Well it's been forever since I've posted, I keep wanting to put together some kind of chronological series of posts with my sailing adventures, but it seems to never happen, so here is my hodgepodge post.

We've been sailing as much as we can over the last couple of years but not as much as we would like. Last summer just blew by, and before we knew it our calender was packed with events other than sailing. We did get in a few weekend sails here and there with the summer culminating in a week long adventure on the delta. I had built a rack for my two solar panels using 3/4" copper pipe and had finally gotten them wired into my battery bank just as we started the trip.
I have a small bar refrigerator that was inherited from my step father, it fit perfectly in the V-berth, and I ran an extension cord back to the inverter, thinking this would be a great way to keep our perishables fresh for the trip.

Well while the trip was a great adventure for us, 5 nights and 6 days on the delta (3 nights at marinas, 2 at anchor in wilderness anchorages). I wasn't seeing the charging on the batteries that I expected, in fact the batteries went completely dead several times. when the trip was over and I was unpacking the lazerette locker I found the problem, one of the many items that I shoved into the locker and pulled the wiring from the panels out and no juice was making it to the batteries.

After that I blew my old main sail out sailing at a regatta that out Yacht club puts on every year, I patched the sail up and blew the Jib out on the next race.

I spent the winter trying to find a cheap used mainsail that would fit into my budget, finally getting a Main off of a Person 26' that I had to make some minor modifications to the head of the sail to get it to fit (getting pretty good with the old sewing machine) .

I was elected onto the board of our Yacht Club in January as cruise chair, so I have been trying to get our cruising calender fuller than last year, starting earlier in the year, but some very cold weekends kept everyone away until weekend before last, my wife and I and a friend finally got out to do an overnight cruise. But again we were beset with challenges and problems.
My old Honda outboard which has run like a champ for the last two years wouldn't start for anything, finally put on the 9.9 johnson that I use on my Zodiac and used it for the weekend. The Johnson worked alright but since I had not planned on using it that much, then I did, the engine ran out of gas on the way back Sunday Morning, and I had to be towed in by my friend Larry in his Catalina 30. Still it was a fun trip.

I brought the Honda & Johnson home, and found that the water pump impeller is in poor shape and will need to be replaced soon, and after much tinkering I was able to get the Honda back to running like it's old reliable self.

I planning on taking this easter weekend and going down to the boat testing out the outboards and getting some much needed sail time.

Hopefully I will get the time to post about it when I get back.....

Or even to post some of the sailing/adventure stories from the last two years.