...And This Is My Other Brother Darryl

Some people never grow up.  Take me for instance. 

Saturday we went into Silver Spring and visited with some friends, got home around 2000.  The next morning we got ready for church and walked out to the car.  I climbed in and was surprised to find that I had to adjust the mirror on my side because it was facing down towards the rear tire.  That's weird.  Maybe some klutz bumped into it.  Had to manually force it back into position.  Then I looked over at the passenger side and saw that the glass was missing from that mirror.  On closer inspection I saw that someone had tried to rip both mirrors off the car, trying so hard that they scraped them against the windows and left scratch marks.  I looked around at the other cars and found that no one else had any damage.  Man, I musta really  pissed somebody off.  I just couldn't think of anything I mighta done that would deserve this kind of action.  I mean, this is high school retribution kinda stuff.

I reported it to the marina office and they said there had been a drunk that was picked up Saturday night and escorted off marina property.  They didn't give me a name but maybe this was the dude who went nuts on my car.  Still, I couldn't figure why anyone would do such a thing.

I shoulda realized.  I grew up in Cockeysville, Maryland.  Back in the days before it was overrun by big-city commuters Cockeysville was a nice little farming community in upper Baltimore County.  It was also the home to a group of rednecks who called themselves the Cockeysville Wrecking Crew.  Cute huh?  These guys figured they lived in a small town and could get away with pretty much anything.  They were known for street racing and fights but they were also good at intimidating younger kids and ramming people's cars with their pickup trucks.  Rednecks.  Just another part of "The Great American Experience".

Last week I was coming home from work around 1900 and stopped off at the post office to pick up our mail.  I was driving back to the marina, going about 35mph (5mph over the limit), when this car comes flying up behind me and practically drives up my tailpipe.  This dude was really close, so close I couldn't see his headlights.  I really hate it when people try to intimidate me with their driving and I could feel my blood pressure going up.  I pulled off to the side of the road to let him go by and he just stops and waits to see what I'm gonna do.  He finally goes around and I pull out behind him.  I'm perhaps a little overenthusiastic and, uhm, smoked the tires coming out.  He floors it and, like the idiot that I am, I floor it too.  Going across the bridge out of town we're going 60mph and the dude is way out in front.  He flies past the entrance to the marina and just before he goes around the next turn I slowed down and turned in.  I laughed the whole way to the parking lot.  I figured we both acted like idiots, had some fun playing race cars and nobody got hurt.  Pretty dumb but that's what us rednecks do, we play stupid.

Apparently that redneck plays by different rules.

Being all growed up now I had forgotten what it was like to live in a small country town.  Deale is even smaller than Cockeysville was and I'm pretty sure the redneck coefficient is inversely proportional to the size of the town.

I figure I musta embarrassed this poor guy the week before.  He probably got around that corner and realized how stupid he looked by running away from one of those moronic boat people.  He saw me turn into the marina so he knew where I hide out.  That weekend he was probably sitting in the bar down the road, drinking his fourteenth Bud Lite and decided it was time to set things right.  Imagine his delight when he found my car parked among the boats out there.  He flew into a skunked-beer rage and thought those mirrors were my ears and he was gonna tear them off.  I'll bet it really pissed him off when he couldn't get em to come loose.  Built Ford tough!

I don't know why I let myself get in these situations.  If Cheri knew about this I'd be sleeping in the dinghy tonight.

In my other life, where I play an adult, things are progressing nicely.  I came up with a design for mounting the Raymarine display at the helm.  I drew it up and talked to the folks at Atlantic Spars about modifying the grab bar on the steering pedestal and adding a bracket.  I actually tried taking the pedestal apart and wasted several hours on that before I realized I only had to remove the compass from the top.  That gave me a huge hole to work through and I had access to all the wiring and gauges.

When we bought the boat it had gauges for wind speed and direction, boat speed and depth.  These are Raymarine ST-60 gauges and they're about 11 years old now and showing their age.  I sent out the boat speed display to be rebuilt because the face was fried from the sun and you could barely read it.  The bezels for all three are looking kinda fried too so I also ordered new bezels.  The gauges will work with the new Multi Function Display (MFD) and they'll all tie into it by one cable, providing both power and data. The circuit breaker and wiring for these gauges is sized right for the MFD so I'll just move it over to that and then it'll supply power to the three gauges over the single data cable.  Perfect!  There's a data cable and separate power for the radar that'll have to be run also.

I was looking into an autopilot for the boat but the price of a new system is kinda prohibitive for right now.  But then I ran across an ad for a used system that had everything except the linear drive.  I think I mentioned this the last time around.  Anyway, I just closed the deal on that so we'll have autopilot for when we do the DelMarVa run in May.  This will also tie into the MFD and provide compass and heading information.  It will need it's own power and circuit breaker though so I'll hafta run a line for that also.  Next month we should be able to get the linear drive and I'll need to have a bracket made to mount that near the rudder shaft under the cockpit.

OK, so now I've got plenty of projects to keep me busy over the Winter.  We have four months to prepare for our trip.  That's 15 weekends from now.  I'll need at least 2 weekends just to pull wire.  Probably 2 more to mount the radar on the mast.  Figure another 2 or 3 to get the autopilot mounted.  Then at least 2 more weekends to get everything working together and tested out.  I usually take twice as long as I plan to get anything accomplished so I need to double all that.  Let's see, 2 + 2 + 2 (or 3) + 2.....that comes out to 8 or so.  Then double that and I get.....16 weekends.  Guess I'd better stop playing games with the local boys and get to work.

Happy New Year!

