Well, our friends Larry and Sam have just purchased a Catalina 32. It's a beautiful boat, and they are really excited. Sam came down to do a little cleaning, and switch some of their stuff from their old boat, Mistral, over to the new one. The new boats name is Dragonfly. Very spacious cockpit, and the way Catalina takes advantage of the space down below is amazing, they really make the boat look alot bigger than it is. It's got the feel of a 36 inside, and the cockpit is actually bigger than ours, or at least it seems that way....how do they do that? Anyway, Larry is on his way down tomorrow to do some more work on board. I've attached two photo's of the Catalina 32.
I have spent quite a bit of time setting up all the waypoints on our GPS for the trip after Christmas. Over 200 points through channels, and open water avoiding about a dozen shipwrecks, and navigation through shoals and shallow water to get up to Bath, Belhaven, and Washington. Once the waypoints are in, all you do is follow the arrow, and look for day markers. However, last time we went to Ocracoke, I failed to mention that our GPS lost signal, and for about 3 hours we had to "dead reckon" everything by pulling out the paper charts and sailing from one day marker to another, to get the numbers and reference where in the world we were. It's a bit of a strange feeling when you're out so far that you can hardly see land, and suddenly you don't know exactly where you are. I think it's the challenge of shooting coordinated compass bearings and plotting them on the chart that makes it really fun! You really feel like a sailor then.
We are going to Raleigh (Garner) and will have Christmas there, with Bridget's mom and dad
I have spent quite a bit of time setting up all the waypoints on our GPS for the trip after Christmas. Over 200 points through channels, and open water avoiding about a dozen shipwrecks, and navigation through shoals and shallow water to get up to Bath, Belhaven, and Washington. Once the waypoints are in, all you do is follow the arrow, and look for day markers. However, last time we went to Ocracoke, I failed to mention that our GPS lost signal, and for about 3 hours we had to "dead reckon" everything by pulling out the paper charts and sailing from one day marker to another, to get the numbers and reference where in the world we were. It's a bit of a strange feeling when you're out so far that you can hardly see land, and suddenly you don't know exactly where you are. I think it's the challenge of shooting coordinated compass bearings and plotting them on the chart that makes it really fun! You really feel like a sailor then.
We are going to Raleigh (Garner) and will have Christmas there, with Bridget's mom and dad
because it's really difficult to explain how Santa shows up on a boat, not to mention the space is limited anyway. We love getting the Christmas cards from everyone, and I have to mention to Jen and John that Kaitlyn and Kiley are absolutely beautiful little girls! They are so cute. We went to Walmart to get some more pictures developed on Saturday but the machine was broken, so we wont be able to pick them up until Tuesday or Wednesday. If anyone has any suggestions on what we can do to make the blog more interesting, please let us know. My direct email address is sailingmorgans@yahoo.com.
The weather has been in the 70's but a front with 50 knot gusts is blowing in from the north, and the temperature is going to drop. Wind chill in the 20's....brrrrrrr. I hope it warms up for the trip. We'll see.
The weather has been in the 70's but a front with 50 knot gusts is blowing in from the north, and the temperature is going to drop. Wind chill in the 20's....brrrrrrr. I hope it warms up for the trip. We'll see.
