Fulfillment Day

Solomons MD, N 38 20.373 W 076 27.555

Today was fulfillment day for Jerry. Poor Jerry and Phyllis drove from Syracuse to Sacandaga Lake three times, to Plattsburg one time and to Maryland one time, all to go sailing with us. Jerry loves to sail, he loves to heel the boat over and to go fast. Well, on all those other trips, we were skunked for wind when Jerry and Phyllis were with us. That included yesterday. Well patience pays off and today the forecast for 5-10 knot light winds was wrong. We had 15 knots or better out on the bay. Tarwathie loved it and Jerry loved it even more.

We sailed from the Western Shore to the Eastern Shore, to the Western Shore, then to the Eastern Shore again, then back to Solomons. The Chesapeake bay is big so a shore-to-shore passage is a long way. It turned out to be a great day. Congratulations Jerry, you finally got what you wanted.

On the way out Jerry remarked on the bent and rusty pin I had anchoring the mainsheet to the traveller. He wondered how long it would last. I said, "Don't worry. It is a temporary clevis I bought in Home Depot. It is not meant for marine use, but it has been in there for a whole year and it hasn't broken yet. Besides I have spare clevis pins standing by to fix it when it breaks." Sure enough, you guessed it, about an hour later we jibed and the old pin broke. The loose boom went swinging out to its extreme carrying the mainsheet blocks with it. I was a model of cool headedness. "Turn into the wind," I said. We did, and I lowered the main sail. That got things under control. We resumed sailing back under foresail only. Then I went below and in only 10 seconds I located the spare clevis pins.

The only problem was that I couldn't get the old pin out. When I grabbed it with pliers it broke off. When I tried to drive it out with a hammer and a punch it was stuck. Never fear. I got out my electric drill and a bit, and plugged it in to the inverter. Bzzzz. In a minute I had drilled out the old pin and in another minute I had the replacement pin installed, secured with a split ring and wrapped in white vinyl tape. Wow. Even Click and Clack couldn't have accomplished an on-the-fly repair so slickly. Jerry and Phyllis would have been dazzled with my brilliance except that they know me and they read my blog about oil changes and other such things.

Tonight we went out to dinner with Jerry and Phyllis. We went to a BBQ place and ordered racks of ribs and BBQ chicken. Good thing we didn't have any vegetarians with us tonight. They would have been grossed out by our carnivore's feast.

Tomorrow, Jerry and Phyllis have to head north again to return to work drudgery again. I think they envy us. Libby and I make good salespeople for the retired life. So far it's been very good for us.

Next item on our agenda, sail north to find a suitable place to leave the boat and rent a car to drive up to Newark to pick up David and Bobby at the airport. We also need a day to drive to Washington DC to visit Shawky Hammam, my professor from Clarkson. He wants to see me to give me a lecture -- "You see. This life you have chosen to sail at sea is very dangerous. Don't you want to choose something safer?"