The torrential rains lately have shown us a couple of new leaks in our 30 year old shingle roof....time to bite the bullet and get a new roof installed. Our next door neighbor suggested a good local roofer so we got him to come out this morning and do an estimate. We're pleased with the setup - picked out a shingle color and we'll have a new roof in a few weeks. Glad that's one chore that someone else is going to do!!
I'll be starting a sewing project in the next few days....the dreaded salon cushions!!
My "sewing closet" at the house has gotten absolutely stuffed with various "end of project" bags/boxes. I pulled it all out and organized it (and threw a lot away!!)
And now it's not so chaotic! I'll be setting up my upholstery sewing machine in the basement for the project but it was nice to get everything inventoried and organized so at least I remember what I have now! Waiting on a few shipments before I can start the cushions. Otherwise, it's just crazy rainy here.
Today is going to be a do-nothing day, I'm afraid....woke to patter-patter of raindrops. Wonderful temperature.....
We had actually talked about packing up and going to the house for a while today....but now we think we'll just hunker down and read a book. There's always tomorrow and hopefully it will not be rainy!
Something I haven't really discussed is how we handle our holding tanks when we are at the dock for extended periods. We have two 20 gallon holding tanks for our toilets....when these are full we use this handy little "pump out trolly". Not a pleasant task but has to be done of course! This cart washed up in a hurricane many years ago in pretty good shape. Several folks that have stayed on the dock over the years have done various repairs and adding replacement parts....Duane had to make some repairs recently and suggested that maybe we should cover it up vs. letting it sit out in the weather 24/7. (If you're wondering about specifics - we have a septic system on the property and we simply drain the cart contents directly into the septic field cleanout port).
So I bought a medium duty tarp at Harbor Freight for $8 and got busy designing and cutting out pieces to sew together in a rough box-like shape. Still loving those clips vs straight pins! Just sewed up the long seams.
Did a quick fitting and determined it was too long so marked it and cut off about 4" all around.
Hemmed the bottom just to add some stability at the base.
And added some webbing a clips to hold it snug so it won't blow off. A good few hour project! Maybe this will help extend it's life a bit.
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I know Sept 11th is a somber day - but for our family it was also my dad's birthday.
He would have been 85 today. Amazing he's been gone 31 years now.
This photo always makes me smile.
Oh, it's just lovely weather!!!
The view in the morning.
I just used my bread knife to cut the Dry-Fast foam to size.
Here's the sad little deflated seat removed from the dinghy.
With a bit of strong-arming, I did get the foam in place (luckily, I had the foresight to sew velcro on both ends of the blue Sunbrella to ease this process)
Back installed in the dinghy. Now my tush will have a nice soft landing!
And now the view in the evening!
Our neighbor, Joe Noonkester is a published author - he loaned me one of his books to read - it's called Twisted Delusions and is a murder/mystery/detective novel. He was previously a policeman in California in his younger days. It's always interesting reading something a friend has written - this one is a little gristly! Fun "Twists" of course.
Strange to read from a binder!
It's even better than the first - same group of characters so easy to get back "into" the story. I'm about 1/3 way finished. I'll give a review!
Otherwise, it's business as usual....a bit of laundry and yard work. We'd planned to go to Ocracoke and use Duane's newly minted "Senior National Park Pass" but the north winds just keep blowing...not a fun direction. So we may come up with an alternative destination.
We arrived at Jerry and Donna's dock at that appointed 8AM hour for the trip to Wayfarer's Cove Marina at
We were off the dock easily and set up to motor for several hours as the sails were removed for some repairs/alterations.
Jerry likes to have enough folks on board for haulout because the haulout well at Wayfarers is very narrow. There needs to be hands on each corner of the boat to make sure the lift doesn't harm the hull. Not exact figures, but Bluejacket is a little over 19' wide and the well is about 19'6" wide. Not a lot of room for error! Dave from the Big Dumb Boat Dyad joined us. He was the developer of the free navigational software OpenCPN. Sortof famous in the boating world.
What's a trip on the Neuse without a ferry spotting. Or two..
One of them seemed close to us but is running much faster so was not a factor at all. 
Approaching the Wayfarers Cove channel is always exciting. It's extremely narrow! Hard to see but it's up there!
Doesn't look like we can fit thru with the dead tree overhanging to starboard and the sandbar encroaching to port.
But Jerry threaded the needle just fine. (The marina has a permit application in process to dredge the channel but it's not been approved yet).
There has been hurricane damage to this marina over the years and they are slowly making repairs/improvements.
The well looks tiny!!
But with all hands helping, the boat was safely in the slings.
Jerry and Donna treated us all to a yummy lunch at the nearby golf course. Good fun!
The 42 came with a Sunbrella seat cover for the dual helm seat. I liked the look of it so I decided to copy it. Here it is on Sojourn. Just a simple shaped bag really, with a drawstring at the base to tighten it up.
I set about to make a rudimentary pattern - doesn't have to be exact at all, just a sun-shield anyway. This is the original turned inside-out so I could get a feel of how it's constructed.
I didn't have any tracing paper, so I just used what I had on hand - printer paper - to make a pattern.
The two "end caps". The remaining piece was just one long rectangle to be sewed between these two pieces.
I used clips instead of pins - worked wonderfully!!! So much easier than sticking pins thru the tough Sunbrella material.
I won't bore you with details of the sewing - just easy straight stitching and a simple drawstring pocked that the base. I'm pleased with the result.
Just busy doing normal boat chores. We were invited next door by Colleen and Joe for dinner….and just then the clouds came over and dumped copious amounts of water! No worries, we still had a nice visit. We've been eating really well lately!!
I spent a good amount of time in the water cleaning the scummy waterline of some algae and growth. Didn't feel any barnacles so that is a good sign. (The water is too murky to see much). No photos since it's not very photogenic!
Jerry and Donna invited us over for the evening. Good to see them again, Donna's doing great with the second "bionic knee"!!
The view out to Bluejacket. We are going to sail along with Jerry in a couple of days to take the boat to Wayfarer's in Minnesott for his yearly haulout.
After a yummy lasagna dinner (veggie lasagna for me!) we played a fun game of dominoes which Duane won handily. Fun evening!
