This coming Wednesday or Thursday, the Boston Schooner Roseway, enroute from Boston to St. Croix, will be docking overnight at the fuel dock. Enroute, her Chief Mate, Kevin Wells, contacted Bryan requesting help in identifying volunteers who might be interested in joining Roseway as volunteer, to take her the rest of the way to St. Croix. By Saturday five volunteers had expressed interested and responded to Capt Wells - a great indication that Charleston can boast some passionate tall ship sailors, regardless of experience. As of this date, Capt Wells has settled on one of us who will embark and sail the rest of the way to St. Croix.
Bryan announced that he would be taking a leave of absence for the remainderof the year, starting 23 November, headed to St. Louis in order to get ready to become a granddad. Therefore this coming Saturday, the 20th would be the last organized Volunteer Day for the year. HOWEVER, that should not discourage Volunteers from coming aboard, checking out the Punch List, and taking charge of a project or two on their own.
On 5 December, our Sea Cook, and head of ship's security, Hunter will also depart for the rest of the year, to go home and visit family in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. In his stead, Christian Lawyer, the assistant Dock Master of the Maritime Center will move aboard to provide security for the vessel. He will be assisted by Volunteers who will sign up for a 15-hour overnight Dock Watch, from 1700 hours to the following morning at 0800. While the watch officially runs during those times, Volunteers can arrive early, or depart late if they choose, in order to take on some maintenance chores.
On 13 December, (Saturday), in conjunction with the Charleston Annual Holiday Parade of Boats, Volunteers will resurrect their annual Volunteer Appreciation Night; Due to space limitations it is a by-invitation-only casual evening recognizing volunteers who've demonstrated exceptional commitment by devoting 50 or more hours over the past year. Laura Johnson will be organizing the event. Invitees will be contacted this week to save the date. 
An then it was on to work. At the same time peeling off jackets and even long sleeve shirts as the warm sunny weather took over. Danny Johnson and Daved Brennan took charge of rebuilding and restoring the piano hinged lid of the paint locker, which had finally pulled completely off. By end of morning, we once again had a sturdy covered paint-locker. Victory #1
Calvin Milam and John Hart went ashore to replace the just-arrived drain plug back into the still kaput trash pump. Within 20 minutes he had the machine up and running, and pumping seawater out of the harbor. Victory # 2.
Doug Hartley joined Bryan for a tour of the ship and an orientation before Bryan made immediate use of Doug's mechanical engineering by leading him down into the engine room to take a shot at isolating the non-starting problem with the GENSET. By end of morning he had isolated the issue to a bad Controller board in the electronic control panel, and was starting to look up replacement estimates. Edging closer to a crucial Victory.
Mid morning, Laura Johnson came on deck, on her way to her crew job on "Double Fun". She jumped in with Bryan in cutting, and gluing in new round neoprene gasket seals around the Aft cabin and saloon head butterfly hatch covers.
All that accomplished in time for lunch, when Hunter handed up an amazing ethicity-transcending more than Curry-Chicken in a Rich sauce over rice, oh, and Laura Johnson's Blueberry pie.
We weren't done yet. After securing all the tools we'd pulled out for the morning projects, and with one hour left to go before our agreed upon mustering off time, We went for two more projects. Dividing into 3 teams of two; one team each, set up paint stations and laid on a third coat of white to each of the two Mast boots. Doug and Bryan poured out a dose of D2 Varnish and laid it down for a fourth coat on the portside cap rail scarf just forward the main shrouds.
Now THAT was a good day!
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