It's now the first week of the new year and we're settled in for the season.  The water temperature is warmer (47 degrees F) than it was this time last year (solid ice 4" thick).  I'm kinda hoping this is a sign that global warming has advanced to the point where we won't have to use our Espar heater anymore but I guess that's probably not the right thing to wish for.  Actually, as long as we're comfortable we really enjoy the winter here at the marina.  We practically have the place to ourselves, just us and the ducks.  We decorated the boat for Christmas this year.  Put up purple berry LED lights in the rigging and a three foot tall Christmas tree out in the cockpit.  Looks pretty sweet!

This past month has been interesting/frustrating in our attempts to find another boat.  We've narrowed our search down to a handful of boats so we talked to a loan company that specializes in boat loans and got the paperwork started.  We were dumbfounded when they came back and rejected the loan because we were "live aboards".  What?  With a credit score of over 800 and our only debt being the boat we live on they think we're a bad risk because we might sail away without paying off our loan.  Gee whiz guys, there's nothing in our record that indicates this might happen.  Maybe they overheard me at the bar the other night when I was talking like a pirate.  I don't know.  So now we have our boat up for sale but we won't be able to buy another one if we sell it.  Then what do we do?  The bank suggested that we buy a house and then they'd consider giving us a boat loan.  Am I alone in thinking this sounds insane?  We're trying to free ourselves from financial commitment and they want us to replant ourselves in the dirt and be buried in debt.  Didja hear that?  It was the sound of our dreams being laid down to die.  What a system.

So, I don't think we'll be buying another boat anytime soon.  The one we have right now is plenty good and if we make a few adjustments she'll do just fine.  Besides, we've got three years to go until retirement and a lot can happen between now and then.

In the meantime we're gonna go ahead with our plans for adding some gear to La Vida Dulce and preparing ourselves for blue water sailing.  We had originally planned to invest in Furuno electronics but that's changed and we're looking at Raymarine equipment now.  We used Cheri's bling money and bought a really nice multi function display (MFD, C120W).  Working with the local supplier (MTS) we got a killer price and timed it right to also get $500 back from Raymarine.  We wanted to go with a local dude so we'd have technical help if we needed it, which you won't get if you buy off the internet.  We ended up with a better price in the long run too.  Ryan at MTS drew me up a schematic and made suggestions to help me plan the system.  We'll be able to use the boat's existing ST-60 instruments (which are about ten years old now) which will work fine with the new gear.  To replace them with up-to-date stuff would have cost about $1600 so that's quite a savings.  Our boat speed display needs some help but Ryan says we can send it into the factory and have it rebuilt for half the price of a new unit.  Good plan.  So we have the display and that gives us GPS and a chartplotter (with 3D charts!).  I chose a housing with a ball and socket foot to mount it at the helm.  I plan to modify the steering pedestal so the display can be turned around and face in any direction.  That way you can engage the autopilot and then go sit up by the cabin out of the weather and read a book or something and just glance up now and then at the display to make sure everything is going OK.  Cool!  Of course we don't have the autopilot yet but that is in the plans.  We also just placed an order for a 4kw radar which will be mounted about halfway up the mast.  That gets displayed on the MFD and overlays on the chart or can be shown in split screen.  The mount for that is self-leveling so the radar is always in line with the horizon and won't be affected by the boat heeling over.  At least for the first 35 degrees of heel.  Beyond that it probably doesn't much matter.  Once we have that gear up and running we'll install AIS which will automatically communicate with other boats (all commercial ships have it) letting them know where and who we are and also showing us their position and heading.

This is the minimum I want to have up and running by this Spring so we can head out into the Atlantic for our first offshore sail.  We'll be taking two weeks in May to do what's called the DelMarVa circumnavigation, sailing around the Delaware/Maryland/Virginia peninsula.  We plan to take our time and enjoy the trip so we'll be making stops along the way. Heading north we'll anchor in the Chester and Sassafras Rivers.  Leaving the Sassafras we'll enter the C+D Canal and cruise into Chesapeake City for a day.  From there it's out to the Atlantic, then down to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay.  This will be a three to four day non-stop run.  Our first anchorage in the Chesapeake would be at Mobjack Bay.  From there we'll work our way up to Fleets Bay  We should be able to make an easy one day run to Solomons Island on the Patuxent River for another overnighter and then a one day run back to Herrington Harbour.  This schedule leaves us three or four days open to hang out and explore when we find a particularly nice anchorage.

That's the plan.  The overnight runs would be a lot easier if we had an autopilot installed.  We're looking into a used one that includes a course computer, fluxgate compass, rudder reference and control head.  We'd have to ante up for a new linear drive which is the part that actually pushes the rudder back and forth under command of the course computer.  If we went this way we'd be able to have an autopilot for less than half the cost of a new one.  We'd always be able to replace the used parts with new ones at a later date.  With four days of non-stop sailing planned for this Spring this might be our best bet.

This'll be our big vacation for 2012.  The following year we're planning to take three weeks and go to Bermuda.  Then the year after that we'll take off and go wherever we want because we won't be coming back.  No more commuting, no more working for da man, no more having to wait to take some time off.  It'll all be time off from there on out.  Woohooo!  I'm gonna be a pirate and steal back all the time they stole from me over the last 40 years.  Bastards!  I'm gonna bury treasure in the sand and say "lardy dar" all the time.  Might drink some rum too.  I'll probably skip the pillage and plunder thing though because I pretty much covered that one when I was in high school.

Three years.  The time goes by pretty fast although we have accomplished quite a bit since we bought the boat.  We made a list of things we felt were important (life raft, whiskey, cigars) and we've been checking things off as we go.  So far we're about half way through the list.  Still, I'm feeling pressed for time.  Might have to quit working so I can spend more time on these projects.  That should go over big with the wife.

Wye Me Lord?

