October 1-7, 2000 -- Week Three in Oxford Today we mounted the shunt for the monitor & fuse block. We also ran the wire from the starboard alternator to the shunt, and put On/Off switches for the 12V regulators, and put the second coat on the bottom of the cap rails before they are mounted. On October 2, we pulled out the two 1/0 gauge wires that were not carrying power from the batteries to the DC distribution panel. We also removed the isolators they were connected to as they were bad. Next, we went into town looking for filters for our AC system, we want to adjust how they are done, just slightly. We didn't get the filters, but we did get lots of other stuff that we needed. On October 3, we cleaned up the boat some, and mounted the clineometer along with the panda control panel. This panel has only needed to be mounted since we left West Palm the first time in early 99. On October 4, we investigated why the secondary lights in the main saloon were not working. As it turns out the neutral connection had been cut on them! We reran the wire and they work! Defender called to let us know that the inverter and ammeter is finally shipping. On October 5, we took it easy and ran amuck around the yard looking at things. Then we remembered that we were waiting on fuel line at the ship store. The fuel line came in so we ran new fuel line for tink. He is back up and running like a champ, if fact we have never seen his fuel vacuum so low. This poor generator was used & abused as the primary generator by the last owners. Unfortunately it's not capable of supporting all of the power requirements for the boat. Instead of fixing the main generator, they just used the 'nighttime' or low usage generator for everything. On October 6, the new charger/inverter we ordered from Defender came in, we now have two high output 3 stage chargers (we are back to one charger per bank). With the new inverter/charger installed, we now have the forward and aft outlets inverted, as well as the main saloon lights inverted! We can now go without the generator running through the evening! On October 7, we borrowed the yard car and went to the market & lowes to pick up new vinyl flooring for the galley. Once we got back Mike started laying it. I spent the rest of the day being lazy. Actually, I had a touch of stomach upset

October 8-14, 2000 -- Week Four in Oxford Today was Mike's day to be lazy. So, while Mike relaxed for the day, I laid the rest of the new flooring for the galley, which consisted mainly of doing all the trim/cut pieces. It was difficult but fun, and the galley certainly looks better for it! On October 9, we fixed the problem with Tink not getting fuel. The amp meter arrived for the alternators, and guess what? After talking with Heart Interface to ensure the shunts came with it, we discovered that they don't. It makes us wonder, "What does it take to get a correct answer from some of these companies?" It's not really a big deal that they don't come with it. It's just that if we had known this we could have ordered them at the same time. On October 10, we started looking to getting underway in the ocean again. In preparation, based on what we learned last year, we changed our water maker pre-filters. The new wiper motor arrived, we installed it, and we now have 3 functioning wipers again. On October 11, we took it easy. On October 12, we took it kind of easy, but did a little bit of work (how is that for an oxymoron?). We received an e-mail from our insurance company, they want a survey. It reminded us that, on the last survey we were told that if we replace the carpet (which was in bad shape at that time) and wallpaper we would increase the value of the boat 10 fold of what was spent on these two items. Since we found teak under all of the wallpaper and have been working to recover that, we decided to see if we could get some cheap carpet fast to replace what's here. We talked with the yard manager and she told us of a carpet place not far from here. She also told us that since we had to wait on them to get parts they should have had; they could wait on us to leave without charging for dockage. We called the carpet place to see if they had anything in stock and were told they did. They told us that they had someone laying carpet not far from us that they would have him stop by to see how much carpet we would need. He came by, took measurements and called the shop to tell them how much was needed. Since all but two rooms are bound, we pulled those sections up and borrowed the yard truck and took them with us to the carpet place. We looked at what they had and selected the only cheaper stuff they had that was not too light (so dirt & stuff would not show as bad). The color is a rusty cranberry or dusty rose actually called Canyon Tile. While we don't really like the color, it will look good with the teak walls & the other colors on the boat, and for a few dollars we will get a better valuation on the boat. On October 13, We pulled up the 'wall to wall' section beside the bunk in the aft stateroom, and removed the tack strips. This section is not going to get carpet since there was teak under it and we are going to recover the teak here. Actually I should say Bryan removed most of it since I was getting a bad sinus headache. After he was done Jeff called us out to see that he had finished putting the rails back on. Yes the damage that insurance is covering is almost completely repaired. We now have all the sections above the waterline done, we will get hauled in West Palm Beach for the below waterline work. After that I took a long nap in main salon, and woke up to see that Bryan had done the same on the other settee. We heard from the carpet folks and they will be here Monday afternoon & Tuesday to get the carpet in. This works out well, since we were not going to head into Annapolis until after the boat show was over. On October 14, I (Bryan) went up the mast (in fact I went up 3 times before I got it, Mike thinks I was having some type of height thing), since Mike has been up the past several times. We installed another radar reflector, this makes two. I (Mike) want to install another one, before we head off shore again. The original one gave a nice return, at least according to several tugs we have talked with off shore. But I want our return to be stronger, in fact the closer we look like a aircraft carrier the better. Of course I don't think we could ever get our return to look like that, but the stronger the better. Then we sanded the teak beside the aft stateroom bunk

