September 1-7, 2000 -- Ruth Part 2 or Heading to Washington DC On September 1, we moved from Oxford to the St. Mary's river. There was very little in the way of wind and rain! This was the first time in about 5 days that we had no rain. It was beautiful, though the clouds kept playing hide the sun on us! We checked in on the Cruiseheimer's Net, as per usual, and were called during boat to boat traffic by Andante. They are anchored in the Yecomico river, having just moved across the Potomac from the St. Mary's. We dropped anchor in Horse Shoe Bend and settled down to do a few things. I was about to crawl in the engine room when ling ling died. We determined quickly that we had sucked a jelly fish. We tried to fire up Tink, with no luck, so I dove on the sea strainer. I managed to clear it, and on the way, also ran a brush over the knot log. At the same time, since Mike was in the engine room, he also twisted the knot log as well. That fixed Ling Ling, and we then fixed Tink as well, the same design flaw surfaced again! The relays just do not stay seated well. On September 2, Ling Ling died again just as I was about to fix breakfast! We switched over to Tink, and he also died. However, he was easy to fix, and we were able to cook breakfast. Once again, I dove on the sea strainer and cleared the jelly fish gunk. We also decided to pull out. After a quick debate, and a discussion with Andante, we decided to move to the Yecomico River. On our way out, we noticed that the Blue guitar had the same problem with their generator, since they had a dive suit drying on the deck. A short motor later, we arrived in the Yecomico. We dropped our dinghy and headed over to Andante where we met Don and Becky. Next we headed into the little marina where we met Bob and Brenda on Lionheart. We also picked up a new American Flag since ours had taken quite a bit of abuse in the winds the previous days. We planned for cocktails. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm formed over us and refused to abate so we canceled cocktails. On September 3, we started cleaning the stainless and attempted to unzip the zippers on the bimmi so we could retighten our solar panels. The canvas shop put aluminum zippers on and they have corroded beyond the ability to be used! However, I did manage to get the solar panels retightened. Just as I finished with the solar panels, Bob called and asked if we wanted to run to West Marine. Since there were some things we were looking to pick up, I went with him. That evening, we had Andante and Lionheart over for cocktails. We had a blast of an evening, albeit a late one. On September 4, we put up the dinghy in preparation for leaving. Then, we relocated the regulators for the 12 volt alternators to the utility room where we will be better able to monitor them. We spent the rest of the day chilling out and watching a movie. We heard Barry & Sandy on Oneway (Mike's brother and sister-in-law) on the radio so Mike called them. They stopped by it was good to see them. They had Little Barry with them, he is 17 months old now. On September 5, we got up at about 2:30 when the wind kicked up, stayed up most of the night making sure we did not drag anchor. Because we had already had a long day, we decided not to leave. We spent the day napping and watching movies. On September 6, we tried to leave, but stopped when we had winds of 30 knots on the beam as we cleared the entrance to the Yecomico. There was a 3 foot chop in the mouth of the river and spray was hitting us! We decided it was too cold to attempt passage, so we turned around and dropped anchor in a more protected area. It is amazing what 200 yards will do for TV reception as well as cell signal. We were able to check our e-mail and veg in front of the TV the rest of the day. It was much to ugly to do anything else. On September 7, we made the run up the river. It started out with 20-25 knots of wind, but the seas were down a bit so off we went! We had a great motor sail for the first couple of hours. However, the range was live below the 301 bridge, so we had to make a small adjustment to our course. By that time, the wind had died, and we had to put away our sails anyway. The new course will come in handy when we head out of DC! We arrived at the Woodrow Wilson bridge around 1900 GMT. We dropped the hook, had dinner and took a nap. We went through the bridge at 0400 GMT (midnight) and tied up at CYC at 0600 GMT (2:00 am)

September 8-15, 2000 -- Busy Time in Washington, DC On September 8, we had the alarm set for 7:00 AM. We were expecting the appliance repairman sometime after 8:00 AM, and we wanted to make sure that we were conscious enough to deal with him. True to their word, Harrison Appliance showed up promptly at 8:00 AM to fix the burners on our stove. It was weird to be coming home, but not really, since we travel with our home. I must say that the more things change, the more they stay the same, especially at the club. It was almost like we had never left; it was that easy to fall back in with everyone. After waiting for our car to be delivered, we called Enterprise Rent a Car, and found that our reservation had been totally screwed up. After arguing with them for an hour over this, we decided to tell them to screw off! We picked up the packages that we had had shipped to the club and moved them to the boat. After that, I split to pick up the car we rented through Thrifty, while Mike received our delivery of soda syrup for the soda machine. We then