To see a chart of where we were click here

This past Friday (11-25-11) we got super organized and got underway early in the day, clearing the breakwater into Herring Bay at 1230.  I think that's a record for us.  We had a beautiful day with a light breeze out of the SE, maybe 10 to 15 knots, scattered clouds and temperatures in the high 50's.  Perfect sailing weather.  Our destination was the Wye River in Eastern Bay which put us on a beam reach across the Chesapeake.  Unfortunately we had to motor our way across Herring Bay while Tom put in the new cotter pins for the rigging turnbuckles that he had forgotten to take care of last weekend.  Yikes!  With that taken care of we ran out the sails and had a wonderful sail across the Bay at 4.5 to 5.5 knots.  Around 1430 we were inside Eastern Bay and the wind was dwindling down to nothing.  I calculated we still had 10 miles to go and at our current speed of 2.5 knots we wouldn't get there until after dark.  We fired up the engine and ran the rest of the way at 7 knots, getting to our anchorage just as the sun set.

As you enter the Wye River off the Miles River (which is off Eastern Bay) it branches off to the right into the Wye East River and around the first point is Shaw Bay.  This was our first night's anchorage, mostly because of convenience.  It's a large cove with 20' depth and with that in mind I let out over 100' on the anchor rode for a 5:1 ratio.  There are large McMansions  lining the shore but most were dark, apparently being summer cottages or something.  Our evening here was quiet with absolutely no wind.  I mean, the surface of the water was like a mirror providing for some interesting pictures of the surrounding area.  The first picture at the top is from this anchorage.  For dinner we had some of Cheri's incredible crab soup.  Mmm, mmm good.

In the morning I woke up to the sound of hundreds, maybe even thousands, of Canadian Geese.  I went up on deck and couldn't see a single bird but the noise was deafening.  For breakfast we had oatmeal made with cranberries and cinnamon.  We normally do raisins but couldn't find any.  The flavor with the cranberries is incredible.  Never go back to raisins.  After breakfast Cheri threw together an apple pie, made from scratch.  I think I'll keep her.

Around 1100 we raised anchor and headed upstream on the Wye East River.  Leaving Shaw Bay I misread the shoreline and ran into Lloyd Creek, thinking that Gross Creek was the next leg of the river.  Boy was I surprised when we ran aground in what was supposed to be 47' of water!  The river is very twisty-windy and the entrance wasn't obvious to me until we turned around.  We proceeded kinda slowly after that but there's really no trick to this place, just stay in the middle and mind your charts.  Hmm, good advice, huh?

As we went along we saw several really nice spots to anchor, Dividing Creek being one of them.  We continued on though and after passing Pickering Creek the river does another loop-de-loop and we pulled into the next cove on the south shore.  This spot was absolutely beautiful.  No homes, no lights, no nothin'.  The closest house was half a mile further upstream and it was dark later that night.  We had the whole planet to ourselves.  Actually, we shared it with about 40,000,000 Canadian Geese and three Bald Eagles.  One of the Eagles was hanging out in a tree on shore directly in from our boat.  The other two we saw the next morning as we were headed out.  Such a beautiful place.  It's nice to know there's a spot like this so close to our marina, about a 4.5 hour sail.  It's all very natural along the shores on both sides with farmland beyond the trees on the south side.  There were homes built along the shore on the way in but once we got back in there we pretty much had it all to ourselves.  At night there wasn't a single light in sight.  Oh yeah, the sunset that night was pretty spectacular.

Cheri spent all day slaving away in the galley.  For dinner we had a 4 lb. Cornish Hen with stuffing, green beans, dinner rolls, some excellent white wine and that awesome apple pie with vanilla ice cream.  I've got lots to be thankful for, lemme tell ya.

For breakfast the next morning we had apple pie with coffee.  In bed.  Actually it was cappuccino but I'm already sounding pretty spoiled here so we'll just call it coffee.  Anyway, I was feeling so relaxed I felt like jello.  Or maybe that was from eating too much, I don't know.  We had a nice, slow-paced morning and finally headed out around 1100.  We saw the other two Eagles at Pickering Point.  Cheri took the wheel the whole way out to the Miles River, never ran aground once.  Totally put me to shame.  We ran out into the Miles River and put the sails up as we rounded R4 into Eastern Bay.  The wind was blowing out of the SW at maybe 15 knots and we sailed close hauled on course 245 degrees, which took us all the way out past Kent Point and into the Chesapeake.

Once past Poplar Island the wind swung around to the South and picked up force quite a bit.  Our wind speed indicator hadn't been working at all this trip but I'm guessing we saw 30 knots at this point and it built up to more as we got out into the center of the Bay.  We were heeled over about 25 degrees and making 7.5 knots when we decided to reef in the genoa about 30%.  That leveled us out to about 10 degrees and we picked up speed to 8.5 knots.  Woohooo!  Cheri thought the waves were about 4' but I'm guessing some were as much as 5'.  We didn't just have white caps, we had rolling breakers. We were cutting through the waves at an angle, spray flying everywhere.  Seeing anything at all was difficult because the Eisenglass in the dodger was covered with salt water and we were looking straight into the sun.  Nothing but glare.  Luckily, there wasn't much traffic out there.  My biggest concern was running into a channel marker or driving over one of those damned fish traps at the entrance to Herring Bay.

We held our course as best we could to 240 degrees, which should have taken us straight into Herring Bay.  We were running with paper charts and didn't have any markers sighted to verify our position.  As we got in close enough to shore to see anything I realized we had over-shot Herring Bay and we were headed for Chesapeake Beach.  Whoops.  As I glanced down at our depth gauge it went from 35' to 15' to 10'.  Just like that.  Yikes!  I threw the wheel over and turned us downwind so we were running with the waves.  Cheri let the Main out and we just kinda skipped across the shallows of Holland Point and found our way into Herring Bay.  Whew!  Never a dull moment with old Cap'n Tom at the helm.

