Our new skill: Splicing

The wife and I took a two hour seminar/lesson on splicing doulble braided line. It was most informative. The first photo are my three attempts when we got home, the first two were failures but the third was spot on perfect.

The second photo shows my wifes three tries, one wrong and two perfect. The marks you see are reference points for us rookies.

She is the better rigger.....

I learned you cannot splice used rope. Rope that has been wet, nor rope that has been stretched.

Being able to splice loops in lines will save a bundle of $$$ as buying unsliced lines is cheap, cheap, cheap.

Road trip to a boat wrecker

What you see here is our new to us ST2000+ Autohelm plus four turnbuckles. Not shown is our man over board bouy and a tiny anchor for our dinghy. All for a mere $140. Another boating couple and us went on a road trip for this place.

The autohelm does work, we ran it through its paces at the yard. What sucks now is waiting for our launch in spring to put her through sea trials.

Thanksgiving sail.

Our friend taking our picture while my wife was taking their picture.

Me looking the happy fool.

Waiting for our friend to pull in. Look at the algae, it is thiiiick.

Here is my wife Ellie showing off in our brand new to us dinghy. She had never been in one before and just clambered in and stroked away.

Here I am rowing a dinghy for the very first time. I found it very tippy.

This is where we store it.

Me looking cool and nautical.

Ellie in the fore hatch.

My wife Ellie on the bow.

Just a picture of my wife. I can't remember where we were going, or if we were comming back...that's sailing for you...lol

Our sail to and from Toronto

Here we are at Toronto Island Marina.It was a 7 hour sail on a port tack all the way to Toronto. The marina itself was a disappointment as the slip assigned to us couldn't have taken a canoe, let alone us with a 9 foot beam thanks to a over sized power boat next to our slip. So we spent three days at a service dock....near the pump out station. We got harassed by the boat repair crew, who threatened to tow us out, I never said a word to them, my wife was polite tom a fault, but it never stopped the dirty looks we got for three days, until a slip opened up for us. Actually we were about to leave but the girl in the office begged us not to go because of the weather. And boy, am I ever glad we caved and stayed. It was a dirty, dirty day. We left the next day and it was a rough sail back due to 10 to 12 foot swells of our aft quarter, the absolute worst motion for me, a corkscrew that had me queasy for 8 hours. Alla in all a good vacation. I bought a tilley hat too.

Not a sailing post...

My daughter was mugged by two young black men right here in Hamilton. Stereotype 1 and Stereotype 2 did the deed in front of a garages security camera. Police are optimistic. As am I. Mechanics came out of the garage after the commotion, grunted and went back in. There a mighty fine example of latino machismo in action. NOT! I made a 40 minute trip from work in under 25 minutes, that is the extent of this fathers impotent protection of his daughter. Fuck, am I pissed.