Keeping busy. I started on the rope ladder I mentioned last time.

I have a half dozen steps to finish building and then finish putting it together.

Still healing from crashing clown bike. It really hurt me. I popped right up and hightailed it home to assess injuries but I am still hurt. Back has been really set back by it. I landed on the same side that I hit when I hurt myself in 2006.

It has been over 2 months since the crash. The road rash on my ankle, knee and elbow are still quite sensitive. Still have scab on ankle. The worst case of road rash I have ever had. Yet pretty insignificant compared to what my back is going through.
 Learned to throw a cast net this last weekend. The directions on the package were pretty crummy. We watched about a dozen utube videos and found one by a teenager that looked pretty simple. I was successful the first throw.

If you look closely at the water in the second picture, you can see the circle caused by the net hitting the water correctly. Then it was Vivian's turn. It took a couple trys for her to figure out how to throw it hard enough. She did great!

We had a very short time to fish before the skeeters come out here. Funny how we had none at Johnson's marina and they are thick here. I caught some bait fish and I fished the bottom with a rig that I have used for fishing off the bottom of rivers before. There were some nice fish coming out of the water next to the dock. Vivian just played with her bait right there and caught about an 18 inch Tarpon. I caught nothing. Skeeters arrived and fishing was over.
Winyah bay is a lousy place for sailing. Water is too shallow and channel too narrow. It is easily 2 hours to motor to the outlet. Add another 2 hours to get back and there is a 4 hour day at best before any sailing can be done. Not pleased.
 However, while staying on the boat we discovered that it is poorly set up to live on at this point. Much as I hate to say it. I really need to change some things inside. I don't even have a place to lay a chart out to study. Storage is so minimal that 2 people cannot tuck away a weekends supplies. It lays out on the settees.

What does this mean? I am staying in Myrtle beach this winter to finish what I started. So close, but still a bunch to do.
I have decided to build a pole to mount radar on the stern. I will have to change the starboard settee into a booth with a table. Saw a picture of a boat like Mary Lee finished that way. I liked it. I have an idea for the port settee that will eliminate the lack of comfortable seating and storage. Vivian sews, she will help with the canvas. Gotta have shade. I also will need to look at adding an autopilot. I know there are some that are compatible with my chart plotter.

In other news. I should be painting the cabinets I built above the washer and dryer as I type this. Will have doors hung and a picture for next post. I put handles and knobs on Vivian's kitchen cabinets last night.

21 knobs and 9 handles. Looks much better.
Labor day weekend we are going after my storage unit stuff in Corpus Christi, Texas. One more loose end I need to tie up. I am anxious to get my oil paints. I also have a couple rifles that I need to finish making the stocks for. I am concerned about the wood having overdried and cracked in the heat. They were very expensive(extra fancy) claro walnut. I had them basically opened up to receive the action and barrel. I also had the outside almost completely done. Just needs several hours of final inlet and sanding before glassing and finish. I hope they are still good. I also have my leather working tools. Not much need for leather work on a boat but I enjoy doing it and I spent a lot of money so I could make any leather item I wanted.

I sold off most of my woodworking machines and welder/torches earlier so although missing them, less stuff to worry about. I am hoping I kept at least one of my dremel tools. I certainly kept all my reamers and other gun working tools. The reamers are mostly for cartridges I designed. At $250 to $350 a pop I can never sell them and get much back. They are for wildcat cartridges and the average shooter who reloads would not know how to make the cartridges for them. They are much modified from existing cartridges and the steps involved to make them are quite extensive. All remnants of an old life that I much enjoyed. I was building the rifle to compete in thousand yard competition when I got hurt. I am not capable of spending the time on a shooting bench such a hobby would require anymore.

I thought I might have a picture of the last gun I built before I sold it. Nope, looks like all I have is a picture of storage unit.
Next post I will let you know how it went.

Where to begin? We would have been on the boat Friday afternoon but of course, now that the work is done, it was raining. Rain forecast all weekend and most of the coming week. Had about a 2 hour window on Saturday according to the radar so I fired Mary Lee up and took her to the new marina. Vivian met me with the car.

The timing was perfect. By the time I was happy with the dock lines and signed in the rain started again. Much better facilities here. Now if we can just get some nice weather.

So back to Myrtle beach. I will work on some smaller projects this week. First on the list is a rope ladder. I need to be able to go up the masts anytime I want or need to. Repairs are my responsibility and even though Vivian was okay with me winching her up in boatswains chair, I think it bothered me more than it bothered her. So back to the ladder. It will have oak rungs. I will start with this

Will see how many rungs I will get out of this. I need at least 20. Yup...that is the rope I will be using. Will show you a picture next post.
We made vegetarian tomales last night for the first time. They taste fine but the online recipe was wanting for proper cooking directions. When it was obvious the directions were not right we checked a few more sites. Now we know.
So...it was a late dinner

Not bad for the first go around. We have a change or two in mind for the next time. We have decided that sundays will now be ethnic night. We both like trying different foods and why not every sunday? We surely are not able to be out sailing!!! :-)

Vivian's office draws names for birthday cakes. It was her turn to bring a cake. The birthday boy plays golf. I made a golf cake.
I am trying to sort out exactly how the reefing lines and haul down are strung on a cat ketch with wishbone booms. I cannot tell you how much time I have spent online looking. I have yet to run across anyone who has a clue. I have a rough idea. I will go with what I think I know and change it if it needs adjusting to work right. In my search, I thought if I just found a picture I could study it might help. Came across this one. Not good enough to study the lines but it bears an uncanny resemblance to Mary Lee the way she looked in Baltimore

See what I mean?

And before the new lines went on

She sure does look ready to go out. I would go in the rain but I notice they have a lot of lightening here when it is raining. I kind of want to go when the sun is shining anyways. I am going to be weighing that out pretty hard this week. It's not like I will melt in the rain.