in the photo above). Wouldn't it look fine with the image of a remote Caribbean sandy beach reflecting off of its mirrored finish? It is a piece of Brent we will carry along with us throughout our journeys, and hopefully return his kindness with an actual photo of the mental image described above. Thank you so much, Brent.

The Saturday sunshine brought numerous opportunities to socialize. Steve, from Bella Blue, had stayed at Ensign Harbor all week and filled us in on how he had spent his time. Brent and John had brought along a friend and Lane was joined by his brother. Bill & Susan stopped by for a daysail, and last but certainly not least, Joey & Dorothy returned to Dawn Treader after having fulfilled all of those holiday obligations.

Sunday brought more sunshine in the morning, and we took advantage of the opportunity to start the process of disassembling, cleaning and lubricating our winches. I had read that winches should be serviced once each year, and since there is no telling when ours had been attended to last, there is no time like the present to learn this maintenance procedure. We started with one of the smaller, secondary winches on the coach roof, a book on boat maintenance, and an exploded diagram of the winch. Even armed with this information, at a value of nearly $1000 it was still a daunting process to take this thing apart. Two major concerns were that the spring-loaded parts may jump off and go lost or that once taken apart we would not be able to reassemble the numerous parts and pieces correctly. Sheryl and I carefully disassembled the winch in phases, both of us looking at how the parts came apart so that we would be doubly-assured of being able to put them back together. Although it took some time, and the sunny day turned overcast and cooler in the process, we met with success as the last parts fit into place and the drum spun with a wonderfully satisfying "click, click, click" sound. One down, three to go. But that will have to wait for another weekend. For now, it is back to that four-letter necessity...W-O-R-K.

Photos from the weekend's activities can be found in this PHOTO ALBUM