Just outside of Herrington Harbour South we turned into the wind to drop the sails.  The "Tack" of our Mainsail has been giving me problems when it comes time to furl it and this time it was no different.  The "Tack" is the forward bottom corner of the sail and it's very heavily stitched for strength.  When I tried to roll up the sail into the mast the Tack jammed in the slot and wouldn't budge.  We're dancing around in the waves, the sails are flapping like crazy, lines are whipping around.  I tried three times and finally got the main in.  I was suddenly feeling very exhausted.  Way too much excitement for one day.  When we got back to our slip it took me three cappuccinos and two pieces of apple pie before I was feeling any better.

Driving by the seat of my pants is fun but I think I'm ready for a chartplotter and GPS.  I'm getting too old and too goofy to be doing this without some kinda help.  We've been saving up our pennies and I think we're just about ready to start working on that electronics package I was musing about over the Summer.  After this weekend I'd say this is something long past due.

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

Last Saturday, 11/12, we had our friends Pete and Gina over for the day.  We hadn't seen them for quite a while and it was nice to sit down and catch up with them.  Around noon we decided to take the boat out for a quick cruise across the Bay and back.

After motoring out into Herring Bay we put the sails up and shot out into the Chesapeake.  We had pretty good wind, 20 to 25 knots out of the SW, so we headed kinda SE towards Sharps Island Light at the mouth of the Choptank River.  Pete manned the helm for the better part of the day so I had a chance to play with the sails.  This is really the part I enjoy the most about sailing, trying to get the most out of the boat for the existing conditions.  Way better than any video game.  We really flew across the Bay, averaging 7 to 8 knots, and around 1430 I decided to head back to give us enough time to beat the sunset in case the wind died off.  We came about and sailed close hauled into about 25 to 30 knots winds.  We were heeled over 20 to 22 degrees and just crashing along, really great.  I glanced over at Gina and realized she had this deer-in-the-headlights kinda look and decided wed better calm things down a bit.  We reefed in the genoa about 30% and the boat settled out to 10 degrees.  Much more comfortable and I think the boat handled better too.  We shot back across the Bay and were outside Herring Bay by 1600.  I suggested we could maybe sail back across again but in the end we decided to call it a day and head back in.  We tacked our way back to R2 where we dropped the sails and headed back to our slip.  All in all it was a beautiful day, excellent sailing, and it felt really good to be back out on the Bay again and spend some time with our friends.

It's funny but living aboard doesn't really mean we get to go out sailing all the time.  This was only the second or third time we'd been out since July.  Ya work all week and when the weekend rolls around something always seems to come along to change your plans.   We are planning to spend Thanksgiving weekend, Friday through Sunday, anchored out.  We'll see how that one works out.

In the last installment I mentioned something about getting another boat.  We got all excited about a Moody 54 because it had all the things we were looking for in a boat and had the perfect layout down below.  Plus it was really, really big.  Well, we gave it some serious thought and decided it wasn't a good idea to take on such serious debt when we're so close to retirement.  That 54 woulda been pretty sweet but she woulda put quite a dent in our finances.  Of course, we still wanted to have more room and craved the perfect layout.  We searched the internet for something more affordable and came up with.........a Moody 46.  For about the same price as La Vida Dulce we could get a center cockpit boat with an aft cabin and two guest cabins.  It also has a sea berth (work bench) in the passageway to the aft cabin.  The layout is identical to the Moody 54 except it's been shortened in the Port side guest cabin, the engine room and the aft cabin, each loosing a few feet of floor space.  I think the port cabin might feel tight but the rest still look to have plenty of room.  The main salon is spacious and comfortable and the galley is very similar to the 54 with plenty of cabinets and counter space.  While the 54 is flat-out gorgeous and took our breath away it would really add to our yearly expenses.  The 46 can give us everything the 54 offered and keep us within our budget.  Sometimes ya just gotta be realistic.

So we're moving ahead with selling La Vida Dulce.  We stripped down the exterior teak, re-oiled the toe rail and bowsprit, and varnished the coaming in the cockpit.  Cheri's doing the varnish.  She used "Boat-Brite" soy stripper to clean off the old finish.   This stuff works great, lifts the finish quickly and then you just scrape it off with a putty knife.  Then she cleaned the teak with West Marine "Step 1 Teak Cleaner" which took out the black and gray stains.  After some sanding she applied five coats of natural high gloss Cetol finish.  It looks really beautiful.  Gonna be a bummer to sell the boat now.

I spent this past weekend repacking the chainplates.  This is an annual chore on Island Packets and I'm a little behind schedule.  We've been having problems with rain water getting into some of the storage areas and I'm pretty sure it was coming through the chainplates.  The last time I did this the mast was still down and it was a pretty easy job.  This time I had to remove one piece of the standing rigging at a time, loosening the turnbuckle and keeping track of how many turns it took so I could get it back to the correct tension.  There is a tool for adjusting your rigging that reads the tension on the shroud.  Check out this link to see how it works (click here).  Cool huh?  Gotta get one of those.  Anyway, as I started in on the chainplates I remembered I had sworn to myself two years ago that the next time I would chisel out the space around it to make more room for extra packing (silicone sealer) and to make it easier to clean.  This was the time to get it done right.  There's just three chainplates on each side and they poke up through the teak toe rail.  The factory didn't leave much room around them, just a 1/4" in some spots, which makes digging out the old gunk pretty difficult.  I chiseled out a good 1/2" all around and then filled it with Silpruf silicone sealant.  This is the stuff that's recommended by IP and now I know why.  I had used regular silicone goop on the starboard side and Silpruf on the port side last time.  When I went to dig out the old stuff the Silpruf came out in a solid block while the other junk was just a mess.  I'm told the Silpruf clings to stainless steel way better and provides a better seal.  Better is good.

