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Where is TIDES INN Today?

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The last position reports for Tides Inn will be displayed on the map. (Courtesy of www.winlink.org) Tides Inn homeport is Dare Marina, Yorktown VA

Last week of preparations

  Its the last week of preparations for our departure south and we have two major jobs to complete before the final provisioning and departure.
   Sue is working hard making us a full enclosure for the cockpit which will keep the cold winter winds off us as we head down the Intra-Coastal Waterway - at least to North Carolina - in January.


  With all the curves and obstacles in the cockpit dodger and bimini and backstays and davit supports, the enclosure is a very complicated task.  Here's a photo of two side pieces in the process of fitting. First the tops are attached, then the side zippers added and, finally the bottoms attached to the cockpit coaming. Looks like we will be finished on Friday.


   My job is to repair the wind generator - it needs new bearings installed.  Seems that when I removed my brand new expensive wind blades for the couple months the boat was in the boatyard (so they wouldnt be damaged by hurricanes or the boatlift), removing the blades and hub exposes the bearings to the rain. The cheap bearings rusted and were ruined.  I bought stainless steel bearings to replace them. Now just have to get the machine apart to replace them.
   I was able to get the wind generator off the pole and work on it in cockpit.  Old bearings out, new bearings pressed in later in day.  Now just need to reassemble it on Friday morning.  Still looking good for departure this weekend.