Today, we’re finishing up putting together the mooring lines for Mahdee’s mooring at Fiddlers’ Cove Marina on the San Diego bay side of Coronado Island. This is the military marina where Mahdee was docked for more than 20 years before we purchased her from Tom and Denise. We were originally scheduled to put Mahdee back on a mooring there this summer. But, with more than three times the work than that which was anticipated to be done on Mahdee, instead of rushing back to the water, we’ve moved her to an independent boat yard where we’ll perform the rest of the work needed. Thus, we have a mooring for her but don’t need it quite yet.

This poses a bit of a problem since the waiting list for mooring at Fiddlers’ Cove is very long and it would be impossible to dock or moor Mahdee anywhere else in San Diego. She’s too big for the new size limits for San Diego’s regular mooring fields and the marina and yacht club waiting lists are many years long for a boat of her size. We’d hate to start back at the bottom of the Fiddlers’ Cove waiting list at this point. Our solution to the problem is to move our Rawson 30, Stargazer, from her dock at Marina Cortez to Mahdee’s mooring at Fiddlers’ Cove. It will be more of a hassle to go sailing from a mooring rather than from a dock, but worth it for the peace of mind knowing that Mahdee has a place to go once she’s back in the water. It won’t be a big problem to get the smaller 30’ boat back into a marina when Mahdee needs her mooring.

The people at Fiddlers’ Cove have been very friendly and encouraging of Mahdee’s rebuild. They have told us that we should be able to have Mahdee at the marina visitors’ dock when she first gets back in the water and if we need to perform work that requires electricity/dock access. This is very comforting since she’ll probably be taking on water for the first month or so and having her bilge pumps running of the shore power at that time will be helpful.

Back to the bridle/mooring lines. Monday we drop of the lines and the marina diver will attach them to the mooring blocks. They use two lines—one on the bow and one on the stern—so the boats do not swing with the wind. I suppose this means more stress on the lines, but it allows more boats to be placed more tightly together in the mooring field. Because Mahdee is 54’ on deck and Stargazer is only 30’, the bridle is going to be extra long. David did the mooring line and bridle splices, eyes, etc on Friday. Today, I’m finishing up the work with seizing. We don’t have large enough whipping for the 1” mooring lines. So, in a few minutes, we’ll stop by the marine store on the way to Stargazer—then David can sail Stargazer and I will perform the seizing while we’re sailing. That will make me feel quite happily nautical—working on things while underway. We’ve spent so much time in the boat yard with Mahdee and so little time out on the water with Stargazer that I’m just happy to be on the water doing anything!