This past weekend flew by. Mia and I took care of some holiday shopping and it was forecast to rain early in the afternoon. Around 4pm it still wasn't raining and I went rowing around while Mia finished one more trip to the store. While rowing out in the channel it immediately started bucketing down. It was actually nice rowing on calm water while it was pouring down. I performed a small test of switching the port and starboard oars because while rowing the boat always pulled towards the starboard. I thought this was because I was using the better stronger paddle on the port side. So I swapped them. It made it a little better but for some reason it still pulls a little to starboard.  

I saw a sailboat at the pumpout dock and rowed past only to see it was Connor and his friend who recently purchased a 30 footer to live aboard. Unfortunately they couldn't get their waste deck cap unscrewed and were totally soaked. I went back, warmed up and Mia and I spent several hours listening to Christmas music and wrapping (she mostly did the wrapping) presents. 

On Sunday we drove down to Newport and met Mia's dad, grandma, aunt and cousin for breakfast which was awesome. After that we stopped by Minnie's ship store and searched for a midship clear or something similar. I found this eye for a jib-car track that would do the trick but couldn't find its exact pair. A new midship cleat is about $100-$150 and functional piece was $14. I really just want it for the upcoming storms so that I can finally tie spring lines to the boat. But there are many advantages. One advantage of having this is its ability to easily slide position on the track as well as the ease for docking now - so, with a line attached to this eye I can pull up to the gas dock or pumpout dock and as long as I have the other end of the line in my hand I can hop off and tie it first to a cleat which will make the side of the boat butt up against the dock, then easily grab the bow and stern lines. Before, I would risk tying the stern first (as it's where I jump off onto the dock) and if the wind was pushing the boat away from the dock, the bow could drift too far out of reach by the time I make it up there... this has actually happened to me. Other advantages include side-tying the dingy while at anchor if I need to, using this to tie a boom preventor to, and using the midship dock line as a pivot to guide the boat out of a slip.