Cheryl's Notes:

Happy Fall! Now it is official. It is still in the 80's here during the day, but it is much cooler to sleep at night. Our repair sagas continue. Two days after we fixed the heating element on the hot water heater, it stopped working again. After more trouble shooting, we discovered that the thermostat was toast. Then we noticed that the bottom of the unit is starting to leak, we decided to replace the whole unit. This would be our second order to Defender in a week. Our first order was replacement parts for the windlass that broke during the winter. We rebuilt that last Saturday and then John threw his back out. He spent two days flat on his back. By Tuesday, he was up and moving albeit very slowly. The water heater had to wait for better health.

On Friday our friends Frank and Deb from Denali arrived in our marina for the weekend. Their timing was perfect. New Bern was celebrating their 300th anniversary and had a whole weekend of events planned. Friday night we attended a concert by the North Carolina Symphony on the back lawn of the Tryon Palace. It was followed by a fantastic fireworks display. Saturday morning we started our day with a parade and then a cultural event in the park. Many bands performed during the day, including the Marine Corps Band. Sunday we took them to a sports bar to catch the NE Patriots play (very badly). We sadly bade them goodbye yesterday morning. We are hoping to catch up with them again. We finished out the day by replacing the hot water heater. Turned out to be fairly easy, as we were installing the exact same unit. All fittings matched up and we had hot water by dinner time. Yesterday was spent with a Raymarine expert helping us trouble shoot our anemometer problems. At least this time he was the one up the mast and not either one of us. Another problem fixed.

We are excited about our planned trip to the Annapolis Boat Show. We have been to Annapolis by boat, but not during the show. This time we will be driving up and meeting our friends Pat and Dave from Doris E of Bayfield. It will be fun to both spend time with them and wander around for the show.

John's Notes

I think it's official. I think we are going to keep Leprechaun and make a few more modifications to make liveaboard life a little easier. I think I have covered the rationale before. If we sell our current boat for $110K we will have to pay a broker about $11K just to handle the transaction. Then, lets say that we buy a new boat for $130K. Sure it will be 4 to 6 feet bigger but it will probably be at least 15 years older. Then we get to pay some state sales tax on that transaction. Add it all up and we are out $40K for a new boat. Not exactly what we had in mind while retired. I would much rather take $15K and refresh Leprechaun. It just makes more sense to dance with the one that brung ya. We know every nook and cranny on this boat and everything that has ever happened to her. We have spent a boat unit plus since we have been back. What the hell, let the projects begin. Just today we contracted to have the lid of the reefer replaced with a one piece unit. For anyone who knows the Catalina 36, you know what a pain it is to get to stuff in the back part of the reefer. This is probably Cheryl's #1 complaint about the boat. Not after next week. She will have to find something else (and I'm working on those too.). Stay tuned for updates and pictures.