July 7-10 -- Two Short Work Days, Day Sail With Neighbors, and A Rainout

The two work days totaled six hours, eight if you include two that Lene helped -- cleaning the heads. The remaining wide spot on the door between the pullman berth and the salon was narrowed by use of less elbow grease - with the Dremel. So the door fits and can be closed at last. I also obtained bolts, nuts and washers from Buddy's Hardware and reinstalled the flexible neck reading lamp in the pullman. No more wobble. 

Have I told you about Buddy's, the best little hardware store on City Island? Well it is the one but a treasure, the antithesis of Home Depot with its army of hard to find, often not knowledgeable, orange clad floor workers. Buddy, his name is Carl, bought the old Buddy's, moved it a few doors to a smaller store and yet seems to have everything I need for the boat -- and will get the stuff that he does not have. But the best thing about the store is Carl. He knows his stuff and has, for example, told me that I can repair what I need, and how to do it, without buying what I went to him for. A year or so ago I had to tap threads in metal. My friend, Pat, who helped me, told to to get a tapping tool from Buddy's. This was the first time I had tapped threads in over thirty years of sailing, first time in my life! Carl lent me the tool, no charge, no deposit, no questions asked. I insisted, over his opposition, on giving him a few bucks when I returned the tool. Where else does one get service like that! It's worth the trip to City Island. So it's my pleasure to tip my hat to Buddy's. 

I installed our new Carbon Monoxide detector. My friend said the only time his beeped in 25 years was a false alarm, but the vapor is highly toxic so why not. It is the unobtrusive black square in the center top, and the hinge side of the recalcitrant door is at the left.

The adhesive had grown insufficiently sticky on the pads that held the Velcro-removable Zarcor shutter on the aft berth's porthole. I glued and clamped it -- good as new, I hope. 

I noticed lines slating against the mast, retied them from port to starboard and thereby stopped the noise. And the vacuum cleaner took up the sawdust and other particulates so Lene returned to a clean boat. 

Our day sail was with Max and Ellen whose kitchen wall is the other side of our kitchen wall, i.e., close neighbors. We were underway three and a quarter hours under main and small jib, on a nice weekday afternoon. Fortunately the south winds were more than the four knots of wind predicted, enough to move the boat at about 4.5 knots through the water. We sailed under the two bridges to gain a full view of the Laguardia control tower before heading back. We had favorable tide outbound and achieved GPS speed of 7.3 knots, less on the way back, and ended with a dead run back to the mooring field. No waves and our guests' shrimp and wine tasted good. Dinner at the Club followed and I finally figured out how to get meat cooked medium rare there; ask for rare! From departure to return to our garage in our friends' car we spent eight hours with them.

Next day's sail date with new friend Madanda had to be adjourned to a rain date by Tropical Depression Fay. Most such cyclonic (counterclockwise) storms are picked up by modern detectors off the Atlantic coast of Africa and tracked on their irregular but generally northwesterly paths across the pond; this one popped up out of nowhere off Cape Hatteras. Not strong enough to be a hurricane but it would have been no fun to be out in; and the rains, as New York readers know, were torrential. Not having heard any bad news from the Harlem, ILENE weathered the storm.