La Vida Dulce

Winter Update

2012-02-14T11:00:00.000-05:00

We're now into our second season with the Espar diesel heater. We have the parts needed to service it (glow plug and diffuser screen) but I'm letting it go to see how long she'll run. Last year it ran 24/7 from mid-December until mid-March, something like 2100 hours, non-stop. We didn't get any data on fuel consumption last season so I'm paying closer attention to it this year. We've been having a milder Winter this time so we didn't start it up until January 5th but it's been running 24/7 since then. We started with a full tank, hand carried 80 gallons with 5 jerry cans. Ugh. After fifteen days we topped off the tank again and found that we had used 35 gallons of fuel. I was a little alarmed at this until I did the math. 15 days x 24 = 360 hours. We're using 1/10 gallon per hour, exactly what the book says. We paid $3.50/gal (grrr) so we're paying about $250/month for heat. We keep it comfortable, 71 degrees during the day and turn it down to 68 at night. Considering the situation, zero insulation in a fiberglass box immersed in 34 degree water, I think this is acceptable.

Forced hot air is a good way to heat your boat. It keeps it dry inside, for the most part. Places that don't get warmed up tend to sweat, inside some cabinets and the inner surface of the hull for instance. The system is quiet and reliable. Our exhaust is kinda noisy but that might be because of the configuration and a little time spent on it could bring it down to a better level. Besides, the noise is mostly outside and at this time of year we don't have any neighbors to annoy. We've used the heater while out sailing (full cockpit enclosure) and on the hook. It has little drain on the batteries and extends the sailing season to year-round. Let me tell you, sailing on the Chesapeake Bay with no other boats around is pretty sweet.

I've made some good progress on installing our new electronics. I contracted with a local company, Atlantic Spars and Rigging, to modify the grab bar on our steering pedestal. I got it back last week and it came out almost exactly as I had drawn it up. They made the bracket for the display larger than I had planned but it turned out to be better the way they did it. I had to modify the supports that it mounts to and once I got them cut down the whole thing went together perfectly. It's super strong too so it'll still act as a good place to grab onto when you're moving around the cockpit.

Once the bracket was in place I mounted the multi-function display (MFD) to it and admired my handiwork. In most cockpits the display faces the dude at the helm and if you want to take a look at it you have to go around behind the wheel to see it. In a boat with an autopilot you won't be spending much time behind the wheel and will most likely be sitting up in the front of the cockpit for most of your watch. I wanted the display set up so you could turn it around and see it from anywhere in the cockpit. The mount I chose is a ball mount, like on a camera tripod, only bigger.

Once I got the display mounted I had to figure out the wiring. Our system is pretty simple. We have three gauges showing depth, boat speed and wind speed/direction. These tie into the MFD using a data system called SeaTalk that uses a three conductor cable. It's pretty much plug and play. The gauges are powered through the DC breaker panel which was pre-wired from the factory with a 10 amp breaker and #14 two conductor wire. By sheer coincidence this is exactly what's called for to power the new display. I figured I could just tie into where these gauges are connected and it'd be a simple thing. Uh huh. Sure.

I found the cable supplying power to the gauges inside the steering pedestal. It was a black SeaTalk three conductor cable. I went to the breaker panel to see if maybe they had run it all the way up to the breaker but that had a blue two conductor wire. I looked in the wiring diagram for the boat and sure enough, it called out wires 84 + 85, 14-2 wire. I found a note from the factory that said this wire was run into the starboard side cockpit locker and coiled up, to be used for electronics. OK, let's look in the starboard locker.

So next I emptied out the starboard locker. This is no simple feat because the locker is big and deep. You could sleep in there with three dogs and two sheep, if you were so inclined. In the two years we've had this boat I've never had the guts to empty out this locker. It's packed full. I found two full sets of dock lines that I didn't know we had. I also found a dinghy bridle, a two gallon tank of gas and an extra set of paddles for the dinghy. There was a buncha other stuff that I won't even go into here. Anyway, I finally got the locker emptied out. Now I could get back to my project.

I crawled down into the abyss and discovered that this is where they hid the two compressors for our fridge and freezer. Actually, I had heard a rumour they were down there, just hadn't seen them face to face before. I could see the bundle of wires coming from the steering pedestal but when I cut the wire ties I couldn't find the black SeaTalk cable. I did see a blue 14-2 wire though. Hey!

My next step was to climb out of the cockpit locker and go down below into the aft cabin. At the back of the cabin is an access panel that opens up to the genset compartment under the cockpit. Of course, you have to take everything off the bunk to get to it. This cabin is what we call the garage. Everything we don't have room for anywhere else on the boat eventually ends up back here. Right now all the stuff for our new electronics package is taking up space back here. This includes the radome (huge!), all the wiring I'll be using (also huge!) and the box full of stuff for the autopilot (medium huge). Also back there are two tool boxes and a storage box full of electrical connectors, all of Cheri's quilting stuff, two sewing machines and a storage box with all our extra linens and towels. Once all this was transferred out to the Main Salon I pulled up the bunk cushion and moved that out too. Now the aft cabin was emptied out but the rest of the boat was trashed. Life on a boat.

