Winds of Change

Last Saturday, 10-16-10, we had a fairly strong wind blowing steadily out of the West all day.  It apparently blew all the water in the Chesapeake over to the Eastern shore because the water in our little creek all but disappeared.  People that had been in the area for many years were saying they had never seen it that low.  Our boat draws 4' 7" and it was sitting on the bottom.  The deck was so low below the dock that we had to climb halfway down the piling to get aboard.  We were fortunate that our boat was tied close to the finger pier before the water disappeared.  The folks across from us tied theirs off in the center of the slip and when they came down to board it they found it was too far from the dock to get aboard.  Pete and Sharon were planning to leave the next morning for North Carolina by way of the Intracoastal Waterway (ICW) and had brought all their supplies with them for the trip.  Around 8PM Cheri and I were down below having dinner when we heard a commotion on the dock.  When I looked out from our cockpit I saw Pete climbing back onto the dock, soaking wet.  I'm not sure what happened, didn't want to embarrass anyone with probing questions, but apparently he was pretty determined to get aboard.  The water couldn't have been more than 4' deep but I imagine the mud-covered bottom was pretty soft, coulda sucked him down another 4'.  It was pretty cold out, in the 50's, and I offered him some dry clothes but he declined, thinking he had a weeks worth of clothes stashed in somewhere with all his gear.  Could also be that he turned down my generous offer because he's 6'6" and about 140 lbs while I'm 5'10" and 195 pounds.  Woulda made for an interesting lookin' outfit, I'm sure.  So, in the last two weeks we've gone through some pretty good tidal extremes, all or nothing you might say.  Makes you very aware of what a living thing the Chesapeake Bay really is; forever in motion, sometimes mellow, sometimes extreme, always calling for your attention.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the ICW, it's a 3,000 mile long waterway along the East and Gulf coasts of the United States.  It's made up of canals, rivers and other natural waterways that tie together to form a protected inland passageway for commercial shipping (barges and the like) and pleasure boats.  The original design called for a canal across northern Florida to tie the Gulf and East Coast waterways together but this was never completed due to "ecological concerns".  I think they were concerned that if they cut through at the northern end then Florida might float away and connect with Cuba or something.  Congress signed authorization for the ICW in 1919 and the Army Corp of Engineers maintains it.  Or at least they're supposed to.  The project has been underfunded throughout it's history and the stated minimum depth of 12' is  rarely maintained.  Shoaling and inaccurate charts are a constant problem.  In spite of these detractions, the ICW provides a safe, inland passage and is a great alternative to traveling or transporting goods by way of the open ocean.

Herrington Harbour North is apparently a popular spot for folks getting ready to head South for the Winter.  It's a great yard with every service you could need for outfitting and preparing your boat for a long-haul blue water run.  Since September we've seen quite a few boats come in from other places, get hauled out and set up "on the hard" for just a week or two while the hull gets fresh paint and other maintenance needs are tended to.  Then they disappear.  Of course some of them are already being hauled out for the duration of the Winter but a significant number of them are going back in the water for a cruise to warmer zones.  One of these days we're gonna disappear too.

Cheri and I have been working on making our boat feel more like a home by adding some things to "personalize" it.  We got a cool-man shelf from Home Depot for over the head of our bunk.  It has a rail around the open sides that gives it a nice nautical look and the whole thing gives the appearance of a headboard.  With the lights out the wood matches the teak interior perfectly.  Turned out to be a good spot for Cheri's lighthouse collection.

We also added a three tier hanging wire basket in the galley for storing fruit and veggies.  We used a wood bracket that was intended for holding a heavy duty curtain rod and hung it on the post beside the sink.  It looks nice but we need to figure out a way to secure it when we're under way.

We put in wall-to-wall carpet which goes a long way towards making the boat feel warmer, cozier, more like home.  Cheri made a template from heavy brown paper and we took it to a carpet shop in Silver Spring.  We chose a quality carpet that's stain resistant and guaranteed for 20 years.  It's a tight weave and is sculpted with a leafy vine design.  Very cool.  Using her template they cut the carpet to fit and bound the edges all around.  The binding was actually the most expensive part.  This was definitely a really great improvement.  Thank you Sharon Malatich for the suggestion.

We added two small brass table lamps with cut crystal globes at the base.  We disassembled the lamps and added pull string switches to replace the in-line switch on the wire.  While we had them apart we filled the glass globe with sea shells that Cheri's sister had collected when they lived in Puerto Rico.  After we put the lamps back together we ran the cord through a hole underneath the base and hard-wired them in to the boat's 110VAC.  We then ran some bailing wire around the feet of the lamp, down through the hole to some screws inside the cabinet to prevent the lamps from moving around when the boat heels over.  Now they're secure and the cord doesn't show.  They add a really nice look to the main salon and provide some nice lighting for reading.

