HELP FROM ABOVE ...

And below:

Manteo, NC -- Our friend Pete helping us with electronics installation. He'll be continuing his help from above and below while we drive to the Annapolis sailboat show.

Thanks, Pete!!!

GOING RETRO

Manteo, NC -- Boat projects sound so easy in theory, but the old formula about tripling your time estimate when planning a boat job seems conservative to me.

So, the new radar and GPS arrived, but the old stainless steel stand is too short, so we had to order a new one.

The new standard for a stainless steel helm stand is 1.5", but we had to order the old 1" pipe, so it would fit the current (old) pedestal. Why does it matter? All the instrument wires have to be threaded through the stainless steel tube.

The new equipment comes with plugs that are just over an inch wide, and just a little wider than our old 1" pipe. All the wires will have to be cut, threaded and spliced or traced back to their source, disconnected, pulled back to the helm, threaded through the new pipe, pulled from the helm back to their original source and reconnected.

And those wide plugs that make the new equipment so easy to just plug and go? They are wider than the PVC conduit inside the mast -- the conduit that keeps the wires from clanging around inside the mast, which is a hollow metal tube. Nothing to do about that, so now we have two wires free-ranging in there, lying-in-wait to torture us on rough nights.

Top all this off by chasing the old wires through hatches, under tanks and behind the walls -- and then threading the new wires through the same paths. We did this today, only to discover that the new wires aren't quite long enough to reach the helm, so we now have to figure out how to get them extended.

Retro-fitting. This is how sailors learned to curse.

A SCARY PLACE

Manteo, NC -- Our new GPS and radar have arrived. We're taking apart everything at the helm to make way for the new configuration to be installed.

I had the compass out and was peering down into the well beneath it. When I setting the compass back in place, I thought, "Wow, we better be sure to get the compass back in with north pointing the right way!"

I'm not making this up. I actually thought this.

Sometimes I really scare myself.

LEARNING WHAT WORKS -- OR NOT

Manteo, NC -- Before I moved onto a boat, I thought, bamboo chopsticks, perfect!

Now that we've been through two hurricanes and tons of rain, the boat is a little damp. Not because it's leaking, but rather because the air is humid.

I opened a drawer in the kitchen and found those mildewed chopsticks in the photo.

Wood is fine, it just has to be finished or heavily oiled. Lesson learned.

On another note, you might wonder if it's possible to mess up a recipe with only three ingredients. The answer is yes.

I made corn tortillas tonight. They were terrible.

Guess I'll try again another day... If you have advice, please, click on that "comment" link below and let me know!

MANTEO

Ah, fair Manteo, I must admit, I'll miss you.

FLOATING ER

Manteo, NC -- A marine first aid kit came with the boat, so I decided to inventory the contents to see what needs to be replaced.

I fully expected to find things like bandaids, alcohol swabs and gauze. I was not disappointed.

I was not expecting a scalpel, skin stapler and a CPR mask. The instruction booklet has step-by-step instructions for things like reviving an unconscious person and performing an amputation. Jeez.

Give us a gurney and a triage team, and we'll be a floating hospital.

I'm all about being prepared, but let's hope we only use the bandaids for paper cuts and the aspirin for rum hangovers.

OUT LIKE A BANSHEE

Manteo, NC -- If Hurricane Earl brought September in like a lion, then tropical storm Nicole took it out like a screaming banshee.

We'd been keeping a wary eye on the storm and the low pressure over the eastern seaboard, yet, it still caught us a bit unawares.

About 8 a.m. yesterday the wind went from zero to 20+ gusts from the south -- right on our stern. Within 30 minutes, the bow had blown too far forward and the anchors that rest on the bowsprit were pounding on the dock. It took both of us to inch the lines in enough get clear of the dock. One of us would pull the line up to make some slack while the other would pull it in on the cleat. Pull, pull, pull, "Ready? GO!" It was inelegant, but it worked -- for the moment and at relatively low winds.

The prevailing wind for the storm would be from the south, the only vulnerable direction in this marina -- and the total opposite of the heavy winds during Earl. The morning preview at 20 knots was a good warning for us that we didn't want the same thing at 40 knots.

The wind kindly backed off, giving us a calm window to get the heck out of dodge, or at least to the outskirts. We bolted to a slip on the other end of the marina that the dockmaster calls the "Sea of Tranquility."

Every 30 minutes or so for the next 24 hours, sometimes more often, I said, "Thank god we moved!"

As evening approached, the wind was gusting in the 30s, and waves were breaking over the dock. Yes, over the dock.

And then it kept blowing, not in gusts, but like a big-ass fan. We thought Earl went on for a long time, but this one, thanks to the series of lows along the East Coast, lasted at least twice as long.

Fortunately the "Sea of Tranquility" turned out to be an accurate title. Cara Mia remained calm and unscathed, yet again, even as other boats were flailing around, some sustaining a good bit of damage.

We are thankful that we safely weathered a big storm in familiar water, yet again.