Cold and Windy

They moved all the other boats to their winter locations and put me out on a small exposed dock on the north west corner yesterday. And since the wind normally comes out of that direction, we've been bobbing like a cork for the last couple of days -- much worse than before. I guess the bright side is that both Zoe and I are starting to get used to it, e.g., it's blowing at about 20-30 mph right now and I'm able to type, and edit, this with no problem whatsoever.

It's been too cold and windy to go up the mast or do any work on deck for that matter, so I've been concentrating on the cabin. I reinstalled the head yesterday also continued to organize my tools and stow gear. It's getting much better, but I've still got a lot to do.

I'd hoped to get on deck today and work on the wiring and remount the clutches for my halyards, but never got to it. Since I'm going to try to go outside from NYC to Cape May, I wanted to have the Jordan drogue ready, so I spent most of the day tying in the rest of the parachutes. I think there are about 170 or them, and I'd already tied in almost half, but it still took me most of the day and I've got a few left. I'll finish them tonight.

The only thing else I need to do to complete the drogue is to make up a bridle and add a weight to the end. West Marine has dock lines on sale which are about the right length and already have eyes made up, so I'm going to pick up a couple of 5/8" ones tomorrow. The weight on the end needs to be about 15 pounds, and although I could use my small anchor, I think I'll go ahead and pick up a dedicated length of chain. It'll be a lot easier to stow and no one will be tempted to use it for anything else -- safety gear should always be ready to go.

I also need to hook up my radios. I'll run up my SSB antenna, which is just an old piece of stainless steel halyard, but won't worry about hooking it up yet. However, I do need to install my new VHF radio and AIS unit. I'm not sure where they'll eventually go, but for the time being I'm just going to stack them on shelf at the foot of my bunk. That'll keep them away from the toerail leak.

I might move the SSB there too, but need to run some heavier wire if I put it that far away from the batteries. However, I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm also going to connect all my radios directly to the batteries (actually, the battery selector) instead of through the panel in order to reduce the chance of interference. Hooking up and tuning the SSB might take some time to get right, so I might even wait until I get to Houston before I mess around with it. I certainly won't need it for this trip.