Sailed from Cuttyhunk back to Padanaram Harbor today. Sunny with light winds. We motored about 50% of the day which has seemed to be about the average for the whole trip.

I’ll fill in some of the blanks later. We had no WiFi after Provincetown and I didn’t keep up with my electronic log but we have our log book and lots of photos.

My outboard motor is running but my lawn tractor just broke! I gotta get back on the water.

Loaded up Catalpa. If the weather is favorable we are going to sail over to Onset tomorrow. I think we’re going to sleep on the boat tonight if I can tie up a few loose ends around here.

Martha’s Vineyard has great bus transportation so we took the bus over to Oak Bluffs again today.

Today was the “Grand Illumination” of the gingerbread houses that surround the Tabernacle. Beautiful. Wish I had my tripod for better night shots. Managed to get a few pictures that aren’t too blurry. All of these tiny little houses had thousands of lanterns lit up on them.

Had dinner at Offshore Ale again. Love the stout beer they have over there.

Diesel: Working! I managed to find someone (Discount Marine Source.com) that had the offending dipstick tube. They express shipped that to us and I got it in today. So our main engine seems to be working pretty well right now.

Outboard: Not such a happy story. The shop says it needs a new carburetor. It’s only a couple of years old so I’m hoping it’s covered by warranty (Honda). Best case scenario is that we get it back by the end of next week.

Plan: Who needs an outboard motor? I think we’re going to leave Sunday or Monday morning. We’ll head over to Cuttyhunk for a few days. I’ve got oars. Hopefully the engine gets done in a few days. Then we’ll sail back to Dartmouth, pick it up, and head off again.

After some very long 16 hour days, Catalpa is in. It would have been very easy for me to delay a few more weeks but a deadline is a deadline! “Time and Tide waits for no man!” The heat on Tuesday was ridiculous. Every once in a while we’d have a thunder shower but it only seemed to increase the humidity.

Our Day started at around 4:50am. At first light I was out putting bottom paint on the hull. Lynne spent most of the morning loading the boat. Caffeine was a necessary part of the morning’s festivities. The truck was at our house at 8:00 am to load Catalpa up.

Davis and Tripp did a good job of getting her out of my yard. I built the shed around the boat so I wasn’t 100% sure they were going to fit the boat out. I had a chainsaw handy. It was a tight squeeze due to the grade of the land but eventually she was out of the shed and on her way to the waterfront.

They picked Catalpa up with a big crane and put her into the water.

The rest of my day was spent rigging and sorting through some of the stuff in the cabin. Later in the day we motored around the harbor to make sure our old Diesel was still chugging away. Eventually we made it up river to our mooring.

Next- a few days of well deserved sleep!

This is the weblog for Catalpa.

It’s been three years now that we’ve sailed her. During this time we’ve been slowly exploring Buzzards Bay and Vineyard Sound. We’ve made a number of upgrades and learned a bit about diesel engines and holding tanks. My hope in starting this blog is to have a place for friends and family to check in on some of our exploits. As I type this, summer is over and fall is on the way. I’ve got a lot of work to do on her this winter so I intend this blog to also be a record of that work.