With access to the genset compartment I could see the wiring bundle coming through the floor from the steering pedestal. I didn't see my blue 14-2 wire though. I proceeded to cut off all 47 wire ties to expose the innards of the bundle. There it was! The 14-2 blue wire was connected directly to the black SeaTalk wire using butt connectors. This is OK as long as you know it's there. It would have been really helpful if someone had updated the drawing to show this. Note to self: Do unto others.....update those drawings. I run into this all the time at work. The equipment I work with was built back in the '50s and '60s. Everything has been modified numerous times but no one has taken the time to update the drawings. So much time is wasted just trying to figure out what someone changed 30 years ago. Grrrrr. No wonder I'm all grey and look like I'm 60 years old when I'm only.....uhm, never mind.

My solution for the wiring was to mount a terminal strip on the bulkhead and label it "Instruments". The blue 14-2 wire leading in is labeled on the prints as wire #'s 84 and 85 so I marked that here too. The wire leading to the MFD already has an in-line fuse but I needed to add a 7 amp fuse to the one going to the gauges. With this done I headed back topside to try it out. I flipped on the "Instruments" breaker and by the time I got to the cockpit the MFD was already powered up and progressing through it's initialization. Cool!

After it got through the initialization it settled into a display of some harbor in Florida. Uhm, that's not right. I started punching buttons and found my way through the program to the part where you turn on the GPS. It took about 30 seconds to figure out where it was and finally showed our position in Traceys Creek. So far, so good.

So now we need to spend some time out on the Bay. I'm pretty excited about having a chartplotter and look forward to seeing what all we can do with it. It'd be especially nice to go places without running aground all the time, although I have gotten really good at that. The manual for the MFD is on a disc and I'm slowly working my way through a PDF file with 114 pages of instructions. I also ordered the upgraded charts (Navionics Platinum +) for the Chesapeake Bay that'll give us 3D display and satellite shots that overlay the charts. Sweet!

Speaking of running aground......this past weekend (2/11/12) winter finally hit. Around 1530 on Saturday the temperature dropped about 20 degrees in 15 minutes, the wind increased to 25 knots with 45 knot gusts and it started snowing, sideways. The wind was blowing out of the NW and continued non-stop for two days. By noon on Sunday the water depth at our slip was 3'8", which is pretty low. Our boat draws 4'10". Our deck was 32" below the dock which made getting on and off a bit of a challenge. The boat next to us draws 6'6" and they were really sticking out of the water. They haven't hauled their boat in over three years and the exposed crud quickly dried out in the wind. They've got quite a garden under there. The NW wind is pretty common here in the winter but in the two years we've been here this is the lowest we've seen the water at our slip so far.

...And This Is My Other Brother Darryl

2012-01-10T11:35:00.000-05:00

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!

2012-01-05T14:45:00.003-05:00

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?

2011-11-29T17:24:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-28T08:50:00.000-05:00

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

2011-11-03T11:29:00.002-04:00

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

2011-10-17T12:40:00.001-04:00

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

2011-10-05T09:26:00.000-04:00

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.

Irene

2011-08-31T09:11:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, 8/28/11, we had a bit of a storm work it's way up the east coast. On Thursday morning, 8/25, it hadn't made landfall in North Carolina yet and the projected storm track showed it hugging the coastline but staying in the Atlantic after crossing part of North Carolina. The winds were a steady 110 knots, gusting higher. If it stayed on this course I felt like we'd be OK at our marina because we'd be far enough from the storm that the winds would be less than 65 knots and the wind direction wouldn't cause serious flooding.

At noon that day I checked the National Hurricane Center's website and the update now showed Hurricane Irene coming inside the Chesapeake Bay with 100 knot winds. Double Yikes! I'm not kidding, my hair stood on end. This was a whole different game. Storm surge would be a serious problem with water being pushed into our creek from the Bay. In 2003 Hurricane Isabel brought a storm surge of over 7.5' to our creek. Check out the damage to our marina back then (click here). Once I got my hair back under control I left work early and headed home. When I got to the marina I put our boat on a list to have her hauled and stored on the hard. This costs about $700 but insurance pays for half so it's not too bad. I was told we had about 100 boats ahead of us and chances were pretty slim of us getting hauled. OK, it's worth a shot.

I figured I had about 48 hours to get ready for the worst. I hadn't been through this drill before so I didn't know how much time I needed to get ready. I started that afternoon by removing the Bimini and Dodger canvas. This gave me access to the solar panels. I felt it was a good idea to get them down because it was a good chance that they'd catch that 110 knot wind and rip the Bimini frame right off the boat. Once I had all that removed I tied down the frame. We removed the Genoa and Staysail and rolled the Main up (furled) inside the mast as tight as she would go. The idea here was to reduce the area exposed to the wind as much as possible

By Friday morning we got another update on the storm and now they were saying it would track out to the Atlantic, just as they had said originally. In addition to that they thought the winds would be reduced to about 85 knots. If it holds to that then we'd be OK. We had already done more than was necessary but I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. We doubled up all our dock lines and prepared things down below as if we were going out sailing.

