The Winter of 2006
Cold weather slows the activity at Ensign Harbor. Sometimes sailing on the sound is nice but you have to time it just right or it can get pretty uncomfortable for my thin southern blood. This entry covers two trips to Whortonsville. The first in mid January and the other in mid February. We enjoy going to the boat even when we know we won't be able to go sailing. Winter is a good time to work on those little projects that never seem to get done. The picture above is of our new electrified "Whortonsville Yacht and Tractor Club" burgee that now graces the "Cockpit", compliments of Robert and Tammy.

Saturday January 20, 2006
Our first trip to the boat since mid December and the Spirit of Christmas. We arrived at noon on Saturday. The weather was very nice. We even got a visit from our friendly insect population. Judy picked up some excellent pecans from George and Marilyn's farm. We visited with our dock mates and I did a little work on the everlasting cabin light project. Trying to improve the lighting inside the boat has proven to be a very trying task. It has been one thing after another. First I had a bad transformer, then I ruined a transformer by connecting it incorrectly and then yet another transformer was bad right out of the box. I worked most of the afternoon and still had an unfinished project at the end of the day. Judy served her homemade vegetable soup for dinner and Bill and Susan (The Earles of Bridgeton) invited us and Stefan over for a visit after dinner. The dinner and visit were the high points of the day.

Sunday January 21, 2006
If you don't like the weather on the Pamlico Sound, just give it a few minutes and it will change. In this case the change was not for the good. Winter returned Sunday morning with a vengeance. We packed our stuff and left for parts north and west.

Friday February 17, 2006
Judy was invited to go to the mountains by some friends so I made the trip to Whortonsville alone. I took a day off and left on Friday morning with plans to stay until Sunday. The weather was just excellent. The purpose of the trip was little projects and also to allow the boat and the simple act of floating to lower my blood pressure. I worked on my Ocracoke starting problem for a while. I had learned that a common problem on Catalina 30s is a multi prong electrical connector that gets corroded inside. This causes starting problems in many boats. I opened mine and found lots of blue-green sludge inside. I cleaned the contacts and sockets with a drill and some steel wool and I think I may have solved the problem. Time will tell, but the engine only has about 300 hours and I doubt the starter is worn in any major way. I helped Richard get his radar installed. Richard and I were the only occupants of the docks all weekend. I attempted to change the oil in the diesel. Changing oil in a boat is much more interesting than changing the oil in an automobile. With a car you just pull the plug and let the oil out. On a boat there is no where to let it out except the water and that is a definite no-no. The coast guard has no since of humor when it comes to turning crank case oil loose in the creek. The oil has to be pumped out the dipstick access into a container. I have a little hand pump that I had been using but it failed miserably and I called it quits after having withdrawn only about a pint of oil in 30 minutes of pumping. At about 3 pm I got the bright idea that I would pull the teak trim off the coach roof and take it home for refinishing. It seemed like a good idea at the time but (as usual) it took much longer than I thought. With Richard's help I got it off and on the dock along with the traveler, which needed some work. Then is when I realized that the boat would probably leak badly without the teak installed. Richard and I were going out to eat anyway so I offered to do the driving and go up the New Bern to the local Home Depot to get a plastic tarp to keep the water out. The trip was worth it because we had some really good barbeque.

Saturday February 18, 2006
Richard and I went over to the Village Restaurant for breakfast. Since neither of our wives were along, we didn't cook much. The weather was beautiful but the forecast was for really nasty stuff later in the morning. After breakfast we went over to check the progress on Joey and Dorothy's Hinckley B-40. Her bright work has been redone, she has new rigging and is back to being a grand lady. It took about 15 minutes for us to finish admiring her. Richard had planned to return to Raleigh on Saturday and when we got back to the dock he knew he had made the right decision. The weather was changing fast. I wanted to measure for a new coach roof cover. I finished just in time. I got everything in the car and left for Oriental to get a few parts for the traveler and a cup of coffee. I left Oriental around noon and got as far as Bayboro about 12 miles before the rain / snow mix started. The drive home was uneventful. When I got home I found that Judy's trip had been cut short by the weather so we had and enjoyable evening at home together.