Hilton Head Island: 5 for 3

 

A very good day.  

I biked to GANNET this morning with three tasks on my to do list and I did five.

All were minor.  Chief among them was to install new lifelines.  This is very easy and inexpensive on GANNET, one of the many virtues of small boats.  I buy a 50’ ¼” diameter winch line from Amazon for $20.32, which is considerably cheaper than buying Dyneema from a chandlery.  The breaking strength of the line is over 8,000 pounds.  You could lift GANNET on it four times over.  I cut off the nicely spliced eye and have enough for lifelines with about 3’ leftover.  The hardest part is undoing the half hitches and bowlines tied into the ends of the old lines which have become compressed with strain and time, like all of us.

New lifelines in place, I repaired another of the Blue Performance line bags in the cockpit, then crawled aft and replaced the screws securing the Pelagic motor drive box and while back there moved the last monthly bag of freeze dry meals forward and one of the Torqeedo batteries, which I brought back to the condo to charge.  The Torqeedo has not been used for more than a year.  I want to see if it starts and is still worth carrying around.

The morning was lovely.  Mid-70s F, mid-20s C.  Sunny.  A moderate breeze.  Working on deck and below was pleasant, as was almost the entire month of May.  Usually mid-May sees the beginning of debilitating heat in the Low Country, but not this year.  We have run 10ºF/5-6ºC below normal and continue to do so, though real heat may come next week.

The photo was taken somewhere between Panama and San Diego, obviously toward the end of the passage because there is wind.  I came across it looking for something else.