On Saturday the marina informed us they'd be shutting off the water at noon and the power at 1700. OK, guess we won't even have to consider sticking around. At this point the storm was working it's way across North Carolina. The sky was overcast but we had no rain yet and just a light breeze. My sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and Ed, offered us refuge at their place, which we gladly accepted. Thanks guys, we really appreciate it. We got to their place around 1500 and the rain was just starting. We all hunkered down in front of the TV and watched the news reports. This was a big mistake because those reporters are more interested in drama than giving the real story so they tend to exaggerate like crazy. I'm sitting there listening to these goons and by 2300 I couldn't take it anymore. The storm was supposed to peak in our area around 0200 Sunday morning and I just had to get down to the boat and see how she was doing. I mean, the wind was blowing straight across the Bay and the water could be high at the dock requiring an adjustment of the dock lines. Or the bilge pump coulda failed and I needed to be down there to bail. That boat is our home, has everything we own aboard and I just couldn't sit there and listen to those idiots on TV anymore.

The three of us, Cheri, me and Bella, piled into our car and cruised on down. The rain was coming down in sheets and the windshield wipers were on full blast and could hardly keep up. The wind was blowing pretty good too. Luckily we were just about the only car on the road so I felt pretty comfortable driving 45 MPH on the the Baltimore Beltway and then down Rte 97 into Annapolis. We got on Rte 2 and headed south and as soon as we got out of Edgewater we saw flashing lights. Trees were down across the road. There was a cop there but as we drove up he cut around the tree and headed south at 35 MPH. Well what else could we do but follow? We had a police escort all the way down to Deale. Cool! Along the way we had to drive around several more downed trees but it wasn't really dangerous or anything. Just kinda surreal. We got to the marina around 0030, grabbed a flashlight and walked down to the boat. As we walked down the dock we were relieved to see that the water level was pretty normal. This was a big relief for me because I figured as the storm went further north the wind would veer around out of the north and drive the water out of the Bay, meaning less chance of flooding as the storm progressed. So we were already pretty much out of danger from storm surge. I think the wind was blowing about 65 knots steady at this point and the rain was now coming down even harder. When we got to the boat she was sitting in the center of the slip, heeling over with the wind but in absolutely no danger. I shined the light up and down her length, didn't see anything wrong and decided to head back. Three hours of driving, up and back, for a two minute visual confirmation. In that two minutes we were totally soaked to the skin. It was worth it, let me tell you, just for the peace of mind. We got back safely around 0230 and climbed into bed and slept like babies.

Looking back on things now I can see that I totally over-reacted and did way more than I had to. We could have left the sails and canvas on as well as the solar panels. It was right to have doubled up on the dock lines and securing for sea down below was definitely a good idea too. I don't regret having done too much because if I hadn't then the storm woulda come right up the Bay and clobbered us. I'm pretty sure that's how that works.

Living With Doctor Dolittle

2011-08-17T12:12:00.001-04:00

Monday evening I got home from work around 1830. It had been raining on and off all day and I could see some pretty dark clouds approaching from the south-west as I walked down the dock. When I get aboard I find that the holding tank needs to be pumped out. We have contracted with a service to do this every other week and that's worked out real nice but this time we need to take care of it ourselves. No problem, we just need to beat that storm that's drifting our way.

In record time we get the boat underway and head over to "C" dock. As we pull up alongside we notice a commotion on the dock. There's a big old bird dancing around with his wings spread out. As we tie up the bird backs away and falls off the dock into the water. We race over to see what he's doing and it's obvious this guy is gonna drown if we don't do something. Cheri grabs a net from our boat and angles it down towards the bird who grabs onto the rim and hangs on for dear life. We pull him back up on the dock and set the net down and back away real slowly. This bird is an adult Osprey with a wingspan of about 5' and talons as long as my fingers. Yowza! The bird is pretty freaked out and screams and dances around, eventually falling back in the water. We fish him out again and this time he just stands there, screeching with his wings spread out.

So now what do we do? His movements make me think that his right wing is injured because he keeps holding the one wing out and folding up the other. Cheri goes down below and starts making phone calls to see if she can get a Vet to come out and help. No luck there but she eventually gets hold of the Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources and they direct her to a raptor rescue lady (chick?) down in Solomons Island, about 40 miles away. She can't come up tonight and asks us to put the bird in a box and keep it for her. What? Put this monster with 4" claws in a box? Yikes!

Cheri wanders off looking for a box and I go back and take care of the boat. The bird is only about 15' away while I'm working on the boat so I move around very slowly so I don't frighten him. I still hafta get the holding tank pumped out before this storm hits and it's now getting dark too. I finish up just as Cheri returns with a big box which she sets down beside the Osprey. By now there's another boater, an old English dude with lots of suggestions and no intentions of assistance, and Miguel, the 6'6" security guard who also has no intention of going near the bird. Cheri picks up the net, which the Osprey is still hanging onto and sets him down in the box. I throw a towel over his head and he instantly goes quiet and stops moving around. This is good but his gigantic wings are still sticking out. Cheri takes one and gently folds it into the box and I do the same with the other. As I push his wing into the box I picture his big old beak ripping the flesh off my hand but the bird just quietly sits there under the towel. This is much easier than I ever woulda imagined.

