This weekend was fairly busy aboard Mary Lee. I had the alternator checked this last week. Same as in Baltimore. Putting out 13.5 volts. So why do I not trust an alternator that does not seem to be charging low batteries while the engine is running? I just don't.
   I decided after switching some wires around and getting the engine temperature gauge working and still not having the gauge showing a charge of any kind that it was worth a trip to Autozone and see about a different alternator. $50 later and of course 3 extra trips to sort out the new alternator belt size and I have a very good charging alternator. I know the difference between the marine alternators and the automotive ones. At this moment I do not particularly care. For $50 I have a very good backup alternator if and when I switch back to the marine type.

Next was stringing the Mizzen halyard. I built a bosun(or boatswain for those who prefer the correct terminology) chair.

I even routed grooves in the seat to keep one from slipping out. Also added an adjustable line to fasten around ones self to keep one from falling out backwards.

Vivian was the one I was concerned about. I would have gone up if there had been someone around to hoist me. 45 feet up. She was a little nervous but said she would do it again if needed. What a trooper.

I spliced lines a good part of the week in the garage.

This was the beginning of the choker lines that needed replaced. The ones with the blocks(pulleys)

I made good progress for teaching myself out of a book with inadequate pictures.

Splice the two short ones. Then splice onto the long one that runs to the cockpit.

Then splice the end so it cannot come unraveled. There is about 8 inches of the line pulled back in on itself. Someone voiced a concern about it coming apart. As hard as it was to get these pulled through to completion, I doubt if it will ever come undone without a good sharp knife.

It turned out that one battery was shorted out. No picture of the deed....but that battery belongs to autozone now.
  We never got as far as we wanted on putting up all those new lines. I had intended to use one of the marina's ladders but by the time we got that far it was sunday morning and the owners were nowhere to be found. We did get one line changed.

About 20 minutes will see the other line on here. All lines on mizzen mast will then have been replaced during my ownership. I have a little splicing to do this week but it is minimal. I am guessing about 3 hours of getting things squared away next weekend and we will take her out and put the sails up. It has taken 3 years to get this far. I finally have her in the kind of shape I need her to be in so I can enjoy going out. HURRAY!!!

There are other things to do but those have more to do with arranging living space than reliability. I am very pleased with the progress Mary Lee and I have both made since I bought her and packed my old life away.
I have sweated buckets while working on her and put in some serious hours of suffering while trying to rebuild a bad back and atrophied muscles. I have earned the right to sail this boat. I know her intimately. There is not one system I have not taken apart and massaged into shape.

I looked at the mass of rotten lines I took off her this week and found myself thinking of the shape we were both in when I bought her. Pretty crazy to have bought her from this perspective but if I put myself back into the place I was in physically and mentally at the time..... I needed a good hard project to fight my way through. Lance(Lance and Mary from Amanzi) had told me that once I got her out sailing I would get all the exercise I needed. I believe he is right. Just what I have done motoring from place to place has forced me to jump around and pull lines. That and with all the time spent crawling around on her working and the exercise in the gyms and riding bike, I am now in good enough shape to explore the sailing aspect of boating.

If you have followed my progress, you know I have really went to extremes when they were called for. My last cold weather winter is now over.
That first summer comes to mind often. It took several days to drive the last 400 miles on my way to Baltimore. I was so exhausted and hurt that when I got to the marina I almost put Mary Lee up for sale. I just had no idea how hard the trial would be. I stayed on Mary Lee that night and phoned a few friends.

Barbara told me that of all the people she had ever known....I was always putting myself into a corner so I had no choice but to fight my way out. She expressed her confidence in my ability to make it happen.

 Cheryl told me that if I never saw it through I would always kick myself for it.

Roger and his son Greg were voices of reason. I understood that it was not a shameful thing to sell her if I found out it was beyond my ability to do what I had in mind.

I took a sleeping pill and slept on it. In the morning as I crawled out of bed I knew I would see it through. I met some great people that summer. It kind of bolstered my faith in people and what I had in mind. It was a blow to have the engine fail as I attempted to head south that fall. But every cloud has a silver lining. The winter I spent in Montana was so vital to my recovery. I really ground it out fighting to get back in shape while there. I could not have rebuilt the engine if I had not spent all those hours in the gym.

Remember this?

It was like opening up a can of worms. I found so many problems. The funniest thing to come of this was hearing the people around the marina saying they never expected to see me again. They not only saw me again...they saw me leave in Mary Lee a couple months later.

I next learned the vaunted dismal swamp was just a ditch along the freeway

We hit stuff on the bottom 4 times going through the ditch. Caught a beautiful sunset the first "nice" night anchored out.(We anchored out at Solomon Islands first but it was crummy weather)

We had just made it through albamarle sound when we stopped here.

So a myriad of experiences later I am just now on the verge of starting the sailing adventures. What is next? I would like to say I have it all planned, but as I have learned with boating in general and my boating in particular.....Plan loosely, 'cuz you never know for sure. I am going sailing every weekend until November 1st. Then I am off to Florida. I hear Marathon is nice in the winter! :-)