went to Hechts to buy clothes for Liz's wedding. We were successful! We each have a pair of dockers and a button down collar shirt. After all, we were supposed to be in Trinidad now, and not headed to a wedding in the "BRRRRR Chill 65 degree weather we were in". We dropped everything off at the boat, then went back to the club for dinner and a drink, and wound up staying up there until 3:30 AM talking with friends and such! We headed back to the boat, and as we were getting ready for bed, Mike noticed that the wall in the aft stateroom was getting damp. We thought it was the freezer compressor, flipped it off and went to bed. On September 9, After we had clawed our way back to consciousness, we noticed that the wall in the aft stateroom was completely soaked! We investigated the problem and it turned out to be the hose clamps on the aft deck shower had vibrated loose. We tightened up the hose clamps, which took care of the problem. We worked hard to not do anything so we wouldn't be late for Liz's wedding. We arrived at the church with plenty of time to spare, and wound up helping to decorate the "get away" car. It was definitely a wedding, the bride was blushing and beautiful and the groom looked like he was going to pass out before the wedding completed. Fortunately, he didn't. Seriously though, we wouldn't have missed it for the world! The reception was also fun, we were greeted more often with "You must be Mike and Bryan, you are the only ones here with boat shoes!" It was nice to put faces with the many names we have heard Liz talk about! On September 10, we went around and got a bunch of stuff since we had access to a car. Then we pulled out the dead batteries, all seven of them. Then we laid around with bad sinus headaches. After not experiencing these headaches this bad for almost a year, we had almost forgotten about them. On September 11, the new batteries arrived and we put them in. We started a test to see how long the inverter would run. On September 12, our inverter ran for 28 hours and could have gone on longer! We only used 400 amp hours, and had a lot of stuff on that we don't normally leave on. So we should be able to go at least 2 days without having to charge the batteries! Will came over and fixed the AC that failed in West Palm Beach. It was replaced under warranty. On September 13, Had lunch on Andante with Don and Becky. It was a great great time. They are good people. We spent the rest of the day low key, since we are leaving tomorrow and we still have our head aches! On September 14, We decided not to leave since there is supposed to be a front going through around the time that we would have to go through the bridge. We spent the day working on getting the boat ready to move again, and stowing stuff that we have received. It paid off, lightening started around 10:30 PM, and the wind picked up. We were certainly happy to not be going through the bridge. On September 15, We pulled off the dock. We went to anchor around the other side of Hains Point. DC Harbor police came by to inform us that we were in the channel, and the only designated anchorage was above the police docks in the Washington Channel. We informed them that we were only anchored here waiting the bridge opening tonight, and pointed out to them that the green buoy, indicating the side of the channel closest to us, was well off our stern, so we were indeed out of the channel. The grumbled a bit, then said that we could stay, but to make sure to be well lit tonight before the bridge opening. Around 4:30 PM, the winds kicked up to 40 knots and stayed that way for about 20 minutes. Our anchor held fine. In the Washington Channel, we heard about 2 boats dragging. We were certainly glad to not be there! Don and Becky on Andante called to check in with us to make sure that we were OK, since we were out in the river where winds were 10 to 15 knots higher than in the Washington Channel. We stayed until 1230 GMT (10:45) when we raised anchor and headed for the WW bridge. We passed through the bridge, then dropped anchor at 1630 GMT (12:30)

We got underway at O-dark-thirty. Seriously, it was around 1030 GMT (6:30 AM) when we weighed anchor, discovering, of course being low tide we were softly aground! Fortunately, we were able to power off, and quickly got underway. It was a fun trip, though near the end, we started dealing with squall lines coming behind us. The winds would kick up to 30 knots, then die back down to 10. It produced some erratic chop in the Potomac, kicking up as much as 3 feet in some places. Still, it was a fun ride, and we were able to use the land to our benefit getting into the St. Mary's River. We dropped anchor around 2030 GMT and settled in for the night. On September 17, we completed our treck back to Oxford. The weather was calm, so there was no sailing for us. When we pulled in to the Tred Avon river, we hailed Oxford Boat Yard, and that is when things started going wrong. The T-Head at Oxford Boat Yard only had 53 feet. The dockhand scrambled to contact Mary or Braxton. He finally got back with us to say that we could pull into G 34, the slip next to their haul out slip! This slip is located down an alley that is maybe 25 feet wide, and we would have had to deal with 15-20 knot cross winds. We decided to anchor out and deal with Braxton in the morning. In the mean time, we will have to cancel the refrigeration guy that was supposed to come out. Right now, we are tempted to cancel the work and get our parts and leave!

