Sanctuary is our new Boat... was advertised on Craigs List as an "exceptional boat option..." and it seem enticing... A visually clean O'Day 30 with the usual faithful little Yanmar, supposedly new head and new galley faucet with foot pump, older roller furling genny - not a new boat but inspection seemed pleasant and usable for Deanna and me who are approaching 70 - and not as athletic as we once were...

The shake-down, if you can call it that, was about 30 hours dock to dock form Oxford, MD to Colonial Beach, VA... We almost made it and then ran aground (well, more like settled into the muck) because the skipper was too fuzzy-headed after being awake for 30+ hours and more or less exceeding his limits; strange channel and took the wrong side less than 200yds from the new marina, oops -- had to wait for the tide a few hours and then Deanna got us off after we'd tried everything we could think of. The big disappointment was that the hull (somewhere) has way more hull leaks than we'd been led to believe and the bilge pump was pure manual -- we discovered within the first couple of hours that we would need to pump about 20 minutes out of every two to three hours -- and that's what we did for 30-hours while muttering an occasional muffled obscenity as we developed a blister -- more of a chore than actual work, but aggravating nonetheless... Fortunately we realized with the first few hours that as long as we pumped we wouldn't sink...

Sailed about half the time when the wind cooperated, and motor-sailed the rest of the time... wind was faster when available; typically 5.5-7.0 knots (nice sailing boat -- pretty snappy) and motor sailing was usually in the slower, 4-5kt range... Cabin is generally clean for a boat approaching 40-years old, but Sanctuary certianly sits up on the water -- as versus Angel's Wings that always had the feeling of sitting down in the water, even though Wings is a smaller boat. Sanctuary's instrument cluster and ignition panel is a wreck and will need to be replaced very quickly or it will drive me crazy, but the little two cylinder Yanmar fired first time every time, just like a 4-cyl Perkins i had years ago...

Trip wasn't all that frenzied, but got long -- my limits seem to be less than they used to be... Had a great moon most of the evening, but the moon set about 4:00AM and by then it was pretty coolish and really, really dark; once the "have-to" projects are attended to, I think a chart-plotter is in my future sooner than later...

Oh, we still have Angels Wings, our B24 who sits forlornly, half-disassembled in Reedville... not sure what is next...