June 22, 2010 - Newport, RI

While we were fogged in on Sunday Sten spent some time figuring out what we needed to bring Mata'irea up to compliance with US Coast Guard regulations. It seems a little silly to be buying safety gear now, at the end of our trip, but it would also be a real bummer to get fined for noncompliance.

We knew our flares were expired. While figuring out what to buy to replace them Sten went to crack open our flare gun . . . for the first time ever. It wouldn't budge. I tried. No luck.

He took the plastic orange unit back from me and examined every working part to try to determine why it wouldn't open far enough to accept a cartridge. After a few minutes of that he got online and discovered that our flare gun had been recalled . . . years ago. As it turns out we sailed around the world with a non-functional flare gun. Nice.

While online he ordered a new horseshoe buoy from Defender, which arrived today. The cover for our old one had disintegrated somewhere east of Africa. While in South Africa we couldn't convince ourselves to buy one of the poorly made ones available in the marine stores there. So we sailed up the Atlantic without one. We still had the Lifesling mounted on the pushpit and the flashing Jim Buoy on the side rail,ready to deploy should one of us go overboard; but, we felt a little naked without a horseshoe. Now Mata'irea will be stylishly accessorized again with a bright yellow horseshoe hanging on her starboard side.

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