September 4. Well, here we sit in Forked River NJ. We’re safely tied up in a very protected, very clean marina; we’re surrounded by family and friends.

We got to do some catching up with the oldest girl child as we haven't seen her since Christmas.

We even went for a daysail with friends on their Pearson 36. It was loads of fun to blast around on a boat other than our fully loaded floating home.

As usual we’ve got a list of projects that we’d like to accomplish. We’ve already put 2 coats of Cetol on the rest of our unprotected topside woodwork.

Most of the projects are pretty small and the list really isn’t that long but there is work to be done. We spent a day in a borrowed car and did laundry, reprovisioning and ran errands. We also had to order a few parts so we are going to be here for about 10 days while we wait for things to arrive. This will give us the time to visit with family and friends and accomplish most of our list.

The biggest thing on our list was a problem we’ve been having with our alternator. We burned out our original alternator 2 months into our trip and we fried our spare about a week ago on our trip through the Long Island Sound. Two burned alternators in about a year is excessive. Its seems that the problem basically that our battery bank is so large that the alternator is killing itself trying to fill the capacity that it “see’s”. It’s kind of like filling a swimming pool with a bucket. So we were forced to bite the bullet and order a bigger alternator, a huge bucket.

Today while getting back on the boat Christy had a little mishap. She was carrying a pocketbook for the first time in almost a year and decided to drop it on deck so her hands would be free while climbing aboard. Funny thing though, she missed the boat and dropped the bag into the river. I didn’t get the chance to laugh as she turned to me and said that our cell phone was in the bag. Crap. I jumped on the boat and grabbed the boat hook and fished out the bag but not before the phone had been reduced to junk.

Hopefully the alternator will arrive on Friday and our new phone should be here in 2 or 3 days, if so we should be back on our way by Monday or Tuesday.