Of course we're doing all this work to make the boat "pretty" for pictures so we can sell her.  We've been talking to some financial institutions about getting a loan pre-approved which'll take our heads out of the clouds when we're looking at boats to buy.  We got numbers all figured out and put in the paperwork and got turned down for the loan because we live on the boat (?).  We don't have any property that's firmly stuck in the dirt and that makes the banks very unhappy.  Despite the fact that we both have pretty good jobs and make oodles of money, have almost zero debt and pristine credit numbers, we are considered a bad risk because three hundred and fifty years ago some dude skipped out on his boat loan.  The loan officer said we needed to get a family member or friends to set up a lease showing that we rent from them and that would be good enough.  Of course we'd also have to change our driver's licenses too.  Does this sound ridiculous to you?  It does to me and I find it kinda insulting too.  But we're playing the game.  We couldn't get any family members to set up a lease with us because they think we're a bad risk, being live-aboards and all.  My friend at work, Gene, agreed to do it so now we're getting things in order.  I'll keep you informed.

So, not much more to report.  Work, eat and sleep for the most part.  Maybe we'll have something exciting to report the next time around.  Like how I gained fifteen pounds over the holiday.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

In Our "Spare" Time

 Over the month of October we didn't manage to get out at all and we certainly missed some of the best sailing of the entire season.  Bummer!  We have two excuses for not getting out but looking back, only the first carries any weight.

During our last excursion we spent three days on Broad Creek, the whole time at anchor.  I was disappointed to see how quickly our batteries were depleted but even more so to find that running the engine didn't charge them back up.  Houston we have a problem.

On La Vida Dulce we have two sets (banks) of batteries. The first bank, with one 100 a/hr AGM battery is reserved for the engine.  The second bank, with four 100a/hr AGM batteries, is for "the house", for things like lights and instruments and making coffee.  We have two 85w solar panels, a 400w wind turbine and a 110a alternator on the engine.  Normally all these combined are enough to keep things charged up.  Running the engine for a few hours while cruising to another anchorage should have been enough by itself but this last time it didn't seem to have any effect at all.  There's two obvious places to look first.  The batteries could be at the end of their life and need to be replaced.  They were new in 2007 so they should still have a few years in them and with the cost I'm not gonna rush it.  Let's look elsewhere first.  The second option is the alternator.

The following weekend I removed the alternator, thinking I could take it to a shop and have them check it.  While I was disconnecting the wires I found a general mess with loose studs and rust, most likely caused from the water leak on the heat exchanger (click here).  I took it into a local marina to have it serviced thinking even if it had to be rebuilt we'd be back in action for half the price.  This alternator is not your run-of-the-mill automobile alternator.  Of course not!  It's a special "marine" alternator made by Balmar.  That word "marine" means they can charge twice as much for it.  Cha-ching!  The shop told me the unit was a basket case, looked like it had been hit by lightning.  They could rebuild it but it would cost the same to get a new one and then I'd have a warranty.  It'll take a week to get the new one in.  OK, there goes one weekend of perfect sailing but we should have it in time to get out by next weekend.

I picked up the new alternator on Thursday evening and installed it Friday morning.  As I was putting it in I found that the dude who did the original installation did a Mickey Mouse job and the wiring harness was a rat's nest and the controller was mounted at the bottom of the door to the engine room.  To read the code on the controller I had to lay on my side on the floor.  What are people thinking when they do this kind of work?  Am I alone in questioning this?  Grrrr.  I decided to replace the wiring harness and move the controller to a better position.  Do I need to say "snowball"?  By the time I got it all installed and checked out it was Saturday evening and another beautiful sailing weekend had gone by.  On the upside I am now an expert on our 12 volt charging system.

OK, so that's one excuse for not getting out sailing and that's the good one.  The other excuse was that we started looking at boats for "sale", not "sail".  The word "snowball" doesn't even come close to covering this one.

When we went to the Boat Show this year we made the mistake of going aboard a Hylas 49.  The layout down below is just what we're looking for, would really suit us well.  The new Hylas 49's are ridiculously expensive but we found that the used ones, prior to 2005, are more within our price range.  So we called our friends/boat brokers, Jack and Sharon Malatich, to see if this was something we could really do.  They asked us what it was we liked about the Hylas and we gave them a list that was two pages long.  After going through it they suggested we take a look at some other boats too such as a Taswell, Moody and a few others.  OK.

The following Friday they came down to Herrington to take a look at our boat to get an idea what we could sell her for.  They also had arranged for us to check out some other makes of boats.  One of them was a Taswell 49 that was located right there at our marina.  I wasn't familiar with this boat but when we climbed out of the car we walked up to a boat that Cheri and I had been admiring just last week.  That's a good sign!  When we climbed aboard  (she was up on the hard) we found a boat that was very similar to the Hylas, maybe even better.  She had been sailed around the Atlantic and was set up for it, had all the safety gear, electronics, sails, everything we could want.  In the end we decided against her because she was built in 1996 and was showing her age through wear and tear down below.  A newer Taswell might just fit the bill though.