I think we have hit 'the wall' in our time at Oxford. We have been slowing down for a couple of days now. Today, we put a coat of Armada on the rails and did some interior varnish work. On Monday, October 16, the carpet guys arrived bright and early. They cut and laid the carpet in the main saloon and the pilot house. We spent the morning going through boating magazines in the office, then looking through some literature from various lighting companies. The good news is that we think we have found some European light switches that look a lot like ours, and found some decent looking DC florescent lights. On Tuesday, October 17, the carpet guys came back with our bound rug pieces. We laid them out, and they look very good. After they left, we through bolted the loose handrail for the steps from the pilot house to the main saloon. On Wednesday, October 18, we didn't do a whole lot. Reed and Mary Jane on Second Line pulled in to have some work done, so we stopped by to say hey to them. They invited us over for dinner. Unfortunately, we had to decline because Mike got the stomach bug that has been running through the yard. Thursday, October 19, was a repeat of the 18th. Mike still wasn't feeling great, but he was starting to feel restless. This is a good sign! On Friday, October 20, we started focusing on getting ready to leave. We put a lot of stuff away that we had been keeping out since we were doing a lot of work. The yard was hoping to be finished with 're-teaking' the aft stateroom floor, but did not finish the trim work. We also put another coat of varnish around the TV, and on a few scratches. Reed & Mary Jane had us over for Dinner on Second Line. It was an excellent dinner of Stew (we have not had stew that was thick for ages, since stew is something we don't make well) with salad & garlic bread (homemade that was really good) and some type of walnut cake for dessert that was great as well. It's a good thing we don't know how to make the cake otherwise we would eat one in a day. We stayed over talking until 10:30/10:45 PM which was late for us, but we had a great time. On Saturday, since we weren't out gallivanting around the waterways, we focused on sanding and varnishing the trim and mast box. I keep telling myself, "Only one more coat." But that last coat just never fully materializes. I know it will happen one day though! On Sunday, I sanded the TV frame and mast box again and we both put another coat of varnish on what was sanded. I know we have just a few more sandings and coats and it should be smooth. Mary Jane stopped by and dropped off a couple of slices of cake, which we had for lunch and dessert after dinner. On Monday, Jeff finished the trim on the aft stateroom. We paid our bill, and were raring to go! We fired up the engines and started undoing lines. Then the starboard engine cut off. Mike checked it out while I was busy topsides. It turns out that our filter gaskets were not seated correctly after we changed the fuel filters. In attempting to get them fixed, the nut snapped off the filter basket, so we wound up not going anywhere! We spent the evening getting our filter gaskets seated properly. On Tuesday, we headed to the machine shop where they welded the nut on to the basket shaft. We then seated our filters properly, and test fired the engine. It worked! We would be able to leave after all! On our way to the Bay, we auto tuned our new autopilot pump to make sure it was working with the correct parameters and then off we went to Annapolis. When we were about an hour out of Annapolis, we were hailed by Aurora. We met them last year at Rybovich Spencer when they stopped to see Anne and Henri on Sea Flat. We chatted for a bit and agreed to look each other up on the sea wall. After we pulled in to Annapolis, we discovered that the water taxi does not run during the week after the boat show, so we dropped the dinghy instead. I headed into town to West Marine to pick up our hand held water maker and a few other things. Mike stayed on the boat to stand anchor watch. I ran into Steve and Diane on shore, and we caught up with each other. After getting back to the dinghy dock, I ran into Don and Gloria on Zaftra and Bill and Janet on Britican. We chatted for a bit before I realized how late it was and headed back to the boat. It was a fun experience for the evening to not run our generator, all night! I look forward to doing it more often