This morning, we talked with Braxton, the Yard Manager and then pulled onto the T-head. They later moved the boat into the work slip down the narrow alley, after committing to be responsible for any damage. After getting settled in, we looked at the problem with the windless not working from the helm switches. The problem is not at the windless, we will check out the switches at a later time before we leave. On September 19, we spent the day reconfiguring our breaker panel in preparation for the new inverter. This is also needed to extend the life of the new batteries with 3 stage charging. We decided to move the inverter breaker panel up with the regular AC breakers since this would enable us to use the current wiring without running new wires to the lights & outlets. We moved breakers around on the panel so that all of the inverted items would be together and could use a bar to power them as compared to separate wires. Also we needed to re-balance the AC load for the generator. By the end of the day, we had completed this task, and had moved all the AC breakers up to the main panel. On September 20, the freezer guy showed up to do the warranty work on it. There were a couple of smalls leaks that were causing the problem along with a faulty expansion valve. We also started to run the AC wires for the new inverter/charger. On September 21, we completed running the wires and moved the inverter control panel up to where the breaker panel is. (This job took a long time, we worked a total of about 20 hours on it.) On September 22, we prepared the area where the inverter/charger will mount, we mounted wood panels to mount it up to. The old chargers where quite a bit larger and the mounting area needed to be cleaned up before they could be mounted. The yard had their end of summer party and we where invited. We had a great time, Mike did not stay to long after lunch as he wanted a nap. I decided to nap later, so I stayed and played horseshoes and volleyball. On September 23, we installed part 1 of the "OOPS" system. The aft head bilge is now protected. This system is produced by a company called Liberty Bay Solutions. It is a water filter case that holds a filter that traps petroleum products while letting the water go over board. This way, if we ever do have an oil leak, we are protected from getting fined! On September 24, since we already had the port locker apart, we ran the wires for the Lazzerette bilge pumps. It turns out that we did not have to run a new wire for the aft stateroom VHF because of the way the breaker had originally been wired. Finally, we reassembled the aft stateroom

We took it easy today. After going for several weeks, we just needed a day off! On September 26, we removed all the wallpaper except for port stateroom. We also started cleaning the glue off of the walls in the aft and starboard staterooms. The walls certainly look a lot better! On September 27, we put the stay sail back up. The sail loft put a chafe patch on that makes the sail look very poor. After talking with Braxton, we (naturally) decided to fix the problem rather than treat the symptom. The sail loft would come back, take the sail down and we would have the offending chafe points taped. Next, we took the helm seats into town to a canvas shop to pick out new padding, as the padding that came in them lets you "bottom" out. This was not comfy for long trips, in fact after an hour or two it was really bad. We also went to the market since the yard loaned us a car. On September 28, we goofed off again. We got the second go-ped running though. It turns out that the kill switch had gone bad and would not let it start. Then we took it kind of easy. On September 29, we pulled out old wires & tried to find the second 12 Volt negative bus with no luck. On September 30, we checked battery water. While we were at it, we found the ground bus and got that set up for the monitor. We also put the first coat of Armada on the bottom of the cap rails before they were mounted