19 Mar 14

We flew back from Houston to Wilmington yesterday and went to Anchors Away Boatyard for the first look at “c’est le bon” in nearly 5 months. She looks pretty good considering, and the new cockpit enclosure, finished over the winter by Bluewater Canvasworks, is brilliant. We splashed the boat about 14:30 and the engine started right up. I moved the boat south 3 miles to Harbour Village Marina and Terri met me there with the rental car. We drove back into town for dinner; Brasserie du Soleil - tres bien. We have a great growth of sludge in the bilge (not sure where either the water or the sludge came from), which blocks up the bilge pump strainers in nothing flat; big mess to clear up.

20 Mar 14

Cold this morning, so we had a bit of trouble getting out of bed. The heater did not work at first, but after the pump primed, it finally started working just fine. First, we went to West Marine and then did a big grocery shop. In the afternoon, I started putting the boat back together: inflated dinghy and kayak, started the outboard, re-installed the falls on the davits and pulled the dinghy up. I also changed the impeller on the main engine water pump; preventive maintenance. We also got the re-cut genoa (sized down to 110% from 140% by the good folks at JSI in St. Petersburg, FL) hoisted, along with the sheets and furling line. We had dinner aboard. Cold again tonight, but the heater is working fine now.

21 Mar 14

Slept in till 8:00, then hit the ground running. Terri went for another grocery shop, while I stayed and worked on the boat; installed the new bug screen on the forepeak hatch, re-ran all the running rigging I had removed for the winter (main sheets, main traveler lines, spinnaker halyard, and whisker pole topping lift) and got the generator started. Followed by a long cleaning of the deck and topsides. We turned the rental car in late this afternoon and had dinner aboard again. I think we are ready to hit the road again; the topsides is all ready to go anyway, although we still need to do a bit of stowage down below. We will head off for Mile Hammock Bay tomorrow; tentatively planning to make it to Beaufort, NC by Tuesday, ahead of the coming (hopefully last) cold front.  Our overall plan for this season: NC in April, Chesapeake in May/June, NYC by 4 July, NE coast in Aug/Sep, then head back south ahead of the cold weather. Let’s see how we do.