We can't put the bird on our boat because Bella would just go nuts and then the Osprey would probably eat her. There's already been enough excitement for one night. We pick up the box and put it in a cart. Miguel offers to take the cart down by the office for us so we could get La Vida Dulce back to her slip. Cheri writes up a note and pins it to the towel: "Injured Osprey in box". Yeah, that's a good idea. Can you imagine finding a box on your doorstep, lifting the towel and finding this gigantic bird of prey right in your face? She also included some info about it being picked up in the morning. Miguel found a good safe place for the cart under the stairs where it'd be protected from the storm and out of the way of critters.

I checked on the bird the next morning and he was doing fine. The rescue chick picked him up at 0900. Turns out she's related to one of the gals in the marina office. Small world. Actually, out here in the sticks, probably everybody is related in one way or another.

So, this isn't the first time Cheri has been involved with big birds and strange animals. She has a way with critters and they really respond to her. She's turned Bella into a circus dog. Down in Mexico she inched her way up to a Pelican on the beach and got within about 6" of it before it decided she was a nuisance. Throughout her life she's had all sorts of unusual pets, including a 6' Boa that got away from her when she was living in an apartment building and didn't show up for six months. During that time there were numerous reports of missing pets and small children. She's also had horses, Mynah Birds, Hermit Crabs and Koi as well as cats and dogs. Probably a lot more that I just can't remember right now.

I guess I might as well get used to this.

The Endless Project List

2011-08-01T17:10:00.001-04:00

Our boat, an Island Packet 420, has some beautiful exterior teak trim. On the side of the cabin, over the top of the ports, is a thin half-round strip called the "eyebrow" which runs on both sides all the way back to the cockpit. There's more to be found in the cockpit across the top of the coaming. Just in case you don't already know, the coaming is the raised wall around the cockpit that forms the back for the seats. It's real purpose is to keep water out of the cockpit but it also serves as an equipment platform (for winches), additional seating (for wenches), and a convenient, but hazardous, place to set your tools (for wrenches). The coaming on our boat is topped with a piece of teak about 1" thick, 4.5" wide and full length on either side of the cockpit. The majority of the exterior teak is in the toe-rail at the outer edge of the deck. This runs from the bowsprit (also teak) down both sides and across the stern. The toe-rail serves to keep things, such as tools and crew members, from sliding off the side of the boat. Ours also serves as a mounting surface for cleats and safety rails, as well as sealing the joint between the deck and the hull.

When we bought the boat the teak had just been refinished and looked really nice. Until now I've never had a boat that had teak with a varnish-like finish on it. My parents had a Dickerson ketch that had loads of teak but it was kept unfinished and we just scrubbed it all the time. In fact, back then we used a teak cleaner that was like Ajax or Comet cleanser and you just sprinkled some on and scrubbed it with a handbrush. Probably not considered environmentally friendly these days. Our last boat had some teak but it too was unprotected and we thought it looked just fine in it's weathered state. A good protective finish for exterior teak will have at least 6 coats. Our neighbors have 15 coats on their teak. It looks like ours had two, maybe three coats, just enough to make it look nice. Over this past winter it completely deteriorated and by the Spring it was looking really shabby with blotches of gray and black stains. Now our beautiful boat looked ratty and neglected.

While we were on vacation last month I finally decided to do something about the teak. That's right, this is how I spent my vacation. I can only sit around and relax for so long before I get bored and then I have to find something to do. Restoring the teak seemed like an excellent little project to take on. Got hold of some really cool stuff called Captain John's Boat Brite Soy Stripper. Put on a heavy coat of this stuff with a brush, let it sit for a few minutes and scape it off with a paint scraper. The finish lifts right off the wood with very little effort. Pretty amazing stuff. You want to work only on what you can do in about 45 minutes because the stripper will start to dry out after that and it makes things really difficult. I figured this one out the hard way, coated about 40' of toe rail and went back and started to scrape it off. I got through about 25' before it began to harden. After that I worked on sections, maybe 15' at a time, and that worked out much better.

So, I got one side and about half the bowsprit stripped and then the weather got really hot and muggy and stayed like that for the rest of our vacation. I went back to work and another week flew by before I got back to it. Even then I only got sections of teak stripped between doing more important stuff like laundry and grocery shopping and going out for day-sails.

Now, three weeks have gone by and I finally got all the finish stripped off the toe-rail. I then went over it with a two stage cleaner to get the gray and black stains out. I used a medium bristle hand brush like you might use for scrubbing grout between tiles. Using the Stage 1 cleaner with just a light scrubbing lifted the stains and the teak looked like new wood again. Cool! I tried the second stage cleaner and couldn't see any difference so I just skipped that part. Once I had all the teak cleaned I went back over it again, rinsing it off every ten feet or so as I cleaned it. The wood looked really nice at this point but I had to stop progress because it was Sunday night and I had to go back to work.

By the time I got back to it another week had gone by. Yikes! The wood was already turning gray again! Cheri and I talked it over and decided we didn't want to go through the struggle of putting on 15 coats of finish and then maintaining that. We both like the look of the varnished wood with multiple coats of clear but neither of us can picture keeping it up once we sail off into the sunset. Instead we decided to go the traditional route and try oiling the teak. It looks really sweet when it's all cleaned up and with teak oil, if you let it go the wood will turn a nice even gray. This is opposed to the hard finish that wears off in spots and looks awful if you don't stay on top of it. So we decided to try the oil for a few years and see if that works for us.

