Goodnight, Rhode River

Winterizing is Coming

I always dread the end of the season!

Stan and Joe’s

Lunch was at Stan and Joe's yesterday. It was great to hang out with friends for the day.

Schooner Race

We had a nice day with friends aboard for the Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race start. There was just enough wind, 5 to 10 knots, to keep these heavy boats moving, and the tide was helping them too. This photo is of the Pride of Baltimore, one of our favorites.

Winterizing is Coming

I'm starting to noodle out how I'll winterize the many systems aboard Sensei. Below is a picture of the sea strainer that feeds raw water to the engine. There are similar strainers for the generator and the air conditioners.

I had the idea of buying a spare cap that I could drill a hole in to install a fitting to feed antifreeze into the sea strainer. But, it turns out that when I started researching this idea I found that someone else has already created just what I need:

Perfect! It's made by a company called TRAC, called a TRAC Flush Cap, and it's available on Amazon.

Davit Crossbar

Today I installed the crossbar for the davits. It makes a huge difference for the stability of the davits. The makers had to create a custom bend in the bar to make it work with the steering pedestal, and it worked out great.

Grasshopper

Our new dinghy, also known as "Grasshopper", is working well for us. We're now easily able to get around when the boat is at anchor!

Clear

We had a clear night, and Orion was rising.

Goodnight, San Domingo Creek

Goodnight, Oxford

Entering the Choptank!

On our way to Oxford.

Shower Drain

I spent yesterday rebuilding the shower sump. The float switch appeared to have failed, but after a thorough cleanup to get all of the gak off, it works fine. 

Visitor!

So, this little guy showed up this morning. Not sure how he got onboard…

Goodnight, Galesville

Dinghy

…is aboard!

West River

We're anchoring in the West River for a couple of nights. A bit cloudy today, but it's great to be out.

Dinghy

We tried out our new dinghy today. For the first time ever, we have a dinghy that will plane. This will extend our range considerably when we're exploring.

Davits

New davits are installed and rigged. We plan to hoist the dinghy aboard later this week.

Strut

We're welding a broken strut on the swim platform today. We're nearing the finish line on our projects, so we should be getting back in the water next week!

Bottom Paint

Bottom paint complete. Sweet.

Prop

The port prop has been repaired and tuned. Looks great!

Swim Platform

The swim platform repair is under way. We damaged this when we were caught in big seas and the dinghy broke loose from the davits. In this picture you can see where the carpenter has cut the aft plank to make it ready to scarf in a new plank.

Shower

I replaced the shower slider bar today. The old one was corroded, so this is a good improvement.

Shiny

Annual wax job completed. So shiny!

Cantler’s

Lunch at Cantler's today. Great day on the water!

Dinghy Davits

The parts for our dinghy davits have arrived. We will install these next week. This upgrade should make handling a larger dinghy possible. 

Oopsie

During our trip through the ICW we touched bottom briefly. Now that the boat is out of the water we can see that we put a ding in one blade of one of the props. It's not too serious, but we'll need to take it off and send it out to be fixed.

Haulout!

This always makes me a little nervous…!

Lunch on the Water

We had a nice day with our family, making a run down to the West River for lunch. Great to spend time together!

Fireworks!

Fireworks in Round Bay aboard our friends' boat.