A down day for weather. We were supposed to have a passage to Oriental today. But the weather Gods changed our minds. So, we are stuck in Ocracoke. It’s nice place to be stuck.

In the morning we made dinner plans with the boat in front of us to go to the “BACK PORCH RESTAURANT” at 6pm. Optimism is a trait of all boaters. You will not find a more upbeat bunch on earth. But the weather was worse at 6PM than all day. So, we rescheduled for tomorrow night. The winds are forecast to be worse tomorrow than today. So, we will have another down day tomorrow.

A down day is not a day where we sleep or read books all day. A down day for us is catching up on projects that have been put on hold, laundry, machinery inspection. Well you get the idea. While actually underway, navigation and the beauty of the trip is what we take in. Just taking in nature while underway is great.

With projects one thing often leads to another. As in I decided to straighten up my chart area on dash of the boat. Well that lead to actually taking everything off the dash and vacuuming. Oh, might as well put some furniture polish on the wood. Hmm, good time to RainX the inside of the windshield.
Oh, yea that one speaker cable is a little short so I’ll get some slack from below - leads to undoing the dash instruments - leads to the bilge area where I need to pull slack from - whoops through the bulkhead into the wiring closet (A panel that is removed inside my clothes closet) - oh I have to cut a wire tie (left handed or remove all my clothes) 5-10 minutes later after several attempts at getting the light just right, glasses and cutters all in harmony the wire tie is cut and I get the slack up through the dash to EXTEND THE SPEAKER WIRE JUST ONE FOOT.

Oh since I have the dash panel apart, it would be a good time to change the Ammeter from the 75Amp to the 100Amp meter that I bought over a year ago. (You see I upgraded my alternator to a 90Amp alternator and sometimes the 75Amp meter gets pegged. ) But, no I’ll do that another day as I’m not sure where the new ammeter is actually stored right now. So, what else should I do while the dash is apart. I a also getting a little tired stretching

Oh yea another wire needs to be replaced with a longer wire - the power transformer to the amplified TV antenna control. Been meaning to do that for YEARS too. So, I did that too. (Not going into the great detail of replacing that wire, or how I neatened up al the wires with velcro). If you get the picture, things can be messy but very functional. But, when things are squared away and functional you feel better.

Susan, did 3 loads of laundry with our new washing machine. They are small loads. But at least we don’t have to tote it ashore anymore. But, drying is a little issue with the 100% humidity outside. We are drying with a fold up rack and two fans blowing on this. It was kind of a strange day temperature day outside being not cold enough to run heat or warm enough to run the AC. We had lots of air moving around but the clothes are taking a while to dry. We have found that overnight is a good practice. So, maybe 1 load of laundry / day and let the fans blast it all night long on the drying rack. Or, we can put it upstairs inside the flybridge enclosure ( solarium ) on sunny days.

We are getting used to the washing machine. I’ve still been trying to get it level, if there is such an angle on a boat. I finally got the feet adjusted where the machine seems happy. It’s so quiet we don’t notice the spin cycle or that it has finished. But, this machine is for an apartment and unlike your fixed washing machine you have to REMEMBER to put the discharge hose into the sink. Or, (have you guessed yet) the water squirts all over wherever the hose is pointed. Yep about 3 gallons of water shot all over the place and we didn’t notice util we saw the forward stateroom was flooding. Whoops. I made a label and stuck it on the washing machine to remind us in the future to “stick the hose into the sink”. Lucky for us that the deck/floor in the utility room (forward head/ bathroom) has a drain that leads to the bilge. So, there wasn’t too bad a mess.

So, that’s about it for our down day. We didn’t starve either. Great shrimp salad for lunch and spaghetti and meatballs for dinner.

Today’s picture could be my nice dash, or Susan’s drying system. But, instead one last picture of Blackbeard at our table, Breakfast with the pirates at Howard’s Pub.