A busy, diverse week. To make sure the boat would be ready for sea soon, I asked my circumnavigator friend Joseph to help me tune the rig using his Loos tension gauge. Very easy. Now I'd like my own gauge, but the one I need is $250, so not in my immediate future. I continued work on the oars and in the process once again proved that haste makes waste. On the plus side, I was able to solve a problem that I had erroneously thought I'd already solved. My autopilot once again failed to power up, despite my recently having installed and wired a new ground bus that seemed to have fixed it. After a good deal of head-scratching and electrical sleuthing, I noticed a connector seemed to have moved slightly on the wire. A slight tug and it popped right off: bad crimp. Hard to find; easy to fix. To relieve an idiosyncratic personal irritation, and do a quick project that would make a visible difference, I decided to refurbish the dorade vents. After cleaning and prepping them, I sprayed them with Plasti Dip rubber coating. It looks fine, but I have no idea how it will hold up. Check back in six months or a year and we'll know.
On a personal note, I took Carol (in the new Mini) to a very romantic place for her birthday: the Ranch House in Ojai. Lovely setting, good service, great food and a singer/guitarist who seemed to be able to channel James Taylor. Most importantly, Carol liked it. On the other end of the spectrum, I had to have a biopsy on a mole this week. The doctor thinks it's benign, but we need to check it to be sure. Results next week....