First I spent another day cleaning it (again) and in the process found some more spots that needed stripping. Now this stuff looks really good. We then put on two coats of oil and the color and grain came right out, looking really nice. The color is kind of a golden, reddish, browney, orange and has a rich, antiquey look to it. Now all we have to do is maintain it. That means a light coat of oil now and then, less than an hour's worth of work. Probably have to clean and brighten it again in the Spring but that still seems better than having to sand and brush on a hard finish. We'll see how it goes.

We set up a maintenance cycle on our computer using the calendar program. We scheduled stuff like cleaning air and water filters as well as oiling the teak. Things that are done periodically. One of the air filters needs cleaning every week. Up until now we've waited until the A/C system freezes up before we realize it's time to clean the air filters. There are also traps in the raw water lines for the engine, deck wash-down pump, A/C water pump, and the shower sumps. These get pretty grotty over time too. So, now with our cool-man scheduling program I'll be able to stay on top of this stuff, take better care of our gear and keep the teak looking sweet for many years to come.

I've been working on a "preventer" for the mainsail and the staysail. A preventer is a line that attaches to the end of the boom and pulls the boom forward to keep tension on it. When you're sailing with the wind coming from behind the boat the boom is out to one side, usually the downwind side. In light winds the rocking of the boat can cause the boom to swing around and if the wind gets in behind it you have a situation called an unintentional gybe where the boom swings from one side of the boat to the other. This is super dangerous and people have been seriously injured, clonked on the head, even knocked overboard. You can also have an intentional gybe where you control the motion of the boom by pulling it in to centerline with the sheet and then letting it out the other side. What I'm doing is using a line to "prevent" the boom from swinging unintentionally. The line is attached to the end of the boom and leads forward to a block (pulley) halfway down the side of the boat (midships) and then back to a winch in the cockpit. I can control the tension on the boom from where I sit and make adjustments between the main sheet and the preventer. Simple, huh?

Have you priced gold recently? This past weekend it was $1500 an ounce! We traded in some necklaces and broken jewelry that had been sitting around collecting dust and walked away with a check for $3000. Yowsa! This'll cover a good portion of the cost for new electronics on the boat. Unbelievable! Sure wish I'd stashed away a few Krugerrands back when I was a yout. We coulda paid off the boat.

Quick note: anodes are used on a boat to deal with electrolysis. This happens when you place different types of metal in water. With our boat we have stainless steel in the propeller shaft, bronze in the prop and brass or bronze in all the through-hull fittings. This difference in metals sets up a "battery" condition and electric current flows from one piece to another. The piece that the current flows from is eaten away and this can get expensive when it's your propeller or create other problems if it's your through-hulls. Zinc anodes are bolted to the propeller shaft and are eaten away ,"sacrificed", first before damage occurs to any other parts. Anodes need to be replaced about every year.

This past Spring we had planned to have the boat hauled to clean the bottom and replace the anodes. We had originally planned to have it done while Cheri was out of town on business but because of one thing or another it never happened. Now here we are coming up on August and I'm planning again to have the boat hauled for a week while Cheri is down visiting her Mom in Florida. Good plan. Yesterday I came home from work and saw a young lady in a bikini doing calisthenics on the dock near our boat. As I got closer I realized she was wiggling into a wetsuit. She's a scuba diver and she was getting ready to clean the bottom of the boat next to ours. I talked to her and found out she'd be able to do our boat this week for $175 plus the cost of the anodes. Cool! Let's do it! This is compared to $585 plus storage to have the yard haul the boat, powerwash it and block it so I could scrape of the barnacles, repaint and replace the anodes. Yeah, this diver is definitely the way to go. Plus we won't have to deal with living on the boat while it's up on the hard for a week.

We've gotten some stuff done around the boat and still managed to get out on the water now and then. Getting the teak done was a big deal, not the small job I first thought. Getting the bottom cleaned is also a big deal. And do you mind if I bring up the jewelry thing again? Yes, big deal. This Fall we'll take that cash and invest it in a chartplotter, radar, GPS, AIS and sonar. That'll keep me busy for a while!

We Did A Bad, Bad Thing

2011-07-21T13:22:00.003-04:00

Chris Isaak - Bad, Bad Thing

Last weekend, 7-16, we had plans to sail over to the Choptank River and meet up with the local sailing association for a raft-up with hor d'oeuvres and drinks. Wow! Hoighty Toighty!

We were supposed to meet up at 1730 on Trippe Creek which is a good four hour sail from Herring Bay. We planned to leave by noon and figured that would give us plenty of time. Fired up the engine and discovered an electrical problem right away. By the time I fixed that it was 1430 and we were finished before we even started.

We sailed out from R2 in Herring Bay with the wind out of the South at about 18 knots. Beautiful sailing conditions even if it did require that we tack our way down the Bay. By the time we got to the entrance to the Tred Avon River it was already 1800. We pulled up to the party at 1830 and were greeted by semi-cold shoulders. We mingled with the crowd which was a good size coming from 12 boats altogether. Encountered comments like "Jeez, too bad you're so late, ya missed all the good food" or "Maybe next time you can get here a little earlier".