We also added some background lighting behind the cabinets on both sides of the main salon.  The overhead comes down low over these cabinets and where it would normally join the wall there is a gap about an inch wide so you can reach up there and hide wires or stash your jewelry or contraband or something.  Just inside the lip we ran a string of LED lighting on a strip of tape.  It provides a really nice glow above the cabinets but you can't see the source of the light.  It's a nice effect and provides enough lighting to be able to see the popcorn bowl while you're watching a movie.  That's important!

Speaking of movies.....my cousin Steve Ward has given us a very cool gift.  It's a Western Digital Media Player (link to more info).  This thing connects to a 2TB (terra byte!) USB hard drive which can store something like 800 full feature movies and almost a gazillion CD's.  The media player works with a PC or a Mac, which is good since we have a Mac mini but more importantly, we could set up a stand-alone system in our stateroom once we get that 37" flatscreen.  The real beauty of this thing is having instant access to all our entertainment and having it stored in a 11" x 7" x 5" box.  No need to find storage for hundreds of DVD's and CD's.  More room for beer!

Great Adventures

This past Monday was Columbus Day, where we recognize the single most fantastic example of dead luck navigation (referenced in "Maiden Voyage") in the history of mankind.  Of course it's also a great time to ponder the advantages of suppression and annihilation of indigenous peoples.  Being a four day weekend for me and Cheri, we pondered the cold weather coming soon and headed over to the Annapolis Boat Show on Friday to talk to some guys about marine heaters.  Great ponderers that we are, we'd already narrowed our choices down to two manufacturers of forced air diesel heaters (Espar and Webasto).  They're both very similar in construction.  The concept is the same as the gas heater in your home, fire heats air which is blown through ducting to each room.  These are much smaller though, contained in a 7" x 21" cylinder.  The heater will go under the cockpit and have ducting running inside cabinetry on the port side of the boat.  Should be a fairly simple installation so I'm going to take it on myself.  Oughta get a few blog entries outa that!

The weather this weekend was simply gorgeous and on Sunday we had our friends Anthony and Luzma over for the afternoon.  We got them to come under the ruse of teaching us how to use some Spanish language software.  What we really wanted was an excuse to go out sailing.  After talking about software for 10 minutes we cast off around 1530 and sailed out across Herring Bay and out into the Chesapeake.  Winds were about 15 to 20 knots out of the West so we headed North for a while  before turning around and heading home.  For some reason I was thinking the sun set around 1900 but it was already ducking behind the trees at 1830 as we rounded red #2 on the way back to Herrington Harbour.  We pulled into our slip just as it was getting dark.  After getting things back to "in port" mode we sat down to a great Peruvian dinner of grilled chicken with some potato kinda stuff and some screaming hot sauce to dip it in.  Wowza!

On Monday morning we had Karl and Cindi Ervin join us for a sail.  They live on the boat two slips out from us and are totally rebuilding their boat.  Because of the extensive reconstruction they haven't been sailing in two years.  We thought it'd be a good excuse to go out again and also to make some new friends.  Once again the weatherman was calling for light winds, 5 to 6 knots, but when we got out there we had 15 to 20 knots out of the South.  Perfect!  We headed over to the North end of Poplar Island, right at the mouth of Eastern Bay (Link to Chart of the Bay).  It's my understanding that Poplar Island is man-made and is where they dump all the dredged up material from the main channel.  We sailed past R 84A which marks the eastern side of the main channel for large ships traveling up the Bay to Baltimore.  This is an interesting spot for navigation because the main channel comes up from the mouth of the Bay along the western shore.  Just before it gets to Herring Bay it crosses over to the eastern shore and continues up to the Bay Bridge.  Ships travel the Bay at a pretty good clip, at least 20 knots, and you really have to keep an eye on things to stay out of their way.

We had passed R 84A and headed into Eastern Bay when I took a look at my watch and realized we should head back if we were going to get in before dark.  We came about and returned on a course of 240 degrees magnetic.  As we got past Poplar Island I noticed a large ship far to the South headed up the Bay.  We were moving along at about 7 knots and I felt we could probably hold our course and come in behind this big dude.  As we passed R 84A again and ventured into the channel I kept my eye on the ship, which was now beginning to look quite large.  As I watched, it's bow began to come around and point directly at us and I quickly realized he was in the section of channel that crosses over to where we were.  Yikes!  We came about again and veered out of his way and then as he passed close by, came about again to resume our course which took us right across his stern as he passed by.  The stern wave from this sucka was pretty big and we almost buried the bow on the second wave.  Woohoooo!

