Elizabeth City, North Carolina

Parts came yesterday but the valve cover gastkets were the wrong p/n so today we received the correct ones. Got quite a scare when 2 cam followers pulled out of the block while retrieving the broken push rods. Nothing like hearing the clunk tinkle of a loose part dropping into the depths of the engine when disassembling. Trying to fish these out with a magnet was an excercise in frustration. Got a hold of them many times only to have them drop back into the block while trying to get them past a choke point. By some grace of God, both of these dropped back into place and right side up before I got them out. When I finally squirmed my way to a point I could look down on them, I couldn't see them, at that's beacuse the were now in position (thank you God) although at the time I was not convinced this could have happened, so I had to do a lot of checking to convince myself that I was that lucky. The engine turned over easily by hand and not crunching could be heard so I completed the assembly of the head with the new head gasket and new torque wrench. The rest of the assembly was less challenging but still tough on the back. Valve adjustment was not too bad, the local mechanic (Dan Daneker from Fathom This 252-426-3586) was on hand to make sure all went well. He helped me bleed the air out of the fuel lines and we fired her up. Must have bleed well since it started much faster than other times the lines have become air bound. Hip hip houray!!
We have been extremely conservative with both batteries all week without any way to charge them, so that we had enough power to go thru the long grinding process of a restart after purging the air. Looks like we did well as we just had enough with both batteries on to fire her up.
Shark has changed his flight from Charlestown to Norfolk and will take the M&M limo right from here to the Airport. Frank Cook is flying in to Norfolk on Saturday and will limo down, so looks like another few days here to make the the connections work.
We are going to treat ourselves to a daysail in Albemarle Sound tomorrow. Can't wait to get off the slip and sail even if it means coming back.
Ta for now.

Will try to do some more catching up on the past days.


Nov. 3 Centerport, LI NY


Took a lay day at my brother in laws. Located one of the last Autohelm drive belts in existance at a marina only a few miles away. With a car at our disposal we managed to avoid another potentially significant dalay. Got the GPS hooked up, and it is great. A Garmin 545 with all the charts on the east coast built in. After spending another restful night with a great dinner from Pat and Linda and good friend Liz Biazi we tried to get an early start for City Island, but alas too many things to do on the boat so another pm start. Had a nice sail in the sound for a few hours until the wind died and motored to the Styvasant Yacht Club and were able to tie right up to their dock and go in town to a great Irish Pub while the Yankees clinched the World Series. The New York fans in the bar were ecstatic.

We left 2 hours prior to the high slack in Hell's Gate to arrive there at slack and had an easy time of it. The trip down the East River was really cool. The UN all the bridges and ship traffic made it an unforgetable experience. The statue of liberty looked great too. Our plan was to sail thru the night with a stiff NW wind to get to Cape May, howerver as we got abrest of Sandy Hook the forcast called for gale warnings so we backtracked a couple of miles and overnighted at a dock.

The winds did hit gale force and I estimated around 40 knots. The harbor is terrible for NW winds and we had a three foot chop at the dock. We had out 7 dock lines and broke three due to chafe and surge strain. Other boats at the dock did not fare so well. As we walked up the dock to get breakfast in town, we heard an alarm going off on one boat. We climbed aboard and found the bilge pump switch and pumped him out. Nobody home at the Marina. As a Seatow boat was tied up at the dock we were able to call him and he had the owners home phone. This guys swim platform had broken off and left empty bolt holes below the water line. We had to wait until 3 pm for the winds to die down to 20 knots so we could take off for Cape May