After the party broke up we crawled back to our boat and decided to celebrate our anniversary with a couple of nice cigars and a glass of Amaretto. We sat out in the cockpit and figured with the breeze blowing across our bow that it would draw the smoke right out the back of the boat. We figured wrong. The folks sitting in the boat next to us got very quiet shortly after we lit up and moved their party down below. Bummer. We just can't seem to fit in with this crowd.

In the morning we got up early and watched the sunrise, went for a swim (probably shoulda worn swim trunks, huh?) and had some coffee. As people emerged around us they said not a word to us, had a very nice breakfast amongst themselves and then informed us they were ready for us to cast off. Uhm, OK, see ya later. "Have a day".

I really don't think this "rafting up with the cocktail crowd" is our kind of thing. We've always been lone wolves so I'm not really sure why we wandered down this social path. I think I had been reading about how cruisers band together and party a lot so I thought we should try it out. OK, got that out of the way, let's move on.

When I installed the wind generator I had trouble finding a good spot to mount the control panel for it. I wanted it located at the Nav Station but the previous owners had taken up most of the space with "stuff" to make it look official or complete or something. I knew I had to re-organize this mess but that would have to be a project for later on, like next winter maybe. We have two VHF radios, one mounted in the panel at the Nav Station and the other, which we use all the time, being a hand-held up in the cockpit. Of course I removed the panel mounted one so I could put in the control for the wind generator. Where, you might wonder, am I going with this?

Sailing out of the Choptank River the wind was blowing out of the SW at 12 - 15 knots. We were tacking back and forth down the river when the Coast Guard came on the radio with a warning about an overturned boat and at about the same time we were passed by a CG riverboat hauling buns towards Tilghman Island. On our next tack we spotted the boat floating upside down, white hull with blue stripes. No bodies. We called it in on our hand-held but the response from the CG was unintelligible. We tried several times to communicate with them but it was useless. Finally another boater came on and told us it had already been reported and they were just calling it a navigation hazard. OK. We circled around several times thinking that riverboat might come out but they never did so we eventually took off. I think if we had the other radio we could have had better communications with the CG because it has more power and the antenna is mounted at the top of the mast. I believe the correct thing to do would have been to stay on station until they arrived but without the communications I couldn't see sitting out there all day hoping they'd show up. Shortly after we took off we heard another boater go through exactly the same routine with poor coms. He probably also had a hand-held radio.

We tacked out of the Choptank under full sail, Main, Staysail and Genoa. We've been sailing La Vida Dulce for about a year now and this is my first experience with the cutter rig. I haven't been too happy with her ability to "point up" into the wind and had found that we could do better when we weren't flying the Genoa. Of course in light winds you want the Genoa up. About halfway out the river it dawned on me that maybe the Staysail was fouling the air for the Genoa when the sails were close hauled. We tried running with just the Main and Genoa and were able to point up an extra 5 degrees on either tack. Cool! So maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks. That extra five degrees helped us work out the final tack so we just barely cleared GC9 off Tilghman Island and were able to turn up the Bay without another tack. We ran all the way up to Herring Bay on a beam reach, course of 312 degrees magnetic.

Aside from my inability to play nicely with others, I had a great weekend of sailing. The weather was better than nice, it was uncharacteristically wonderful for July, with good wind and temperatures in the low 80's. This was our first time sailing on the Choptank with La Vida Dulce (remind me sometime to tell you about our visit here in our last boat, "Delirious"). It's a beautiful river with a ton of great anchorages, over three centuries of history, quaint old towns to visit and some of the best boat yards on the Bay. The Choptank was also the main focus for James Michener's book "Chesapeake". I know most of it was based on a conglomeration of ideas taken from around the area but it's easy to picture the island with the plantation or the settlement on the shore. When I'm sailing down the river I think about what it was like for those guys back in the 1600 and 1700's, sailing on this river, living at that farm over there or in that town. Out on the water it's easy to time-travel because you're removed from the traffic and powerlines and all those things that say "modern day". Out on the water there are occasions when it could very well be 1735. And then you get slapped back to reality when you run hard aground and have to get on your hand-held VHF radio and call TowBoat US for help.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part II

2011-06-23T12:57:00.000-04:00

Click here to see an EarthNC chart of The Great Wicomico River

Click here to see pictures from our vacation

For a recount of Part I click here.

So, this picks up on Saturday, June 4th, just outside the mouth of the Potomac River. From Smith Point Light we continued south to the Great Wicomico River. Entering the river from the north is complicated by a profusion of fish traps that are difficult to see until you're almost on top of them. These things are found all over the planet and have been used since the beginning of time. Fish traps or weirs, also described as a labyrinth fish fence, can be found in every part of the Chesapeake Bay. There are many different designs but the ones we're trying to avoid here are made with long stakes driven into the muddy bottom. Nets are strung from these stakes and form barriers and funnels that use the natural currents to guide fish into the trap. As they go from one section to another they pass through funnel shaped nets that prevent them from getting out. The last several sections of the trap have netting on all six sides so the fish have no where to go. The fisherman just have to pull this part of the net up and haul in their catch. Simple and effective.

