Being Wild Things on Jones Island

With Amy away for a few days coordinating our local leadership group, I grabbed the boys and sailed off to Jones Island for an overnight of being Wild Things. Leave work, pick up some firewood, some potatoes (you'll see), grab Owen from pre-school, grab Elliott from his after school Origami class, and we're on our way by 4:30pm on Friday. Civil twilight at 5:30 pm, one hour trip, should just make it. We just made it. Motored on a gorgeous calm evening through the dappled glory of our water world to arrive on the north side of Jones as last light was fading away.

We jumped into the dinghy and once on shore, we started up our fire in one of the fire rings and were Wild Things. We beat our chests a bit, and were transfixed by fire.

Deep sleep, next day, circumnavigate the island. Two and a half hour walk, about 4 miles, lots of stopping and laying in the sun. Warm, deep heat. Boys are amazing beasts. Not a word of "complaint", not even from Owen. It is what we do. Who we are. We skipped, threw rocks, sang songs, told jokes, watched bald eagles, were mesmerized by the water and altogether absorbed in being ourselves, and together.

Shaw Island, County Park

On what is expected to be the last nice day for a while, we jumped aboard Aeolus with no particular destination in mind. The sun was shining, and the air had warmed nicely to over 40 degrees, which is no small thing in January. After considering our old favorite of Jones Island, we decided to mix things up and go to County Park on Shaw Island.

New stern cleats for sheets and drogue

Today I completed the installation of two new Schaeffer stern cleats to use for sheets and drogue anchoring. Gulf 32's come standard with stern cleats for dock lines, but they are down below the level of the coaming and not able to be used for sheets.

New exhaust pipe and ball valve

On Aeolus the exhaust runs to the stern in a 1.5" hose and upon reaching the stern lazarette it rises up a few feet and goes through some pipe and back down to the through hull. This U shaped approach somewhat prevents sea water from filling the hose/water muffler and engine block. Nothing worse than a following sea filling your engine block with H20 and then going to start your motor to find that you just demolished your rods.

The pipe was showing signs of rust, and knowing a thing or two about rusting iron I knew it was time to at least pull it out and check for bigger problems. Turns out the pipe had partially disintegrated in places and it was high time to replace.