Mike
09/26/2009, Annapolis, MD

September 19th,2009 Annapolis, MD

We spent hours this morning trying to purchase the decal that we need to renter the country. Needless to say we failed and will have to attempt again tomorrow. After quitting that job we had some breakfast and dinghied over to get Bess's car key from Christy. Christy told us that she had left it in the car and after a few minutes search we found it under the rug.
The car is a relic... In fact, we had one early in our marriage...1984 rabbit. Hers is a diesel. The driver's side door does not open from outside so you have to reach across for the passenger's side which luckily isn't very far. It started hard but eventually fired up. Idling, the whole thing shook. I could kind of calm it down by pulling the steering wheel towards me but it did smooth out some with a few rpms. Someone needs to check the motor mounts.
We drove away with some concern but really needed to find Best Buy to purchase a new XM antenna to listen to the MSU/ND game this afternoon. First though, we drove to the Apex dealer to see what they could do about water getting into the area between the hull and the floor. The owner is a friend of Scott's and was very nice. He will pick it up for a day next week and have it back the next for $200. Even though we've spent more money than we should have this summer, it was something that we need to get done that I don't want to dive into.
With that done we headed out of down in the general direction of Best Buy. Unfortunately the general area of town was the best we could do ... and the car had developed a new noise that sounded suspiciously like a strut on it's last legs...clunking and jerking. We pulled into Trader Joe's where I knew the employees to be friendly and asked directions...the first two guys knew how to get there but couldn't tell me. They called in the asst. Manager who was able to point me in the correct direction and say go right, take a right, and angle left. In about a mile we were there. We purchased the antenna and then stopped at a Safeway for some groceries. One of our jobs was to find a place for Kathy to get a haircut but there were not shops in this little mall so it was back to the dinghy ...if we get that far.
On our way we stopped at Bacon's to look for a used dinghy anchor but they didn't have what we wanted. After wandering around for a half hour or so we were off again hoping to make it the mile or so to the parking spot. We did, off loaded to the dinghy and were back on board in a couple of minutes. All in all it was a successful trip.
We put our things away and headed down town for some lunch and to check for packages. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon with temps in the low 70's and blue sky. The sidewalks were full. You would think that there was something going on... but no, just a nice Saturday afternoon in Annapolis.
Our goal was the Acme bar about half way up Main Street. It was full of Midshipmen in whites. Most were sipping ice tea but a few were old enough to buy beer. We ordered from the monthly special and got a Greek salad and a Cheese steak each for $5. We each had a couple of beers and left paying about half of a Bahaminan lunch.
We took a 4 foot wide alleyway to the next street to check out some Raven's cheerleaders who were signing autographs and then back to Ego Alley to the Harbormaster's office. Our new VHF was in which will give me something to do tomorrow.
Back at the boat we plugged in the new XM antenna, which worked, and listened to the first half of the game. We had found a note on our boat from Gerry saying that we should come up and do some laundry because they were going to be gone for a couple of days, so during half time we walked up to thank her and try to set up a time on Tuesday. Since we wear the same clothes every day, more or less, we still had lots of clean ones.
For the second time in two weeks, the game ended on a sad note.

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Mike
09/26/2009, Annapolis, MD

September 18th, 2009 Annapolis, MD
We began the day mounting the new GPS antenna. I then called Garmin support to talk to them about our installation and was told that I needed more parts. The tech was adamant about not splicing. However, Garmin does make end connectors that are field installed. So we ordered up what we need and will be using a NMEA 2000 network instead of the old 0183 system. We will have both since I ran the 0183 cable yesterday and will need it for DSC and AIS. (Boaters will know)
Skip was still working on his winch problem so I went over to see if I could help and ended up drilling out a large stainless bolt that had been bent. I rode with him to West Marine to get the replacement bolts and then returned for lunch.
Kathy and I ran the new NMEA cabling (with only one end to get through the tiny hole at the bottom of the mizzen.) At about three we took showers and took a dinghy ride to town. We picked up a package at the harbormaster's office and generally just poked.

Scott was returning from Cambridge where he gets his outboard serviced and had fish stories.
We stopped to talk to Bill and Christy... but they had serious work to do before Bill's daughter and friend arrived tomorrow so we left them to their labors and continued our trip.
Back at the boat we read until dark and then made tacos for dinner .... that really hit the spot.

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Mike
09/24/2009, Annapolis, MD

September 17th, 2009 Annapolis, MD
After coffee I organized myself in the cockpit with a board in my lap bagan soldering and heat shrinking the wires in the new cable to those in the old. It seemed to take forever. When finished we pulled our new, longer, cable down the mizzen into a storage locker there and set up to solder the GPS to the antenna and to power.
Finally, with that done, we turned on the new GPS and walked through its initial start-up procedures. Unfortunately the antenna seemed to be nonexistant.
I had connected the new GPS to the old antenna and since the voltages were ok on the old one, it should work. I spent about an hour trying how to temporarily wire in the new antenna but failed.
At that point I quit for the day, grabbed a beer and crossed the dock to where Skip was attempting to remove one of his winches. The ends of the bolts had at some point been cut with bolt cutters and one of them was bent to the point that we couldn't turn the nut with the tools we had. It started to sprinkle so we picked everything up and made a note of what tools we needed to attack the job tomorrow.
We read for a while and at about dusk sautéed some soft shelled crabs which we had with a nice salad, crusty bread (possibly beyond "Crusty") and our good olive oil.

September 16th, 2009 Annapolis, MD

Steve came over this morning to say good-by and drop of a pair of glasses that I had left in his rental car. We talked for an hour and promised to stop in Oriental in a month.
I began the process of installing the GPS which meant creating a template and drilling the mount to fit on our mizzen. Then I spent a few hours reading the installation manual. There are 16 tiny wires in a cable that unfortunately wasn't long enough to reach to where it had to. So after lunch I took the dinghy to town to try to find the right wire. I spoke to a young guy at Fawcett's that would have ordered me what I needed but I came home without any.
Kathy came up with the idea of just using the old cable that went to our previous GPS.
There were fewer wires but enough for our application...at least for now.
By that time it was mid afternoon so I got my book and spent the rest of the day reading.
I made stroganoff for dinner and Kathy steamed some broccoli. It was a good change of pace.
Later we watched our first movie online.

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