(Chart for Mill Creek) To enter The Great Wicomico River you need to first travel south (beyond the fish traps) until you're past the light and then turn west into the river. Once past the light we had difficulty finding the entrance to Mill Creek because of heavy haze. We ended up picking up R4 on the north side of the river and then heading south on a compass course until we could see the red marker at the entrance to the creek. The area around the creek is low lying grassland/marsh and the marker just disappeared in the background. We used the navigation software, EarthNC, on Cheri's laptop to help us find our way in. The entrance to Mill Creek has some serious twists and turns and halfway in we had to stop and try to locate the next marker before continuing on. I was up on deck with the binoculars when Cheri says "I think we just ran aground". Oops. The water's fairly shallow, 2', on either side of the channel and the wind gently blew us into the mud. Some high revs in reverse corrected that and after finding our marker we wound our way back into Mill Creek.

We got about half way down the creek and found a nice cove to anchor in. Tried three times but couldn't get the anchor to bite. This creek is surrounded by tree covered hills and the bottom must be layered with 10' of packed leaves. We moved to another spot and had the same problem using our Danforth anchor so I switched over to our Bruce anchor and that dug right in. I've been using the Danforth exclusively because it works so well in the muddy bottom of almost every place we've been on the Bay. Up until now.

Mill Creek is a nice spot and the cove we were in is fairly secluded. There are houses along the shore but they're mostly set back in the trees and you have a feeling of privacy. We stayed in this spot for three days, kicked back and relaxed. Cheri has been intent on fishing during this trip so we made a point of getting her out in the dinghy on our second day here. While she fished I worked on stripping the finish off the exterior teak. I kept looking over to see how she was doing but she was far enough away that I couldn't tell what was going on. After a few hours I called her on the cell phone and asked for an update. She said she couldn't get the engine started and she was ready to come back. As she rowed closer she held up a string of ten fish, eight spots and two croakers. Wow! We filleted them and had fresh fish for dinner. Awesome!

(Chart for Cockrell Creek) The third day was miserably hot with no breeze. We decided this would be the perfect time to spend the night in a marina, get out to a restaurant and stretch our legs on land for a while. Change of scenery. The closest place is Reedville, across the river and back up Cockrell Creek. When we looked it up in our guidebook we found a reference to Reedville Marina which sounded real nice. We called ahead and reserved a transient slip, explaining we needed 2- 30 amp connections and pump-out services for the holding tank. "No problem".

Cockrell Creek is almost straight across the river from Mill Creek. The first half of the waterway is lined with heavy industry, especially the Menhaden fish processing plant. Once you get past this the creek bends around an immense old brick chimney and opens up to a beautiful old town with nicely kept Victorian homes and estates lining the shores. As we motored past the industrial section we became engulfed in the unbreathable stench from the processing plant. I'm talking puke-up-a-bucket-of-guts stink. I was hoping the stench would disappear when we got closer to the town but it just followed us in. As we rounded the bend we tried to contact the marina by radio but got no response. We tried calling on the phone but no one answered. As we cruised down a side creek we quickly realized that the charts had a misprint and showed the marina in the wrong location. We ran aground here but were able to back out with no problem. We back-tracked and continued down the creek looking for the Reedville Marina, continuously trying to raise them on the radio and the phone. Further up the creek (without a paddle) we again ran aground. Grrrr. As I'm backing down out of the mud the phone rings and it's the dude from the marina. "Ya went right by it, how could ya miss it, it's the place with the red roof". When we pull up to the place with the red roof we realize that the "marina" is actually just a dock for the restaurant. The smallish sign for the "marina" was out of sight behind a gigantic fishing boat that was unloading it's catch at the processing plant next door. We pulled up alongside the pier, put out our bumpers and tied up. The 2-30 amp power connections were supplied by splitting a single 50. OK, we can get by on that. Pump-out is right there behind us as is the fuel dock. Cute little facility. The guy running the "marina" disappeared and we never saw him again.

So, it's 1600, the restaurant doesn't open until 1730 and this place stinks to high heaven. We got the A/C fired up but it didn't really take away the odor so I talked Cheri into going for a walk, figuring that we could walk perpendicular to the wind and get away from the green cloud. About two blocks down the road the air became a little better. We're walking down the main drag and it's lined with all these beautiful Victorian homes. A little further down we find this great little museum with some restored wooden workboats out back. The museum is closed but we have definitely found a real gem here. We've blown enough time that the restaurant will be open by the time we get back so we head in that direction. After dinner at the Crazy Crab, which was pretty good, we go back to the boat and call it a night.

The next morning we're anxious to get going. It still stinks and we need to get the tank pumped out so we can spend the rest of our vacation on the hook. Plus we need to pay our bill. We need plenty of time to sail north and across the Bay to the Eastern Shore where we planned to check out the Honga and Nanticoke Rivers. There's nobody around at the "marina" and no one answers the phone. We wait three hours, 1000, and finally get a call from the marina dude. He's not interested in coming around so we should just stick our payment in the box by the door. What about pumping out, we ask. "Oh, well, you'll hafta wait until someone comes into the restaurant. Should be there around 1100 and they can give you a token". Thanks for all your help. We walk down to the museum to blow time and have a wonderful time there. Walking through town we meet and talk with several of the locals and everyone is just as nice as can be. At 1100 we wander back to the "marina" and there's still nobody there. Grrrrrrrr. Finally at 1300 I give up and make new plans. It's too late to sail across the Bay but we can cruise up the river a little further where there's another marina and we can pump out there, then anchor out in a great little creek called Horn Harbor. That's the plan.