Actually it wasn't that bad, or it could have been worse than it was. It actually started out rather well. Bob on Baboo stopped by to say hey, then Bob and Brenda on Lion Heart also stopped by. While they were visiting, a migraine hit me. After they left, we headed into town. I still refused to admit it was a migraine. We had lunch, and the watery sunlight was a causing my head to hurt worse, so Mike took me back to the boat. The last time I was at the Doctor's, he gave me a nasal form of Immitrex to try, so I took that. I don't think I like it as well. Anyway, I fell asleep for a while, and woke up feeling much better. However, the entire day was shot for me. Mike's parents and one of his brother's stopped in Annapolis to see us, but Mike insisted that I stay on the boat since I was still recovering from the migraine. I had been hoping to have cocktails during the evening, but I found I just wasn't up to doing that

Today was departure day. We planned to do the quick running around that we didn't accomplish yesterday, then get underway to the Little Choptank. In the morning, it was so foggy that you could have cut it with a knife! We couldn't even see shore. We waited until almost 8:00 AM before finally getting off the boat. At that point, we could just make out the boat we knew was between us and the sea wall. We piled into the dinghy, and I was concerned that Mike would get us lost, but surprise surprise, he didn't. We headed out to pick up last minute stuff then headed back to the boat. Let me tell you, there is nothing more fun than boating by Braille! While we waited for the fog to lift, Mike put on a coat of sealer. The fog refused to lift. We tried to leave once when the fog lightened. Unfortunately, it worsened again. We finally left at 1611 GMT. It was a good, but foggy trip. Finally things started clearing near the end of the day, just in time for Mike to run us aground! Seriously, we were headed to anchor in 20 feet of water when we discovered that the place we were headed had shoaled in. We got ourselves off and anchored further out for the evening

We got underway this morning at 1200 GMT (8:00 AM EDT). It was overcast, but fortunately there was no fog this morning. The news was reporting heavy fog to the north of us, and we were pleasantly surprised to have such clear weather. The winds were blowing mainly out of the North, so we had following seas and, of course, the wind was behind us. The autopilot did pretty well, considering the wave period on the bay was quite short, perhaps four seconds. We decided to take advantage of the 10 knots of wind on our stern with our sails. We pulled out our preventer and attached it to the boom. A preventer helps keep the boat from an uncontrolled jibe. We swung the boom out and ran down wind. We tried putting our stay sail out as well, but were unable to accomplish much with it so we put it away. We would have tried using our jib, but the furling housing is still with Hood getting repaired. We ran that way for most of the trip to the Potomac. We disengaged the preventer, and prepared to turn into the mouth of the Potomac. We had almost 20 knots right on the beam. The boat heeled over nicely, and we gained almost a knot in speed as we rounded Point Lookout. We continued a leisurely trek into the St. Mary's where we dropped the hook at 1845 GMT. We noted on the news that temperatures over the next few days were going to get down into the 30s at night, and the wind would be changing direction from North East to North West

We woke up to winds out of the North West this morning, so we pulled up our anchor and moved to a more protected spot in Horse Shoe Bend on the St. Mary's. After that, we listened to the weather forecast, and decided to stay anchored for the day. Why go out and get beat up, when you can wait for much nicer weather in a day or two? Anyway, we started writing up our list of things that had to be done before heading off shore, such as securing our dead lights, reviewing the contents of our "Oh Shit" (abandon ship) bag and things like that. Since we weren't moving anywhere, I put the second coat of varnish on the teak in the aft stateroom. It is actually starting to look pretty good. Only another 15 or so coats to go! Next we focused on our alternators. Since we can now see exactly what is going in to the batteries, we know that our starboard alternator is a high output alternator. Our port one is not. We decided to switch which alternator feeds which bank. In the course of our explorations, we discovered that we would need to rerun the positive cables if we wanted to switch them, since they were to short to switch them around. We also discovered that we had a double negative connection on our port alternator, so we were only seeing one half of the amps that were actually going into the batteries! This explained a lot. We detached the secondary negative to the port alternator. Low and behold, we had 50 amps going into the batteries, instead of 25! Hey it may be a high-output after all! We spent the rest of the day lounging, pulling weather faxes, and enjoying the day, even if it was freezing!

