“It’s raining, It’s pouring, the old man is snoring.”

Actually it is only sprinkling and I’m awake now, so no snoring allowed. The last month has been filled with projects that never end and shades of last March on the Island. The covid cases have really increased with about 40% of people tested for covid coming up positive. I am not sure if they are only allowing those that do not feel well to get tested or letting everyone get tested. They will be opening some new testing site to encourage more people to get tested. That being said they stopped all alcohol sales two weeks ago and closed all restaurant to indoor dining. We did have a little notice to stock up so we took advantage of it. Last night they announced a curfew from 7:00pm to 5:00 am for the next seven days. Fortunately there will not be a total closure with supermarkets, pharmacies, and hardware stores still open. This still allows me my daily trips to the hardware store to get boat parts. Buy a boat if you need an excuse to get your hardware store fix every day.

My current project is replacing the steering quadrant. Without this you cannot steer the boat so I viewed it as an important repair. After months, starting when I was still in Colorado, to get the correct part, a quadrant arrived last Friday. Wisely I hired someone to install it for me and remove the old part. When he removed the old quadrant, He looked up at me and said, “ this is a death trap waiting to happen.”

I had it re-welded when I had the bushing replaced on the rudder in December. It still looked like It could have failed at any time. As usual, all of the for thought and photos sent to the manufacturer to insure we received the correct part failed and the part is now at a welder to fabricate a new piece on it. Gladly I didn’t know how badly it looked when we took Mile High Dream out for its first day sail. Five of us took advantage of nice winds and got the boat a little wet crashing through the big waves. I am always concerned about what I might have forgotten to do for the first sail and that marginally repaired part would have really stressed me out. In all the pictures that were taken of me that day, I wasn’t smiling too much. I guess I was too concerned with the boat. In the end it all worked great and we had a very fun sail.

For those of you who have sailed with me, you will be happy to know that I purchased a brand new dinghy. I took the old one in for repair after pumping it up twice daily to keep it afloat. The cost of repairing it and still having an old worn out dinghy made me decide to purchase an new one. It is a little smaller so we get to be a little closer when we have a large group.

Future sailing plans are still totally up in the air with other countries changing their rules weekly. That and Air Canada canceling all flights until May make’s Diane future travel plans home very crazy.

Ok, my mechanics are here’s time to get to work.