Ok so alot has happened in the last week. On Thursday we got tossed back in the drink (thats cool sailor talk for water). Oddly enough they put us back in our old slip which we were allowed to stay in till Sunday. We had some dejavu walking down that long E dock and it was fun to see our dock neighbors one last time. We truely are going to miss the wonderful people at Herrington Harbour North.



On the last day on the hard I finally finished servicing the engine and it only cost me one finger. I got the appropriate tool to change the secondary fuel filter and that went pretty smooth, only spilling some diesel fuel.

The zincs were still a pain in the butt tho. There are three zincs on our Yanmar 3GM30. One on the backside in plain view and two that are more hidden on the side behind the fuel filter and fuel pump. After a second trip to the hardware store we finally had a socket that would fit, 15/16 of an inch! But alas I am weak and could not get the bolt off. Luckily Christines Dad Paul came by to pick up his ladder and lent me a longer socket wrench to give me better torque. So I went back down below eager to tear this bolt off and it came flying loose with the first pull. Unfortunatly this caused me to slam my own hand into the engine and smashed my pinky finger. I now have two dark purple fingers. atleast they are still attached! But it was all worth it as I slid in a brand new zinc to protect our engine. The other two zincs I deemed inaccessable and called it a day.



Friday and Saturday were spent cleaning up and getting the boat ready for her first sail of the season. We got our Dodger back from the shop. We now have all new glass so we can actually see through it while sailing. Also combined with the connector and the bimini it does a great job of protecting us from the sun and rain. Unfortunatly the canvas shop forgot to give us back the wings of the dodger, well now we have a reason to go back to HHN!



We put the sails back up with minor trouble. The genoa was tough to raise but I attribute that to my overall lack of strength. I really gotta hit the gym. Once we were all packed up it was time to start the engine. Can you guess if the engine started easily? Ofcourse it didn't! But I had the engine door already open eager with anticipation to solve any diesel problems with my newly acquired knowledge. After about an hour of bleeding the low and high pressure systems and tightening all the the hose connections we decided to try again. And viola she came to life! Let's get out of here before the sun goes down. We waived bye to Mark as we left our slip and only one line behind. Up the bay we go!



Our first sail of the season went as about as well as we could predict. We had to brush off a few cobwebs but we got right back into the groove of things. We turned off the engine as soon as we could and started with our favorite sail, the big Genny! We sailed downwind in peaceful quietness. The weather was predicting late afternoon thunderstorms and there was about 10 knots of wind so maybe thats why there wasn't alot of boats out. We were pretty open, cruising along at about 7-8 knots.



Kittens first sail, grab a line cat!



As the wind died down a lil we attempted to put up the main sail but we ran into trouble with the track. One of the track pieces was damaged and needs to be replaced so we just left the main down. After about two and a half hours of sailing we came up to the mouth of the South River. The wind was now pathetic so we flipped on the engine and putt putted the final leg.



It took us about another 40 minutes to go all the way down the South River to our new marina which brought the total trip to 3 hours and 40 minutes for 22 miles. We know, sailing is slow.

We would have loved to easily tie up our boat and fall asleep but that was not the case. Our new slip is way too big, about twice of what we need. This made tieing her up almost impossible and we spent the first 15 minutes just holding her in place by hand and trying to figure out how to reach the piling. Eventually we had to borrow a dinghy from another boat to tie off the back lines. Another problem was that the power supply plug is a whole slip over and our power cord won't reach it while letting us also access the finger pier. So we are camping again untill they can fix this problem.

We decided to reward ourselves with an overpriced dinner at Yellowfin.


HHN to Liberty



PS: We took our new kitten to the vet and she is very healthy. Yes it's a GIRL! So we have to scratch the name Cullen and think of a new one. We are playing with the name Nala.

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