Hit it with a hammer

Thank you, Alik.
   I can tell you that that was not what we were saying yesterday when we tried to go sailing for the first time.  The weather was beautiful, the jib went up fine, we turned off the engine, and things were looking pretty good.  When I went to untie the mess of knots underneath the boom, in preparation for putting up the mainsail, I realized that instead of being a half-assed measure to stop the boom from swinging around, these knots were actually a half-assed attempt to rig the mainsheet to the boat (Erica's "sailing for dummies" note: the mainsheet is the rope that's used to control the mainsail).  This mess was apparently meant to stand in for a traveler, which is a complicated little metal piece that slides back and forth on a track, and is the point on the boat where the mainsheet attaches. So in essence the traveler was nonexistent, replaced by a terrible, terrible tangle of lines, knots, and random blocks, which held everything in place, but was not at all conducive to actual sailing. 
   Undaunted but mildly distressed, we sailed back in and then motored up to Lake Sylvia, which is about two miles north of our slip, where we gently ran aground.  We got floating again pretty quickly, though, and were more mindful the second time of the cruising guide's advice to "hug the eastern wall".  We hugged it so close, in fact, that we got to talk to a nice man lounging on shore, who complimented my orange hat, and helped guide us in by waving his arms to direct us where to turn to avoid the shallows (I guess he didn't help the next boat to come in, because they ran hard aground and had to wait for the tide to come up).  Anchoring in the lake was a bit of an adventure, too, because we had never done it before as a team. It took five tries- the first time we got the anchor set, but were only about 8 feet away from an extremely skeptical looking gentleman in a very fancy boat, so we kept trying...under his watchful eye.  Finally, though, we got the anchor properly set at an appropriate distance from all the other boats, and settled in for some well deserved wine and party mix.  It was really nice getting to hang out on the boat and not work on it for a while... hopefully a hint of things to come. 
   This morning we motored back to our slip, and I started trying to address the rigging while Erica took a stab at fixing some lingering issues with the toilet.  After a fruitless trip to West Marine and the hardware store, spirits were running a bit low.  And then, a miracle!  I was looking in one of the random stuff drawers, thinking that I had seen a traveler in there somewhere, and indeed, there it was.  It didn't fit the first time I tried it in the track, but after I wailed on it with a hammer for a while, it slid right on.  This is a part that starts at a minimum of $100 dollars, and would probably have required a special order to get one that fit properly.  Instead, I gave it a special order with my hammer and now it works beautifully.  So thank you, Alik, for having the proper hardware somewhere onboard, even if it wasn't in exactly the right place.
   After that, everything started coming together.  Working together, we made major progress on the toilet, rewired the boom lift, took out the frozen deck fitting for the water tank, and made a solid start at attaching the mainsheet to the traveler.  Tomorrow, we're hitting the used-marine store that we finally located, and also the tent sale at West Marine, where Erica claims there will be free hot dogs.