We hoped for a fun weekend sail.  We attempted a spinnaker run to Cherrystone Creek on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Winds were SW 5-10 light and dying. We found poor markings at the creek and it was shallow enough to cause concern that we would not be able to get back out on anything but the highest tide. We had run onto a shoal in the process so we decided to turn around and check out the nearby King Creek. It appears everyone holing up there was in the marina found at the entry.

We were not optimistic we could anchor up the creek, so we decided to head further south to Kiptopeke Park . Donna was not looking forward at all to this destination as it had been put on her "do not return" list following the "million flies" fiasco earlier in the season. There aren't many options on that shoreline, so we were committed to drop anchor there for the night. The change of month made all the difference as we enountered very few flies--what a nice surprise!
 
During the weekend we discovered the radar was not working properly for some reason. We were still also having a problem with the autopilot not communicating with the GPS. We got an electronics referral from John F. to help resolve the autopilot issue back in the Norfolk area. Enroute to Willoughby, while raising the mainsail just to the top, the main halyard suddenly broke at a point just below the winch. About a 6-inch tail remained above the spinlock which Dave quickly fully locked in place. Fortunately the spinlock had been in its intermediate "mid-locked" position which served as a "brake" holding the halyard and preventing the mainsail from free-falling.

We spent the next couple of hours splicing together the two broken ends with Donna stitching fishing line into them with a sewing needle and Dave whipping the lines to the point that we could hope the connection would feed through the spinlock and all sheaves on its route from the cockpit up the mast.  

Approaching Hampton Roads, Dave laid out the halyard in the cockpit for a free fall of the main.  He soaped up the splice just before we dropped it; we were quite lucky it worked through the spinlock since the point of splicing the two lines was wider than the original diameter of the line, even after whipping. Our first crisis averted--good thing we had some sewing needles on board!