The sail back to Herrington was really nice with a steady 15 to 20 knot breeze.  We sailed right up to R2, passing several other boats that were motoring their way home (not that I'm competitive of course).  After passing R2 we dropped our sails and motored towards home.  As we passed the halfway point, G3, I noticed a change in pitch of the engine.  I looked over the stern and saw there was no water coming out the exhaust.  I reduced throttle and ran below.  When I pulled the engine cover back in the galley I found water swirling around under the engine.  I ran over to the other side and pulled open the engine cover and got blasted by water.  I yelled up to kill the engine but with it off I was unable to find the source of the leak.  We fired it back up again and quickly found that the raw water cooling hose on the heat exchanger had blown off and was gushing like Old Faithful.  It turned out that the hose clamp had failed which was better than having the hose itself blow out.  Karl put the hose back on as I grabbed a clamp from one of the lines on the holding tank up forward.  He installed the clamp and we fired up the engine and headed into the harbor at low RPM's to keep the pressure down.  Just as we came inside the jetty at the entrance to the harbor the hose blew off again.  This is a much worse spot because the channel here is very narrow with shallow water on either side.  We shut the engine off long enough to get the hose back on and Karl held it in place until we could drift up to the first dock we came to.  Once tied up we shut off the engine and Karl replaced the hose clamp.  He told me the clamp wasn't on very well the first time but he got it on better the second try.  We motored slowly home and felt very relieved to be tied up in our slip again.

So now I've got another project.  I need to pull the hose and either replace it or clean it out because Karl noticed that it was seriously calcified inside.  This probably means that the heat exchanger needs some attention too.  Might as well take a look at the impeller while I'm at it.  One other thing.  Underneath the engine is a fiberglass pan that's intended to catch oil drippings and because of that does not drain into the bilge.  I found that it holds approximately 12 gallons of water.  I filled up my 5 gallon bucket two and a half times, dipping water out from in front of the engine with a 6 ounce plastic cup until 2100 last night.  Are we having fun yet?  You betcha!

A Little Wind and Rain

On Thursday (9-30-10) we had Tropical Storm Nicole blow through.  It was already raining hard when I headed out for work at 0615 and I only got a few miles down the road before I turned back due to flooding and high winds.  I knew the worst was yet to come and if the roads were already that bad then I was better off staying home and taking care of the boat.

Cheri was working from home that day so we weathered the storm together.  The rain was really coming down and later reports showed 5" to 7" had dropped in our area.  Around 1000 the wind began to really howl and I saw one gust as high as 52 knots.  That's blowin' pretty good, especially back in Tracey's Creek where it's very protected.  Normally when we come in from sailing the wind could be blowin' 25 knots out on the Bay but when we get into our slip we'll only see about 5 or 6 knots.  To see a 52 knot gust in our slip means it must be really screaming out on the Bay.  We saw one boat break loose on the next dock over from us and three slips up from ours a boat's genoa got shredded.  The only thing we had on our boat was some water running down the mast into the cabin.

The wind and rain continued throughout the day.  The level of the creek rose steadily throughout the day too.  By 1930 that evening the water was about 2" below the  decking on the dock and high tide was still 3 hours away.  After losing power and being closed up in the boat all day we decided this was a good time to drive into Annapolis for a movie and some ice cream.  Uhm, probably not the wisest move I've ever made.  The deck of the boat was riding about 45" above the dock at this point and once we jumped down we realized it was gonna be a task to get back aboard.  Of course we were already off so we decided to deal with it when we got back.  What the heck, right?  Driving into Annapolis we had second thoughts about the movie after I calculated that high tide could conceivably raise the water level another 9".  To prevent this from being a total loss we stopped at Baskin Robbins for a quart of mint chocolate chip ice cream before heading home.

When we got back to the dock we found the water was now just a fraction of an inch below the walkway of the dock.  It was really weird walking out there, felt like we were walking on water.  When we got out to the boat I decided the best thing to do was grab onto the railing, put my feet on the rub rail and hoist myself up.  The rub rail is about 8" below the deck and sticks out about 1.5" with a rubber cap to prevent damage to the hull when you bump into things like the dock.  I quickly found out that in the rain it doesn't really make a very good foot hold.  My feet slipped off and I went into the creek.  I was still holding onto the railing so I only went in up to my knees.  Cheri grabbed my belt and pulled me up onto the dock and we gave this situation a little more thought.  I took off one of the stern lines going to the dock and pulled the boat right up against the finger pier.  Cheri is much more agile than me and hoisted herself aboard with no problem.  She handed me a bucket which I used as a step and I was quickly back aboard.  The next morning everything was back to normal.  I talked to the guy 2 slips down from us and he said the water was over the dock at 2330 and sure enough, we found a fish stranded on the dock further down.  I grabbed this picture off the net just to give you an idea of what we were dealing with, very similar situation.


