In my last log entry I mentioned that it had been a long time since we had spent time at the coast. This entry covers an even longer period of time. It is unusual for us to be away from the boat for over three weeks but it has been nearly two months between trips. There are several reasons for this. First, it's been cold outside. Second, Judy is working during tax season and her hours are long but the real reason is my Mom.

Mid afternoon on the day after we returned from our long cold weekend in January, Mom called and said that she had fallen and it hurt too much to move. To make a long story short, we called 911 and had her transported to the hospital with what the doctors called a "shattered" pelvis. The good news, if there is any, was that no surgery was required. The prognosis was that it would take six to eight weeks to heal and 24-hour care would be required when she returned home. My brother, sister-in-law, Judy and I took turns staying during the day and the guys alternated staying at night. Mom was able to take care of her own needs but we needed to be around to take care of Dad and make sure there were no more falls. We were able to hire a delightful local lady to stay when we all had to be at work. Mom made a stunning recovery. After only eight weeks, the doctor released her and pronounced her cured but still sore.

Full time work and taking care of parents occupied nearly all our time but we were able to take an afternoon off here and there. We were able to spend some time with our one-year old grandson Carson. We celebrated his birthday and took him shopping for his first pair of shoes. We were able to do a little toward or major bathroom-remodeling job that we started just before Mom's fall. We should have stayed home this weekend to work on the bathroom, since our Boston based kids are coming home in April, but this trip was required for my mental health.

Regular readers of this log know that I enjoy writing. I make no claim of proficiency or quality or talent, I just enjoy doing it. I used to try to keep the logs simple and short so that readers would be more likely to read and not lose interest but I realized that I am actually doing this for me, and not the reader. In twenty years we will be able to look back at our adventures and have a good record of what we did and where we went as well as a record of other things that were going on at the time. I hope others will enjoy reading my stories otherwise I would just write them and put them in a drawer.

I subscribe to several magazines. One of them is Mainsheet Magazine. Mainsheet is a quarterly publication for members of the various Catalina Yacht Associations. It is filled with interesting articles and technical tips on the many models of Catalina Yachts. I decided to take a chance and submit one of my stories for their consideration. To my surprise, they published it in the February issue. I titled the article "A Tale of Two Lighthouses". It is an abridged version of the log I wrote for our Memorial Day cruise in 2007. It's pretty cool to see your story in a national publication.

Enough rambling, let's get back to the weekend. It's still a little cool for sailing so none was planned. Spring is the time for getting ready for the new season. The to-do list is so long I was afraid to look at it. The goal was to get a few major things done. I always change fuel and oil filters each year. I had used the long cold wintertime break to send our binnacle compass to Viking instruments in Massachusetts for a complete rebuild. I made the decision after I got a quote from them and compared that to the price of a new compass, no contest. They did a great job. The old compass looks like new for a fraction of the price of a new instrument. I had repainted the propane locker and planned to re-install it and the compass. I figured this was plenty to take on in a single work day.

The weather on Saturday was sunny. Stefan and Marita were enjoying a weekend at the coast after a long absence. My work day went pretty much as I expected because I always expect to have something take longer than it should. The oil change went as well as could be expected. It's always a nasty job and no matter how hard I try, I get black spent engine oil all over the cabin sole. I always move the upholstered cushions into the V berth. Changing oil in a sailboat is quite different from the same task in an automobile. In an automobile you simply remove the oil pan drain plug and allow the oil to drain out. Engines in sailboats are mounted as close as possible to the bottom of the boat making it impossible to access the drain plug. Even if you could reach it, the oil would drain into the bilge and ultimately into the water. The Coast Guard takes a dim view of discharging oil into the water. The spent oil is removed from a sailboat engine by pumping it out of the dipstick tube. I have a pump designed for the purpose. It takes a while and is messy at best. I didn't have any trouble getting the old oil filter off so it went pretty well.

The next and most dreaded job was changing fuel filters. The engine has two. One is mounted directly on he engine and looks like an oil filter. The other is a much larger externally mounted canister that contains a filter cartridge. The idea is to have the cleanest possible fuel reach the injectors. Diesel engines do not tolerate dirty fuel. Changing the engine's filter was fairly simple. There will always be a certain amount of fuel spilled. I use baby diapers to catch spills because they are extremely absorbent. Changing the filter in the external canister is a different matter. You take the entire canister loose from it's top. At that point you are holding an open container with about a quart of diesel fuel trying to spill. I use a bucket and just set the whole thing down inside to remove the filter. I got the canister off and into the bucket without incident. Getting the canister back on and seated is a real pain. It took many tries over about an hour. It is readily apparent when it goes back correctly but it does tax your patience. Now it was time for the fun part. Getting the air out of the fuel lines. Diesel engines do not tolerate air in fuel lines either. The fuel pump is electric so the engine does not have to be running to pump fuel. I could not seem to get the fuel pump primed. Roger (our diesel mechanic) made some fuel line plumbing changes a while back to correct a deficiency that is present in all Catalina 30s of this vintage. The change works well but it requires that the fuel pump remove all the air from the canister. Fuel pumps are not built to pump air, that would take an air pump. After many tries and no luck, we borrowed Nick's fuel can and drove over to Bayboro to get 5 gallons of fuel. Paying the $3.99 per gallon for fuel was a personal record for me. It makes me glad I have a sailboat that only requires a minimal amount of fuel per season. Adding the fuel to the tank did not help. I was hoping for a gravity feed. I finally figured out that I could reverse the changes that Roger made, full the canister and change it back. It worked. Now here was the matter of bleeding the air from the fuel lines and getting the engine to crank and keep running. I am happy to report that each time I cranked the engine, the new starter, solenoid combination worked great. No clicks.

By the time I got cleaned up, the boat and me. It was time for dinner. My other little projects would have to wait. We had been invited to Nick and Jeanette's for dinner. As always, it was a culinary delight. Blackened fish with a rice dish and an unusual coleslaw. We enjoyed the meal and our visit very much. It had been a long day and we were ready to turn in.

The weather on Sunday morning was not so good. A significant cold front had passed during the night but it had not cleared the area by morning. The wind was strong and the temperature was cold. Judy made oatmeal and coffee for breakfast. I managed to get the newly rebuilt compass installed as well as the repainted propane locker. It will take at least one more weekend to do essential spring fitting out. We left Ensign Harbor at 1 pm. It was nice to be back.