Better late than never...

 Well, folks, I'm finally getting around to telling you about the 2011 Annapolis Sailboat Show. It was a LOT of fun!

I don't have a whole lot of pictures because it seemed more important to use my hands for my Pusser's Painkiller. For those of you not in the know, a Painkiller is a very tasty rum drink that includes pineapple juice, orange juice, maraschino cherries, an orange slice and.... some other stuff. Coconut I think. Anyway it's the breakfast of champions. I'm sure it was 5 o'clock somewhere.

I bought ONE THING all day: a discounted Henri Lloyd rain shell. Because my old one is from high school and the sleeves are a little short.

But the boat show isn't about buying stuff -- it's about walking around and seeing everything there is to see!

The one thing I was dying to see all day was a nice selection of ranges -- too bad none of the vendors brought any ranges. Seriously. I even confronted the people from Defender about it. And they said if I wanted to see ranges, I should have to experience unpacking them because they're very heavy.

But there were heads everywhere! And refrigerating units and anchors, oh my! Really? Not a range in sight?

I had to comfort myself with a lunch at Davis Pub in Eastport. It was the only thing to do. Greg had never been there. Did I mention Greg came to the boat show with me? He is pictured here with the post-lunch painkiller.

I found lots of interesting things, including a new way to have a door to the cabin, a self-setting anchor (not so sure if THAT works), stand-up paddle boards (you all know my obsession with that!), Lonseal floors, nesting cooking pots, custom-made latex mattresses (I wish!) and just about everything else you can imagine.

Oh yeah, there are boats there, too. But who looks at those?

We also saw this super cool line-making machine. Isn't that neat? We must have watched it for nearly 10 minutes. All those spools of line are doing a sort of maypole dance underneath the block in the top of the photo. Very cool. Especially when you're two painkillers in.

And finally toward the end of the day, we sat on the dock and watched the ducks. Just because we could and because Annapolis is fun.

I highly recommend a visit to the boat show -- it's a great day of entertainment.See you there in October 2012!

Installing a new bow light...

Well last summer dad and I took a nice overnight trip to Annapolis. There was a nautical flea market I wanted to visit. It turned out to be a bust, but it was a nice visit and we got to eat at our favorite Eastport eatery, Davis' Pub.

As we were leaving Sunday morning, we stopped for fuel. Last summer, Dad couldn't much leave the cockpit. So he was steering and I was guiding him to the fuel dock.

This worked quite well. Until it came time to leave the dock and we scraped the bow pulpit on the pilings at the dock and, we discovered later, knocked the bow light off.

Yes. That's a very embarrassing story I just told the blog world. But, readers, you needed to know the pain.

Anyway, dad ordered a new light and I taped the wires left from the old light and we forgot about it until the next summer, when I put my foot down. I wanted to sail at night and I needed lights to do it!

Enter my computer nerd boyfriend Greg and my trusty Dad.

Now, please keep in mind that this fix, while completely workable, would get you dinged on a survey because instead of completely re-running the wires, we spliced the new light onto the old wires.

We're rebels like that.

Here's Greg splicing.

I should maybe mention that it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit that day. I hid in the shade under the ramp and held the boat when necessary. I am largely useless when it comes to matters electrical.

The new light was not identical to the old one. It hangs from the forwardmost rail of the pulpit. The old one was mounted to a plate hanging from the aftmost rail if the pulpit (there is a double rail at the top of it). The old plate was welded on. We despaired for a moment of getting it off.

Then I had my sole brilliant moment of that hot, hot day: Why not just hang it and leave the old plate? It looks stupid, but how would we get it off without making the rail look REALLY bad? So we bent it down and the wires from the old light were in position to be spliced to the new light. Dad needed to drill the holes in the new light to make them larger so the wires would fit through.

And then Greg held the lamp to the rail and screwed it in place and spliced together the wires hanging from the light to the wires hanging from the plate.

Yes. There is an exposed splice.

Yes. This is bad for a survey. Weren't you keeping up? I said that already.

ANYWAY.

Night sailing? Yes please!