On Saturday we had some friends, Gene and Yelena Gerashchenko,  join us for a day sail.  I work with Gene and this was the first time we've gotten together away from the job.  We had a beautiful, crisp (65 degrees), clear day with about 15 knots of wind out of the NNE.  We motored out to Herring Bay, put up the sails and shot over to the Choptank River, averaging about 6.5 knots through the water.  Gene was at the helm for most of the day, which he seemed to enjoy, and it gave me a chance to just sit back and relax.  Yelena brought some smoked salmon which we had for lunch and some really tasty Russian dessert kinda things that were like a Mallow Pie without the cookie.  Mmm, mmm, mmmmm.  Gene brought along some beer and we managed to make that disappear before we got back to the slip.  We had a great time together and toasted the day with some amaretto after we got back.

On Sunday we had another outing planned, this time with Kris and Rheba Kelly.  Because Cheri and I were going to church that morning we arranged for them to show up at 1400 and planned for a short afternoon sail across the Bay.  The weather report said it was going to be clear with light winds so we were disappointed to see it cloud over late in the morning.  By the time Kris and Rheba got there it had started to rain.  We had an enthusiastic group though so we headed out across Herring Bay to red #2 before turning east and raising the sails.  The wind was blowing smartly, about 20 knots out of the NNE, and pretty good sized waves were rolling in across the Bay.  We kept the main reefed to 60% and ran with only the staysail, no genoa.  As we passed green #1 into the Chesapeake Bay the wind had increased to a steady 35 knots and the waves were quite large.  At this point Cheri noticed that Rheba was looking kinda green and suggested that it might be a good idea to turn back.  I felt this was probably a good idea anyway since conditions were only bound to get worse as we got further out into the Bay.  We headed up into the wind, running close hauled, to find some deeper water and turned back into Herring Bay at green #1.  We were running on a broad reach at about 7.5 knots all the way to red #2 before we turned N., dropped the sails and motored back to our slip.  Much to our relief, Rheba was feeling better by the time we got back in and she didn't even barf once.  She was disappointed about getting sick but she handled it like a real old salt. On the way back we acted as a wind break for some poor pop-sickle on a jet ski.

The following Tuesday Cheri invited her team from work for an afternoon sail.  The team included Dennis Atkinson, Jim Childers and Debra Braun so there was a crew of 5 aboard since I took the afternoon off to help out.  We left the dock around 1430 and sailed NNE to take advantage of a 15 to 25 knot wind out of the West.  We ran under full sail under partly cloudy skies and had near perfect conditions.  Dennis manned the helm expertly, especially considering this was his first time at it.  Dude's a natural sailor.  I'm thinking he'd make an excellent addition to the crew next time we sail competitively.  I think we all had a great time.  On the way back we averaged about 7.5 kts and got as fast as 8.4.  Fun sail but a little chilly.

On La Vida Dulce we have two reverse cycle heating and air conditioning systems.  For the forward stateroom we have an 8,000 btu system and for the main salon, aft stateroom and galley we have a 16,000 btu system.  For several days the larger system has been giving error codes, "HP 5".  I hadn't taken the time to drag out the book to figure out what this error code means but I had apparently been going over it in my subconscious thoughts.  One night at 0145 I woke up with a thought.  This unit is located under the port side settee.  I pulled up the cushion and access panel, then removed a box of shoes and a shopping bag full of who knows what.  Under that was the vacuum cleaner and it's associated gear.  Finally I was down to the A/C unit.  What occurred to me in my sleep was that the strainer for the cooling water was probably clogged.  I pulled out the strainer, flushed out the barnacles and slime and put it back in.  I fired up the system and it ran fine for the rest of the night.  One thing that occurred to me while I was doing this.  The storage compartment that this is contained in has no drainage.  There's a through-hull fitting right there, an opening to the big, wide, wet world that could let the entire ocean in to this little compartment.  Where any other through-hull is located in the boat it can drain into the bilge and an alarm will go off if there's a significant leak.  The way this is set up, this compartment will fill up with water and I won't know there's a problem until water comes pouring out of the air return vent into the salon.  To me this didn't seem like such a good thing.  I talked to John Hellwege about it and he said not to worry.  OK.  When water starts pouring out of the air return vent I'll have him come over to help me get the boat off the bottom of the creek.  I think on this one I'll go against the established wisdom.  I'll hafta do some research on this before I start drilling drainage holes but I'd feel better knowing that water won't be trapped in there.

I finally got around to reading the manual.  The error code means head pressure is above 425 psi.  After I cleaned the strainer we continued to have error codes so the problem still wasn't solved.  After reading through the book I discovered that there's 2 air filters on this thing.  When I checked them out they were both seriously clogged with fiberglass dust from when the holding tank was replaced.  Got out our trusty Dirt Devil mini vac and cleaned 'em up.  System's been working great ever since.  Hmmmm.  Maybe I need to set up some kind of spreadsheet for periodic maintenance around here.  Maybe I should also start reading some of those manuals.