It’s been well over 100º F. at home this week, so we have been taking every opportunity to get out on the water to cool down. Tahoe has been hot as well, recording temps in the high 80s — something I’ve never seen before in our 12 years of sailing here. I brought our old hot tub thermometer with us and recorded a water surface temperature of 72º F. at Sugar Pine State Park. I swam around for hours, snorkeling a bit in the area where we dropped the hook and checking out Splendido’s hull. Even Debbie jumped in and swam around for about 20 minutes without getting chilled, which I believe is a new record for her.

I love it when I have uninterrupted time on the boat, like when we do an overnight stay. Tahoe was like a mill pond all night, so I woke up fresh around 5 a.m. and got the coffee going so we could enjoy the sunrise. Debbie took up her favorite spot on the foredeck and I joined her as we soaked in the silence and serenity of the early hour. I noticed the nylon pins on the hinges to the foreward hatch had worked their way out about an inch and a half on both sides, so I went down and got a screwdriver and an adjustable wrench to gently tap them back into place. Splendido seems pretty dialed in this summer, but I’m always thinking about the next project. Right now, I’m thinking about a fall project to refurbish the sea hood, and another project to repaint and upgrade the trailer before we pull Splendido in October. I saw a funny line on the Catalina 270 forum that said “the only thing guaranteed to work on an older sailboat is the owner,” and I enjoyed a real belly laugh over that. But, as someone who has worked at a desk as a writer for 35 years, I actually relish the chance to do hands-on work and learn a few things. I think that’s what I appreciate most about owning a sailboat: I’ve learned a bit about diesel maintenance, plumbing, electrical, woodworking, gel coat repair, plastic fabrication, and lots more — mostly in a clumsy, oh-ffs-what-have-I-done-now? way. But I digress. For now, I’m just grateful that the fire season hasn’t been too bad, and that our exposure to smoke has been minimal. You can see the start of the smoke that came in from the Oak Fire near Yosemite July 22, and I am happy to say the fire crews really jumped on that one and knocked it down within a week. It looks like there’s a break in the heat dome today, and before we know it, the sky will change mid-August and that first hint of fall will hang in the air.

Fair winds. DB