Day 167, Year 8: Thank You, Patsy and Joe
Date: Friday, April 19, 2013
Weather: Winds S 18-22; Temp in the Mid 70’s F
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
Thanks to Patsy and Joe, we have a brand new auto pilot controller. Thank you, thank you, thank you. They wanted to do something for us to thank us for helping them through Patsy’s surgery. We insisted that we didn’t want anything, but they had heard us talking about the controller that was giving us so much trouble. So it was ordered from Amazon and now it is installed. We first had trouble with the display on the controller when we were Thailand. When we came home in 2009 we bought a remote controller ‘just in case.’ Luckily, we made it home without having to rely on the remote. But then on the first day of our passage from Cape Cod to here back in November, the button that you push to engage the auto pilot just quit working so that there was no way to use the auto pilot. Thankfully we had the remote and we could use it to engage the auto pilot. But it is battery operated and a couple of times when the batteries were low, we were not able to engage the auto pilot until the remote was recharged. I felt it was a bit dangerous because we would forget and hit ‘auto’ and then think we were in auto pilot mode when we weren’t. It didn’t take long before we would realize our problem, but now we don’t have to worry about that all. So we are very grateful. Thank you, Patsy and Joe. And by the way, Patsy is doing great. She still has some gastrointestinal issues, but all of that is getting better. She has lost about 5 pounds and is working hard to regain the lost weight, but she has lots of energy and looks great.
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| 130419 Day 167 South Carolina, USA–New Auto Pilot Controller |
Mark spent his day installing the new controller while I spent time in Patsy and Joe’s kitchen making chili and lasagna to freeze for the passage to Cape Cod. We then all spent our entire evening watching the events in Boston. I couldn’t leave until we heard that they finally had the second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing in custody. Thankfully that happened just in time to let us get home before the heavens opened up in downpour. We literally just barely got to the cockpit before the pouring rain came down. Unfortunately Mark wanted to go back out to run another line in case of high winds. He got a bit wet but Windbird is more secure. It looks like the rain should subside sometime tomorrow morning and then tomorrow afternoon we take off for Barefoot Landing. Brian and Judy Thompson are going with us and we are looking forward to a fun overnight trip.
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| 130419 Day 167 South Carolina, USA–Misc Spring Pics from Patsy and Joe's |
