Since I had taken an additional day off from work (Thursday), it afforded me a nice 4-day weekend with no work obligations of any kind. It also afforded me the opportunity to continue my search on Craigslist and Ebay for a nice, gently used dinghy. Finally, one came up on Craigslist (located in Virginia Beach). I jumped on it.

We welcome "Encore", our new 9' Avon inflatable dinghy into the fold. It's not much different than any dinghy, other than this one is not brand new out of the box, but only used locally, and not that often.

We will be rowing the boat for the time being, until we locate a reasonably priced outboard engine to push us along. 

On Saturday, Jamie kept me company while I spent time in the engine room swapping out my freshwater pump, which seemed to give up the ghost the night of July 4th (when we needed it desperately; trying to keep things clean!). Once installed, we were back in business.

The boat was given a thorough bath (just in time for a nice heavy rainstorm). That's okay, though. Between Mother Nature and myself, we are desperately trying to keep that shine going.

And finally, I did manage to spend a bit of time out in the workshop sanding down a "forgotten" table from the garden center where Jamie works part-time. A beautiful and expensive teak table was headed for the trash heap. Nothing wrong with it, other than an employee had decided it would make a nice plant stand, and the table received a good washing with water, which left water stains. The owners thought the table was "trashed", so they gave it to Jamie. He brought it home, at which time we knew it would make a great table on the aft deck of CP. So, today, I sanded it down, wiped it to get the dust and debris off, then applied the first of 3 coats of CETOL. The first coat looks great! I'm sure once we get the final coats on it, it'll look better than new!

Busy week coming up. Until next time....