2025-05-25 Week of more packages and work

We had a great nights sleep on Sunday night, so Monday we upped anchor and headed out.  We wanted to go to the free dock in Oriental, we checked the webcam they have, and saw two spots open.  On our way there, one other sailboat pulled out in front of us and headed the same direction, and about 15 minutes before arrival a powerboat passed us and headed in.   So - we missed out, they took the last two spots, change of plans, and we headed up to our friend's dock near Oriental.  Our friends Karen and Duane on Sojourn have a dock on a creek near Oriental, and let us anchor or use the dock short term.  We usually do a lot of buying stuff in order to have a shipping address so we can get packages.   

Pretty spot on the creek at our friend's dock

Tight fit for us alongside two other Mantas - What If and Sojourn

We spent Monday doing some cleaning, and making sure there was nothing else we needed to order and have shipped in.   We also talked to our friend Tracy on Phoenix Rising.   Tracy is our friend who lost her boat in hurricane Beryl, and how now purchased a new to her Manta 42 catamaran. She is busy working on fixing up the boat and doing improvements as she plans to live on it full-time and return to the Caribbean.   

Tuesday, Tracy picked us up, and we went to her boat for the day to help her with her projects.  Kris worked on re-wiring the electrical cabinet to allow her to use the inverter to power the hot water tank.  Dean and Tracy worked on fixing the bilge and shower pump on the port side to work.  We are slow workers, so the next day we went up again and tried to help with the generator and water maker, both of which were not functioning correctly.  One final trip for only 1/2 day on Wednesday to tackle the windlass.  We had fun visiting with Tracy, and working on her boat.  Plus, Tracy took us out for lunch each day - so bonus there.  Wednesday afternoon Tracy came to our boat and hung out and visited but also helped us with our projects.

Kris getting ready to work on electrical as Tracy supervises.

We got some of our packages on Wednesday - one item was a new Lenovo android tablet to replace our failing Windows Surface Pro 7.   We use a program called Coastal Explorer - and it was now available for android, so we decided to go that route.  That was a failure - although the tablet was very nice, and we got the program loaded, we found that we could not migrate all of our stored charts to the android tablet - guess we did not think that through enough.   So 4 hours of fiddling with that - lesson learned.

Thursday was more packages - and one very important one.  Everyone who knows us well, knows we have a serious cheese addition to one particular cheese.

We were able to order in 7 of the 2 lbs. blocks of cheese and get free shipping, making it economical.  Each block is $15.  You can get them in at Costco for less, but then have to have someone box and ship them, so this time we ordered direct from Tillamook.   14 lbs. of cheese should last us a couple of months. 😄

Thursday, Kris spent all day working on modifying our sail cover.  The new sail has more track slides, so sits much higher on the mast. Our old sail cover was not tall enough, or big enough around, to cover the main.   About 3 years ago, Kris had found a like new small sail cover in the same material and color as ours at a used shop, and picked it up for cheap.    She cut that apart to patch onto our existing cover, and ordered a few yards of new material to finish it off.   With many test fits and patching of old and new together, she spent all day Thursday and 1/2 day Friday - and still has at least one more full day of work before it is done.

You can see that our main is quite high now, Dean can't quite reach the top

Dean worked on patching our dinghy.  You might recall that our dinghy was accidentally shot, and we had patched it in Puerto Rico almost 1.5 years ago.  That patch has held great, but for some reason recently started leaking.  So Dean has been working on patching the dink again, and again, and again- yes it is not going well.  Hopefully this last try will work.

Grinding off the old glue getting ready for new

Dean also worked on painting our anchor which had some rust on it.   He sanded it down and put several coats of Galvanizing paint on it.

We will see how long the paint lasts.

Dean also mowed our friends yard while we were here.

Saturday our friends Jerry and Donna on Bluejacket picked us up, and we went to lunch with them.  Had a wonderful lunch, and great visit.   We left the boat at 11:30 and did not get back until 3:30.  A wonderful 4 hours.  We had not seen them for a couple years - so lots to catch up on.   Sorry, forgot to take a photo.

Today we move north, timing our travels with the weather.