The next boat they took us to was a Moody, sitting on the hard up in Annapolis Harbor.  We pulled into the marina and parked next to this humongous boat.  Jack grabbed a ladder and put it up against this thing and we realized that we were looking at a Moody 54.  Yikes!  This thing is gigantic!  I checked with Jack and the price on this thing was in the same range as a used Hylas.  OK, let's take a look.  Once on deck it was all over for me.  This boat has recently been set up for sailing the Atlantic and cruising the Caribbean.  They just completed outfitting her with all new rigging and serviced everything.  Everything!  The boat is a 2001 but is basically brand new.  And she is truly beautiful.  We're looking at center cockpit boats because they have more room down below but I've always felt that the aft cockpit boats, such as our Island Packet, are much easier on the eye.  The center cockpit usually looks kinda dumpy to me.  Not this one.  The cabin sits low on the deck with easy access to the cockpit.  The lines on this thing are gorgeous.  Down below the layout provides an owners stateroom aft with a queen size bunk and tons of storage.  All the way forward is a guest cabin with another queen bunk and another guest cabin to starboard with two single bunks, over/under.  This second guest cabin is where we would set up an office for Cheri.  The salon has a nice table with "U" shaped settee to starboard and another settee to port.  The feeling here is comfortable, not too big (on the Island Packet 485 the salon is similar but it feels like a ballroom, too big).  The port side galley is "U" shaped with lotsa counter space done in Corian.  The fridge is front loading with a top loading freezer.  The nav station is starboard just aft of the salon.  Going aft from the nav station is a passageway to the rear stateroom.  In this passageway is a sea berth and storage to starboard and the engine room is to port.  The engine is a 110hp Yanmar diesel.  There's also a 11.5kw diesel generator in there.  Sweet.

 There are a few drawbacks to this boat.  I'd hafta install a diesel heater, maybe two.  I feel like I just finished doing that.  With the size of the engine room it wouldn't be as difficult as on the Island Packet though so I could get that done fairly quickly.  The other drawback is that the boat is set up for Euro power, 220v/50hz.  We'd need a converter to be able to hook up to shore power here in the States.  On the upside of that, almost the entire rest of the world is set up for 220v/50hz and pretty soon we plan to visit the rest of the world.  Perfect!

So, we decided this is the perfect boat for us, exactly what we need.  Cheri would have plenty of space for her sewing/quilting and office work.  The galley would get her back into cooking again.  Woohooo!  The sea berth by the engine room would make a great workbench and give me the space I need for projects around the boat.  I'd probably even have room for my hobbies; building cars and Japanese gardens.  OK, well maybe not.  We would have enough room to have guests stay aboard without having to rearrange the whole boat.  Plus, this boat has everything we'd need to do our circumnavigation, to go anywhere.  We wouldn't have to add anything (other than the heater).  I'm sold.  The perfect boat is out there and it's a center cockpit of all things.  Whodathunkit?

We both got really wound up about this and didn't even notice that another weekend of great sailing had passed us by.  We need to put on the brakes and give this some serious thought.  Money is the major issue here.  Retirement is just around the corner, less than three years away now.  We have to make intelligent decisions.  Is this really a good time to pawn Cheri's wedding ring?  We probably need to look into creative financing.  I'm thinking ski masks and automatic weapons.

The Other Side

This past weekend (9-31-11 through 10-3-11) we finally took some time for ourselves and had a relaxing weekend.  We started out on Friday by going to the Annapolis Boat Show.  Jack and Sharon Malatich had been the brokers out of Gratitude Yachts when we bought our boat two years ago.  We had such a good time with them and they treated us so well that we've kept in touch ever since.  I sent them a note last Thursday saying we planned to go to the boat show and hoped we might run into them.  They wrote back with a couple of comped tickets and asked us to stop by the Southerly 44 they were working on.  When we left Friday morning we stopped by the bakery and picked up a buncha goodies because we knew they wouldn't have much time for getting anything to eat.  Once we got to the show we hunted them down right away, found them to be totally swamped so we only stayed for a few minutes and dropped off the goods.  We'll try to connect with them later in the season when things have slowed down for them.

Last year at the boat show we had a list of things we wanted to see, mostly stuff we wanted to add to the boat such as life raft, water maker, electronics, etc, etc, etc.  This year was different for us.  We've pretty much made up our minds about the gear we wanna get so we spent all our time looking at cool-man boats and eating good food.  The good food was at Pusser's Grill where Cheri had a crab cake and I gorged on a turkey wrap.  Mmm mmmm good.

We've been living aboard La Vida Dulce for over a year now and have become pretty well acquainted with her.  Despite all the good things about an Island Packet there are some design compromises.  With the aft cockpit, usable interior space is a major issue for us.  Cheri has been saying for a while now that she needs a bigger boat.  She's a gal with many interests and two of them in particular, sewing/quilting and gourmet cooking, have been severely restricted by living aboard the boat.  She also works at home which requires office space of some sort.  My interests, building hot rods and Japanese gardens, are also on hiatus due to a lack of space.  Duh.  On our Island Packet 420 the only "extra" space is a guest cabin that's tucked under the cockpit and is limited in headroom so it doesn't serve very well for much other than sleeping and storage.  The galley is "U" shaped and small with limited cabinet space and storage.  Cheri has had her eye on an Island Packet 485 which is 52' total length, has a nice galley and a third cabin set up as an office.  The 485 is a center cockpit layout, which provides more space down below but in my opinion is kinda tubby looking and is difficult for an old geezer like me to get from the deck into the cockpit.

At the show we looked at boats in the 50' range.  Needless to say we could never afford one but they sure were fun to browse through.  Of course, this was a very bad idea.  In the end I decided we really needed a Hylas 49.  Man-oh-man, what a sweet boat.  This one has everything we're looking for, answers all the things that have been bugging Cheri about our 420.  The galley is a major issue, as I've mentioned before.  The Hylas has what's called an in-line galley running fore and aft.  It has a 7.5' isleway with counters and cabinets on either side.  The fridge/freezer is both top and front loading.  The stove has a flip-up splash guard that doubles as more counter space.  There are slits cut into the countertop that hold the knives.  There are handholds built into the side of the cabin over top of the counter, just at the right level, so you have something to hold onto when the boat is dancing around.  In the main salon the table has a removable leaf and plenty of seating.  There's a nice cabin forward for guests with a second guest cabin just aft of that, both sharing a head/shower on the starboard side.  We think the smaller cabin with the single berths would be the perfect place for a shop/office.  The aft cabin is large with good access to three sides of the center-line bunk, 6.5' headroom and lots of storage and hanging space.  Access to the cockpit is easier than the 485.  Plus it's a cutter rig which is important to us.  Nice boat.  Right now it's a pipe-dream but ya never know what tomorrow may bring.  Of course, the Hylas still wouldn't have room to build hot rods or Japanese gardens.

