I am getting to the point that most of my projects are done. Installed the AM/FM Radio with MP-3 player, got he software installed for the new GPS antenna, improved the wind vane set up, screened the enlarged cockpit scuppers, etc.  My next major item will be the solar panel. I am shopping for the fabrication of the arch on the transom, similar to what I had on the “old FW”.

I left late this morning after the 8.30 mass. Since the only favorable current back was till 17.30 or late at night I had planned to spend the night at Lake Bay.I missed the slack current by an hour through the Tacoma Narrows but managed to get through hugging the point Evans shore, there was no wind. When I turned the s.e. Corner of Fox Island to head for Lake Bay a yellow San Juan 24? caught up with me. He hailed me on channel-16. He was Derk from Hannover living on Bainbridge Island. While I talked to him (in German) my engine sputtered to a halt. A tiny breeze had come up. I hoisted the main but the ebb was already pushing me back. Derk came along side to help but it was very difficult to stay together in the current. I decided to go back to Gig Harbor on the ebb. Just before the bridge, at Day Island, a fairly strong NW set in. I tried using the wind vane but the current and the changing wind direction forced me to hand steer. It turned out to be another amazing performance. A dark blue, black carbon  sails go fast 36 or so footer had passed me before the wind set in, he had to be a 1/4 mile ahead of me but I caught up with him before I turned left into Gig Harbor and he turned right to Tacoma. Then near the GH entrance the wind died. Now I found out how well I can scull (wrik) the boat with the big rudder. Inside the entrance and  the harbor was some wind again. I had brought the anchor on deck, just in case I was unable to get into my slip without the use of the engine. I normally back into the slip. I tried to back into my berth by backing the main, it almost worked but the current swept me sideways. I quickly raised the genoa and managed to make a perfect landing by making a 180 into the wind and the help of waiting dockside neighbors.  Not many ocean sailing boats can be managed this way, because of size and weight.

Today’s second reading (in every RC, Lutheran, Episcopal churches all over the globe) was from Romans 8-35. Our mother had wanted this on her tomb stone and she writes in “The Mastmakers’ Daughters” how this passage gave her strength and hope during her imprisonment in the concentration camps.  This message is so appropriate today, in Mosul, Iraq where Christians are persecuted by Islamic extremist, in China where religion is restricted by the illegitimate Communist rulers, etc.

I am like a kid in a candy store with my new Sigma 70-300 zoom lens. The 80-200 zoom lens that came with the Nikon D-50, that I bought in Saigon the first week of 2010, came apart and had not functioned in automatic focus for the last year. This is picture of the occasional resident Bald Eagle take from about 500 feet.