On Saturday, Patti's college roommate Sue came up to spend the day. It was sort of overcast, but there was no rain in the sky. We went to the Lobster Shack for lunch, then out to the boat.

There was almost no wind as we motored out to the harbor. We raised sail (full main and genny) past the Mermaids, but conditions were no better. In fact, the breeze was so light, we had a little trouble getting the full genny to unroll. We tried motoring out into the Sound proper and found a very light breeze. Very light. We tried to sail along, but couldn't get going at more than 1.5 knots. The gear was taking a bit of a beating, so we decided to motor in and pick up a mooring.

There were no mooring balls available (at least with easy whips attached), so we threw out the anchor. In a few minutes, we put the new float in, and then all three of us were over the side. The water was very refreshing, We wound up swimming for about 15 or 20 minutes, then retreated to the cockpit for wine and beer and conversation. Very relaxing and fun. Then back to the dock where we changed and went to Nellie Green's for dinner. Good times for sure.

The bad times? Well, the rot on the bulkhead and at the compression post were worse than I had thought. I went back to the boat on Sunday to address the issue, and to try and make it so that things wouldn't get any worse. I thought that some of compression post might be rotten; it turns out that probably close to half of the bottom of it had rotted away. What I thought was just a water stain was much worse. And the bottom few inches of the bulkhead were shot. All punky and easy to rip off. I wound up removing most of the rotten part of the bulkhead as it was clear it wasn't structural at the bottom (not even touching the inner hull). I also removed the low shelf that supported the porta-potti. It too was getting rotten as it was where the water pooled before heading down to the floor on the way to the compression post. I'm going to need to rebuild it completely, as well as shore up the now removed section of the compression post.

At least now, any leaking water will completely miss the bulkhead, and any part of the compression post that it may touch is now coated with epoxy. I just really wish I could find the leaks and stop the damage....