On Saturday we finally broke away from our slip and went across the Bay to visit other worlds.  Note that I didn't mention anything about sailing.  The Bay was as smooth as glass all the way across.  We motored our way to the Choptank River and turned up into Broad Creek (click here for a chart of the area).  Since it was getting close to sunset we drove into the nearest anchorage, Balls Creek.  The entrance here is kinda interesting because it does a little dog-leg around the first coupla markers.  A little further down there are no markers at all and the deep water just kinda peters out.  I figured that one out all by myself.  We're still navigating the old fashioned way, with paper charts, a depth gauge, a compass and the good Lord watching over us (not in that particular order).  I cruised past the final marker real slow.  The chart showed deep water (8') extending a ways beyond so I just drifted on until my gauge suddenly went to 4.5' and we sorta stopped right there.  We hit so softly Cheri didn't even know we were aground.  I backed down hard and got us back into deep water, circled around to verify there was plenty of depth around, and dropped anchor.

For dinner that night we had a great Porterhouse steak, cooked on the grill to perfection, along with some kind of yellow veggie.  After dinner we sat out in the cockpit with a glass of Amoretto and a coupla Davidoff cigars.  This might just be where the expression "Holy Smoke" comes from.  The night was crystal clear with a 3/4 moon lighting up the creek, geese honking and ducks quacking in the distance and a big old Blue Heron making his own bizarre sound (there's just no good description).  It was perfection, I'm telling ya.

We slept in late, around 0930, and had blueberry pancakes for breakfast with a cup of cappuccino from our new cool-man coffee maker.  A little after noon we packed up and motored up to the far end of Broad Creek and turned into San Domingo Creek.  This is the back-door entrance to the town of St. Michaels.  We went in as close as we could and anchored in about 8' of water, along with five other boats.  At 45' LOA we were the smallest boat there.  One of them was a big custom built trawler, about 70'.  There were a few other sailboats and a big stinkin' power boat.  We recognized this one right away as being from I dock back at Herrington Harbour North.  It's named "Got Girls" and is about 60' LOA (length over-all) with a black hull and super swoopy contemporary lines.  We anchored way over on the other side of the creek.

Once we got settled in we decided to take Bella ashore for a chance to run around.  She hadn't been off the boat in a few days and she gets pretty wiggy after a while.  We all piled into our 10', 6 hp RIB (rubber inflatable boat) and were just getting underway when this 18' RIB came flying up beside us.  It was Phylyp from "Got Girls" with a friendly greeting and a request for us to join them later on.  This so-called dinghy of his was pretty cool with cushioned seats and a console with a wheel for driving instead of hanging onto the arm of the outboard.  I asked him what kind of power this thing had and he modestly replied "100hp, inboard/outboard, top speed of about 40 knots".  Yikes!  Not your average dinghy.

We took Bella into St. Michaels and let her run around the park for a while before heading back to the boat.  We dropped her off and mixed up a batch of Sour Apple Martini's before heading over to "Got Girls".  This is a pretty awesome boat, high tech everything, luxury at it's finest.  The salon has a round table with several track-mounted quarter-round seats.  The seats can be positioned anywhere around the table to give the best views.  Sweet!  There's a full barbecue and galley on the upper deck and another full galley below.  There are five flat screen TV's and a 1000 watt stereo system.  The walk-in engine room has twin 800hp diesel engines and a 21kw diesel generator.  This is one of those boats you read about in those large format coffee table books about the rich and famous.  Easily a gazillion dollar boat. Despite (or maybe because of?) the ostentatious, in-your-face display of wealth, we had a nice time and enjoyed getting to know Phylyp and JoAnne.  Phyl even called his buddy Chad, the owner of the Big Pickle Foodbar in St. Michaels and ensured us a table for dinner later that evening.

After the "Got Girls" experience we drove our puny, incredibly slow dinghy into the town dock and walked a few blocks down to the restaurant.  The atmosphere is pretty laid back but the food was truly excellent, probably the best crabcake I've had anywhere.  After dinner we wandered around town window shopping before heading back to the boat.

The next morning, after a late breakfast we spent a few more hours checking out the shops in St. Michaels before it was time to head back across the Bay.  We managed to get the sails up for a few hours on the Choptank before the wind died down to nothing and we motored back to our slip, getting in just as the sun set behind the trees.

This was such a nice weekend!  We were so relaxed we both felt like Jello.  Only coulda been better if we had some more wind.  You know, to actually sail that sailboat.  Still, we had a great time.  Broad Creek has a number of good anchorages to explore and it's a straight shot across the Bay for us.  St. Michaels is a fun place to hang out with lotsa nice shops and places to eat.  We'll be going back that way, fer sure. 

