We are out for the season as of yesterday.  We officially moved Inspiration from Tower Marine to Saugatuck Yacht service.  SAM cleaned inside and we recoated with Cetol the little rub mark made when we tried to get into the slip against a strong current.  I was not too graceful .  This was the second scrape for this year.  Anyway she is tied up with 6 lines and should be safe until removal some time within the next couple of weeks.  We will pamper her with heated storage again and try to work on her over the winter. 

 We will probably put her up for sale as our plans have been changed by several events and neither one of us can be absent for the year or two we had originally planned.  Too bad for us but it could be good for someone who has the time and stamina to make the trip. 

We have a few over the winter projects that will draw us up to Saugatuck and when I retire in February I should have time on my hands for those little chores like re-building the seacocks, making a few plumbing changes and rewiring the bilge pump.  The original boarding ladder needs to be stripped and coated as well.  This is a big job that will take a lot of time to do it right.

Yep, we chose the right time to remove the sails last week in the sunshine and warm temperatures.  We felt pretty smug as we saw some sails coming down yesterday and today.

We continued unloading the bedding, cushions, dingy and davits.  We stored the club foot and main booms on deck.  It is another year of inside heated storage because we want to do a lot more work this winter and 45 degrees is better than -20.  This means the mast comes off again.  I want to add a winch to the main boom and rebuild the other 3 mast winches.  The new winch is for reefing assistance and I may think of something else over the winter (e.g. put a jam or cam cleat on roller furling halyard to free up one mast winch).  Rarely do I retension the Yankee halyard so why use one winch all the time just to tension the jib?  Why not just tension the halyard with a winch and then use a cam or jam cleat and tie it off to the existing halyard cleat?

Here I site in another night ogale force winds to 35 kts and 12 – 16′ seas.  The baro has not moved much from the 29.8? for the last three days.  Right now it is 29.80 and very slowly falling.  The rain comes in sheets and the temperatures are to be in the mid 40′s tonight with light to moderate rain.  The 4500BTU heater is going full blast and is just comfortable on the cold side.  I plugged all 4 dorades so I am just holding my own.  Of course, I have my cold weather sleeping bag that has not been zipped shut since last fall about this time. 

I did not feel like fixing much food tonight so I just dropped by the local supermarket to buy a roasted chicken.  As luck would have it a chicken pie was the only thing left.  It was pretty good but the $4.49 bird of 2.5 # lasts me three days.  The pot pie was the same and I ate it all plus some orange segments and a couple of hand fulls of trail mix.

 I finished the DVD of “The Aquatic Life ” with Steve Zissou.  It sort of grows on you but I have seen better.  Maybe I can get to the library and get somethng better.  The winds are down now and iA hear no raindrops.  It is also totally dry inside so what else could you ask for?  BFN.

With regret we removed the sails for the end of the season.  We may go out a few more times under power but to tell you the truth I am a little afraid of getting stuck the water is so low.  One sailboat got stuck today just a few feet off the center of the channel.  Fortunately our friend Joe was there with his magnificant tugboat and pulled them free – for free.

The sails are reasonable but we noticed a few mildew spots so we will have the sails cleaned this winter and any touchups down that the sail make deem necessary.  The same applies to the dodger.  I would like to completely enclose the cockpit so that may be in the plans too for the winter.  Right now there is just a sun cover and it actully helps to dump water into the cockpit.  It will need a new expensive frame to encloser the oval shaped cockpit. Well all of you know what a YS25 looks like so there is no need to tell you.

It is supposed to rain all week and a super high appears to be developing and that means wind and cold for the next week.  BFN.

Gary was a great meeting.  I have to get my 2 month eye check tomorrow after the surgery and would you believe it is very irritated and red.  So I am back at the land base for the appointment tomorrow.

 I bought a paint spinner from Jamestown Distributors plus two badger hair paintbrushes.  Man, let me tell you that  everyone should have wone of these spinners if you varnish, Cetol or own a YS.  I took an old brush that had small grains of dried paint imbedded in the brush that was still moist with mineral spirits.  I put it in the spinner and within a few pushes all the little bits were gone.

When SAM put on the gloss it went on perfectly clear with almost no imperfections except one little hair from the brush that won’t sho too much and next summer I will use a razor blade to slice it out.  I am holding back on the verdict of badger hair brushes.  The seem to hold more fluid and work well but then again so do the China hair brushes that are the right type (2″ and more thick about 3/8″).

Have not heard from Robert M. yet as to how the autopilot installation went or who installed it.  Can’t wait to hear his experiences. 

I am on my way back to Gary tomorrow.  It looks like rolled up pants legs, bare feet and sandles to get from the dock to truck.  Looks like rain.  I like rain to sleep by and even during the day so I don’t feel guilty about reading a good book.  BUT, I do not like walking down or dock – the water can be an inch or so deep.  Time to read before up at 0630.

Saturday was beautiful and we should have been out sailing but we arrived late and wanted to get that coat of Cetol Gloss on the cockpit coaming.  It is beautiful wood with good grain.  the good news is we got it done and it was dry by the time it got dark.  another benefit is that it did not get any dew on it due to light winds all night.  It was pretty cool and got down to around 50 degrees.

Sunday looked good too so we went out to the lake but the seas were confused and about 6′ so we did not even bother putting up the sails and just motored for about an hour total.  One of the main reasons for going out was to see if we could get out – we draw 5.5 ft and the depth was showing 4.9 – 5.0 ft at the slip.  So this means we lost another 8″ of water over the last year.  We obviously got out with some difficulty and the channel was shallow also.  The owner of the marina is going to dredge to 10′ starting Oct 1.  We are glad because we like it here but just cannot live with <5' water.

Sunday evening the rain started and we sloshed from the boat to the cars to go to work.  The rain persisited all day and just ended about dark.  Here is why!