Not much wind to speak of today and the air temp was around 50 degrees. I wasn’t real sure it was worth going out sailing but sometimes you just need to get on the water. Lee volunteered to go with me so off we went. 🙂 well after we get the engine started “off we went”. I’m getting really tired of outboards.. or at least mine.. I haven’t had many of them and the ones I have had were someone else’s for a quite a few years before I got them, so maybe a new one would be more reliable. I have my doubts though. I don’t they like me in general. Always stopping just when you need them or not starting when you want them to start. After about 40 minutes of fiddling and playing with it I finally got outboad started. Squirt of carb cleaner into the cylinder and put the spark plugs back in and it started right up on the first pull. 🙂 so I cheated, but it worked.
Winds started out of the N N/E but were out of the S S/E by the end of the day. Maybe 5 knots with a few gusts to 7 or 8. Boat speed ran about 2.5 to 4.5 knots and the water was as flat as a table outside the inlet.
We had a really good time. It was mellow sailing with us rarely even touching anything. Just kicking back in the cockpit with mugs of hot chocolate and tea, talking and or just sitting quitely taking in the view. The sky was one of those clear and cold piercing blue colors that just about hurt you to look at. There were a few thin strands of white cloud and a couple of whispy jet contrails at 20,000 feet just to give it contrast. With a flat deeper blue ocean running off to the horizon before meeting the sky it was enough to induce quiet, to make you just take it in.
We must have spent 5 hours out there just idling along. By the time we got back to the dock I had actually gotten enough sun on my face to leave it slightly pink.. sunburn in feburary.
There was one problem while coming in that I will have to sort out. For some reason the autopilot ( Its a Simrad tp32 ) seems to be having issues with going to a new course when you hit the starboard/port arrows. Making a 30 degree change to either side of the original course can take up to 3 minutes for it to change to and sometimes it just doesn’t change. I also had it do a 40 degree course change unexpectedly and almost run us into one of the docked casino boats tied up at the Little River waterfront. It’s acting as if the compass in it is sticking maybe… not sure but I will be making a call to simrad’s tech support tomorrow.
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