Rolly Tasker Sails, Phuket, Thailand

I'm at the largest sail loft in the world employing nearly 100 women to sew sails for sailing boats the world over.

It was started by a famous Australian sailor who regularly won the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. They had a list of his successful triumphs on the wall.

This place is enormous.

I was actually hoping to buy a spinnaker while I was here and besides having some stock sails available, they had quite a few "seconds" like this one that was just slightly bigger than I wanted for under $US1000.

Here are a few more pictures of the loft.

You can see the"seconds" lined up against the wall on the left. Most of these sails were perfectly okay and less than half the price of a new one.

In storage

My friends Walt and Mary have a Westsail 32 just like mine named Orion one boat over from mine here at Reedville.

They are thinking of selling their boat and buying a trawler because of health challenges.
I was out on a blistering hot summer day working on the boat.

The temperature here is so much more uncomfortable compared to New England. Actually, painting the boot stripe on the boat wasn't half as bad as working inside the engine compartment of the boat because at least there was a little breeze cooling me off. I had to add flax to my stuffing box and I know that it sounds complicated, but it is simple enough to get done. The propeller turns on a shaft from the motor inside the boat using a gasket keeping the water out called a stuffing box.

The stuffing box uses a flax material to allow some water to seep through to keep the shaft cool.
I also let off 3 insect bombs inside the boat because I have noticed some cockroaches appearing over the last couple of months.

I plan on splashing the boat in the middle of October and heading south.

Hauling Onapua

The bottom paint was mostly gone but there are not too many barnacles on her.

There is a bad hole in the rudder that will need to be fixed after it dries out.

I used to have a shoe between the keel and the rudder that has disappeared and the 3 blade prop had lots of barnacles on it.

I plan on replacing the zinc's on the prop shaft and the Bob stay.

Safe in Reedville

The first thing that I have to do is a purge.

I want to empty the boat of all food items and there are another 4 containers just like this that are all going to the food bank this morning. I want to set off an insect bomb in the boat because I have seen some cockroaches recently that have never been on the boat before.

Tomorrow at 7.45am, I am scheduled to be hauled out at Jennings Boat yard to have her boat repainted.

Entering the Chesapeake

I passed right by this structure, on my way north to Reedville and I just wanted to take a picture of it. This is what remains of the Old Plantation Flats lighthouse built in 1886 located in the  Chesapeake Bay.

It was decommissioned in 1962 and is supposed to be rebuilt near the original location on the eastern side of the Bay near Cape Charles at the mouth of the Chesapeake. The eastern side of the Chesapeake is quite picturesque and less built up compared to the western shore.

It was another great day for sailing down the Atlantic with a good steady breeze and to cap it off a glorious sunset.

My voyage from Ocean city, NJ took less than 2 days.

Hitchhikers

One thing that is great about this cruising lifestyle is that every day, something interesting happens. They say that truth is stranger than fiction and it was for me today just the same as it will also certainly be tomorrow. In fact not one but two interesting things happened to me today. For starters I didn't know that whales were common off this coast but I do now for two reasons. One, a big boat full of tourists with whale and dolphin watching research signs on the side came very close to me in the mouth of the Delaware. But two, about 300 yards behind the boat, this morning, a whale broached. I can't ever remember seeing this before except on TV but this whale came right out of the water. I mean seriously up in the air. Big splash of course. I didn't get a photo of it but I did enjoy the moment.
The other thing that happened to me today that I did get a photo of, was of a cheeky bird in my cockpit. Every now and again, I get these hitchhikers and usually they are tired and need a rest or they are not well. This guy however, was full of energy and started chasing insects around the cockpit, so I gave him some bread.

Would you believe it, but he ate the whole thing and gave me a couple of deposits back in return. It took him ages to eat it and after a couple of hours, he wondered up to the bow of the boat and flew away. I am not sure what kind of gull he was but I suspect that he was young and hadn't learnt to be afraid of humans.

Ocean city, New Jersey

Forecast was really bad for tonight so I stopped in at Ocean City on the New Jersey shore just south of Atlantic city.

It feels strange to be in a marina again with all the comforts of home. After 5 days at sea, my shower tonight felt so nice. And I will get to watch the closing ceremony for the Olympics at the bar here. Ocean city is such a built up place with Atlantic city just to the right in the photo.

I did have a customary escort of dolphins into the harbor.

It's not a very good photo and yet there were at least 20 of them playing off the bow for a good 10 minutes. I did try my hand at fishing Friday at dusk which is a very rare thing for me.

There were at least a dozen fishing boats off Hudson Canyon 130 miles off shore when I went by there so I figured there had to be something around. I can't see forking out $1,000 for the fuel it must take them to get there. I used 20 gallons to cover 360 miles but most of that was sailing.
Tomorrow I head out once more to catch this northerly wind and hopefully i will make it to the mouth of the Chesapeake bay Tuesday.