Remodeling Plans

We've been living aboard for about a year now and have gotten to know the boat and our needs pretty well.  Looking around we can see places where changes could be made that would add storage or convenience for our particular situation.  I enjoy doing this kind of work, it saves money doing it yourself, but the reality is that I don't have a woodshop or the tools to do cabinetry.  I used to but I gave that all up when we moved on board.  So the next best thing is to hire out the work and hope that we can afford to pay someone else to do it for us.  We've been kicking this around for a while now and had actually talked to a woodworker person last winter but that didn't pan out.  Recently we were taking to a friend of ours and he mentioned that his custom home remodeling business was struggling in this economy.  Lightbulb!  We have work that needs to be done, he needs work and he does beautiful stuff too.  Perfect.  Hey Anthony, take a look at this idea of ours and see what you think.  The only real drawback to the whole thing is that he lives almost an hour away but we're not in any hurry on this stuff, got about three years to get it done.  We're pretty flexible and he could work on it when it's convenient for him.

One of these projects is in the forward head.  Behind the toilet is a shelf that wraps around between the sink and the wall for the shower.  There's a large open space underneath here that could be divided up and used for storing extra towels or TP or almost anything.  It just seems like a good spot for another shelf.  Of course it would need to be removable for servicing the toilet but that's just a matter of design.

Another spot is in the forward stateroom where we have the home theater stuff (check it out) sitting on top of the hanging locker.  The top has a fiddle, about a 2" lip around it to keep things from sliding off but the whole pile of stuff just looks unfinished.  We have a DVD player, hard drive and controller as well as a power strip and a bundle of wires.  I had pictured building a cabinet on top of the hanging locker that would hold all this stuff.  Anthony had a better idea.  He suggested recessing the top of the hanging locker so all the gear would sit down inside with just the DVD player showing.  He'll also route out a piece of teak to hide the wires going to the flat screen on the bulkhead.  Muy beuno!

This next one is going to be our first project.  Back in the aft head is all the heater and A/C ductwork underneath the cabinet.  I was thinking about making a grill that would cover it up.  He went one further and suggested a teak bullnose with slits cut into it to let the heat out.  The teak will be backed with aluminum to keep the heat from damaging the wood.  The bullnose will have a nice curve to it and match the cabinetry, better than what I had planned.  This dude is good!

The aft stateroom really needs help and is going to be a major project.  The ductwork from the heater comes through the aft bulkhead and runs along under the shelf on the port side.  The area above the shelf is a great spot for some cabinets to give us extra storage.  I had actually seen this done on an Island Packet 320 (this picture is of theirs) and it came out really nice.  Anthony made some suggestions for making it tie in to the existing look and I think what he's got in mind is really gonna look nice.  Kinda difficult to explain here but I'll post a picture or something as soon as possible.  This is definitely gonna be a nice addition to the boat and have a factory look to it too.

Finally we have the galley.  This is a sticking point for Cheri and it's understandable considering the kitchen she designed for herself in the house on Franwall Avenue.  We're talking gourmet here folks, top of the line everything.  So, she understands the limitations of a galley on the boat but she wants to push the envelope a bit.  I'm all for it because she's an excellent cook and enjoys playing with food.  If she's happy then I'm happy.  So we're looking at a bigger sink, Corian countertops, more cabinets, better layout for the fridge and freezer and probably more counterspace.  I think it's all do-able.  At least, as long as it falls within the 3 year timetable.

Beyond all this we're saving our pennies to buy some electronics for the boat.  We have a plan to get the boat ready for extended cruising when we retire in 2014.  Hmmm, that's about three years from now.  A major part of the plan is to get out away from the Chesapeake Bay and do some offshore sailing with some over-nighters, watch standing, food planning, water conservation - the works.  We want to do the DelMarVa circumnavigation which is about a ten day sail going north on the Bay, out the C+D canal into the Atlantic and re-entering the Bay at the southern end.  We're hoping to do this in May of 2012 which is coming up pretty soon now.  After that we want to take three weeks and sail to Bermuda, one week over, one week there and one week back.  That one is planned for the Spring of 2013.

To do these trips we want to have our electronics up and running.  We've picked out some gear for a pretty good system and based our choices on ease of use, world-wide serviceability and cost.  Originally I was going to mix and match pieces from different companies based on cost but it was pointed out to me that if we had a problem then one manufacturer would end up blaming another manufacturer and we'd just have a headache.  So we're gonna stick with just one manufacturer, Furuno.  A real popular thing right now is having touch screen control but I was concerned about it being difficult to use on a sailboat with things moving around all the time.  You'd end up putting in extra way-points or changing the display by accident.  Furuno seems to have designed their display for real world use and they don't offer touch screen control.  Plus, when you change scale on the screen to zoom in on a spot it's seamless, totally smooth, compared to some other displays we've seen that have to rescale over and over making the display very jerky as it zooms in.  Furuno also has a 3D display mode that is really nice.

So we're planning to get a 12" multi-function-display (MSD) which will be the heart of the system and controls and displays everything.  It provides charts for any region of the world and can display them in multiple formats as well as overlay them with satellite photos.  It can also overlay or split-screen information from the other units.  To this we'll add:

GPS - this will provide us with accurate position info to within 10'.

Radar - this will be mounted half-way up the mast and will provide surface information out to about 30 miles.  I expect it'll mostly be used when approaching land or in areas with a lot of traffic.

AIS - this is an automated ID system that can provide info about who we are and our course and receive the same from other ships.  This gets displayed and provides alarms for intersecting courses.  It'll help let the big guys know we're out there even if they can't see us.

Sonar - right now we're planning to use a fish finder (click here) to provide bottom information when we get into shallow water.  Inexpensive sonar is progressing by leaps and bounds right now so by the time we leave in 3 years we may actually have a system that provides a clear, detailed, 3D display of bottom features.  Cool!

Weather - this provides weather information through a satellite link for a fee.  We will also be able to get weather info through our single sideband radio.

So, it looks like the upcoming year is going to be a busy one.  There's a ton of stuff we want to do and time is becoming a major factor.  Tick, tick, tick.  I think maybe it's time for a priority list.