We started out this morning talking about our wish list for the boat electronics, and how we should and would go about obtaining our wish list. One of the things that we want is for our B&G information to be able to go to our nav computer; currently it does not. Mike said that he could do it. I retorted that I would let him try, if and only if he was capable of getting our GPS to Auto Pilot to radar way point display working again. It works, currently, with the computer supplying the way point information. It used to work either way. We lost that capability almost two years ago when we were bringing the boat up from West Palm Beach the first time. A setting was changed in the Auto Pilot somewhere, and we haven't been able to figure it out yet. While I put coat three on the new teak in the aft, Mike worked on the GPS problem. He called me up to demonstrate that the problem was taken care of. I entered a new way point, and selected it as destination, and it did not transfer to the radar. When we switched back to Mike's way point it showed up. There is definitely some kind of black magic voodoo thing happening. Mike finally relented and agreed to hand this problem over to an electronics company on the condition that we get full wiring diagrams of anything they do. We spent the rest of the day watching movies. What can I say, when it's cold, you want to snuggle under a blanket, eat popcorn and watch movies! We ran the generator overnight because the temperatures hit the mid thirties

We didn't start out planning to go anywhere today. Both of us were split right down the middle on leaving. We have learned in the past that these feelings generally mean that we should stay. Almost every time we have attempted to go somewhere with those feelings, we have turned around. In fact, I think there has only been once when we didn't turn around, and that was only because we couldn't! You would think we would have learned by now. However, as we were finishing our breakfast, we heard Aurora on the VHF. They were heading for Norfolk this morning out of Solomon's Island. We called them and chatted for a few minutes. They reported winds of 15 knots out of the NW. The radio and TV were both calling for winds of 15-20 out of the NW. Our desire to move got the best of us, and we weighed anchor at 1228 GMT. The fetch coming down the Potomac was hideous. The waves short and steep, and while they were only 2-3 feet in height, we would have had to take them on our quarter for 3 hours. That combined with winds gusting to 25 or 26 knots, we decided to turn around and head back to our nice cozy anchorage for the day. After we turned around, Mike suggested that we practice heaving the boat to. This is a process where you basically park the boat with sails up. We were moderately successful. We were able to see the slick we produced by being hove to, but we were for reaching so that half the boat was out of the slick. It was a surprisingly comfortable ride, and would have been more so if we had been completely successful. We think that the current, which was coming in at the time, was pushing us out of our slick. We will practice this again in the ocean. We headed back up the St. Mary's and anchored within about 100 yards of where we departed from. After we got back, I pulled the printer out to print the weather faxes that we have been receiving over the last couple of days/weeks. First, I reviewed the schedule that I have with the current schedule. There were a few additions that are very welcome, including a 96 hour wind/wave analysis and a 96 hour wave period analysis. Next I reviewed the charts that had come in so I could brush up on my weather analysis. Once I completed that, I updated our dedicated weather fax schedule to reflect the altered reception times and called it quits for the day. We spent the rest of the day quietly accomplishing a few of the tasks on our list for hitting the ocean. Again, we ran the generator over night because of the temperatures

We flipped on the SSB this morning and discovered Bob and Mona are underway! They have 5 more hours until they are through the gulf stream. Looking at the weather faxes, they are sitting at the bottom edge of a low pressure gale at position 35 59 74 25. We got energetic today and started on our off shore list. We have started stowing stuff that doesn't need to be out, and put up our man overboard stuff as well as reviewing our route and getting ready to send it out. We still have a lot to do though. We didn't do much for the rest of the day after we started on our list, the cleaning dementia didn't last that long