Season in full swing

The past couple weeks have been one thing after another. After sitting on her mooring for a week, my next visit found the battery dead and the bilge pump not working. We went and sailed aroud the bay and had some great winds. When we returned to the mooring we checked out the wiring the best we could, but without a volt meeter, it was difficult. I swapped the battery from the dinghy withe the boats main battery and still could not get the pump working. I knew this was something I couldn't let go for too long. The following weekend I stopped and picked up a new bilge pump at West marine. I felt sao sure that I would just pop it in and I'd be all set. NOT! I put in the new bilge pump only to find that it worked in manual mode, but in automatic mode it would be on without water in the bilge. Ahhhhh, it was the float that went bad, letting the pump run until it burned out. I had the manual bilge pump, so I wasn't that worried and they were not calling for any major storms overnight, so I would come back tomorrow and try again. The next day I stopped and picked up the float at West Marine. I hooked it up and everything worked properly. Great, now I would set up the bimini top and give her a cleaning for the following weeked.

I came by myself on June 19th and everything was fine. I sailed out to Staten Island and follwed the some boats that were racing a regatta. I only wish I had more help, if I did, I could have kept up, but when they raised the spinnakers, they pulled away from me. After a few hours I brought her back to the mooring.

I returned on Fathers day with the wife. We motored out into the bay only to find that somebody forgot to turn the wind on today. There was nothing to speak of. The water was like glass and after about two hours in the heat, we decided to take her in and go home to have a BBQ. After having the wife on board, I was made aware of the things many men don't see. Things like cleaning the fiberglass that has some mildew stains, dusting the cabin, and a general cleaning of the entire boat. I pleaded guilty to her and told her it would be shipshape for her next trip.