Still in San Diego

Hi all,

Well, we're still here. Brian and I have been cutting holes in the boats and the tanks and trying to figure out what has happened.

On Monday, October 26, we dinghied out to the Shelter Island fishing pier and watched the Ha Ha fleet sail away. We were both a little teary eyed watching them go.

All of our crew except Bonnie and Ray found another boat to go on, so we hope they have a good time.

It turns out that there is another Cooper 416 her in San Diego. She is named Redcoat and her skipper is Brian Cavilier. He sought me out so we could talk about the boat. Brian invited me onto his boat and I was able to see the differences, and look at his fuel tank, which had had an inspection port installed in the fuel tank. It was very helpful to me so that I could cut a hole in my boat and in the fuel tank.

The tank man, from American Tanks, showed up today to look at our tank problems. He has been out of town for a week, so this was the earliest we could get him to come. The news was not good, as he believes that neither of our tanks can be repaired, so we have to replace them. Will take at least two weeks.

We are going to get nice new tanks made of 316L Stainless Steel, which will probably outlive either of us.

One other interesting thing happened here; while I was on Redcoat, the other Cooper, Brian C told me about these people driving around on two boats with divers and such. Turns out one of the boats was for a trained dolphin that would jump out of the water onto a mattress on their boat. Neither of us (Brian or I) had any idea what they were doing, but the dolphin would jump up onto their boat and off again into the water at their commmand. When the dolphin was aboard, they would pet it and it seemed that they were talking to it. My brother Brian thinks that this is probably a part of a Navy program to protect Navy vessels.

I tried to get a good picture of the dolphin jumping into the boat, but it was too fast. So all you'll see is a picture of the dolphin on a mattress on the back of the boat.

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