(Chart for Horn Harbor) We motored up the river since there's zero wind and it's already about 300 degrees F. As we near the next marina we contact them by cell phone and find out that the dude who does the pump-outs just had an operation and the service isn't available. Jeeze, I just can't get a break around here. "Uhm, gee",says I. "I hope he's gonna be OK. Ya think he might be in tomorrow?" "Not likely" says she. We decided to anchor in Horn Harbor which was just downstream from the marina. I'd read about this spot and heard it was really sweet. We headed in between these sticks in the water that served as channel markers. Just when you think you're gonna run up on shore you turn to port and run along the shore and slide between two sandbars that form the entrance to this creek. The entrance is just wide enough for one boat to get through, pretty narrow. Just as we thought we were in safe we bumped across the sandbar and skidded into 12' of water. That was fun!

This anchorage is written up as being deep all the way to the shoreline. It's surrounded by steep tree-covered hills and I suspect there's plenty of water in there just from the looks of it. This is probably the perfect "Hurricane Hole". We ran back towards the end of the creek and ran aground, again. I'm getting really good at this. Got out no problem but we decided to turn around and anchor close to the entrance. There are several homes along the western shore so we kept closer to the other side, up near the entrance. This is a beautiful spot and it would have been the perfect anchorage if it wasn't 180 degrees out with no wind. We could still smell the fish up here too. Great. We set in for the night, played dominoes and drank Bloody Marys. Had a hot and steamy night, didn't sleep well at all.

We got up early the next morning, pulled anchor by 0730 and decided to head for home. We were truly miserable and we still needed to pump out our holding tank and had no prospects of getting that accomplished on this river. We decided just to call it quits and go home early. The weather won this one.

So we head back out to the Bay and turn north. There's a little bit of a breeze out of the SE now and then so we try out the new trolling gear. We start out at about 2.5 knots but as we get farther north and the day wears on the wind starts to pick up. We sailed past the Potomac River and by the time we get up near the Navy target area (listed as "Prohibited Area" on the charts) we're trying to hold the boat back to 6 knots so we can keep our line in the water. We never did catch anything but we had a good time trying.

This is Thursday, 6/9, with 3 more days of vacation left and it strikes me that I'm being kind of a defeatist by calling it quits just because we're miserable. I mean, I'm an American, proud and brave. John Wayne wouldn't call it quits just because he was miserable. George Washington stuck it out at Valley Forge and I'm pretty sure he was miserable. Those Marines climbed that hill to raise the flag at Iwo Jima and I'm pretty sure they were miserable. So who am I to darken the shining reputation of my fellow citizens by being a weenie and calling it quits? I just can't do that, it's not in my nature. I grit my teeth, take a deep breath and pick up the cell phone. I call Spring Cove Marina in Solomons Island and reserve a transient slip for two nights. I mean, DUH! Let's do this right or not at all!

(Chart for Solomons Island) The sailing was so nice out on the Bay that I just had to stretch it out for a few more hours. We finally arrived at Spring Cove Marina around 1700. Now this is a real marina! It's got more than one dock and a swimming pool and fresh air and everything! Woohoooo! Staying here was definitely the way to end our trip on a high note. Solomons Island is Disneyland for boaters. You cruise in here and there's like 10,000 boats of every description, 8'dinghys to 80' yachts, all around you. You weave your way into various creeks and every one is just packed with boats. It's amazing! It's like driving into the parking lot for the mall on Christmas Eve. We stayed on Back Creek just past the Calvert Marine Museum (check it out). The museum is very cool with some really excellent exhibits about the history of the area, a restored bugeye and the Drum Point screwpile lighthouse. That alone would make a visit to Solomons Island worthwhile but there's also a bunch of excellent restaurants and nice shops too. This is an interesting place. If you drive your car in in for a visit you might be inclined to wonder what the attraction is. Coming in from the river reveals a whole different character. Solomons Island is a very cool place.

We stayed at Spring Cove marina for two nights and cleared out Saturday morning bound for home. We had good wind, 12 to 15 knots out of the SE and sailed on a broad reach from inside the river up to RN2 outside the Little Choptank River. It was very hazy out and difficult to see either shore. As we sailed along enjoying the quiet we heard canon fire coming from the western shore. A lot of it. We looked over to see the source but could only see haze. The canon fire continued at a rapid rate and while we listened my eyes drifted high up into the sky. Above the haze was a humongous Cumulonimbus cloud, the source of the canon fire. We got on the radio and heard that DC was getting pounded with rain, hail and 70 knot winds. Trees were down everywhere and things were a mess. There was a string of storms coming up from Virginia and we were seeing the northern end of them. We secured the sails and ran under power, preparing ahead for the worst. Joining us out in the middle of the Bay were 26 other boats, mostly power, just sitting and waiting to see what this storm was going to do. We sat there for two hours while it stalled out over land but a second storm came up from the south and both of them pushed out into the Bay, headed directly for our little flotilla. Boats scattered at high speed in all directions, leaving us behind cruising along at 8 knots. As I watched the storms approaching I realized there was a small break between them so I headed directly for it. As the two storms swept towards the NE we passed right between them with lightning and rain to either side and only high winds where we were. Once the storms passed we continued north to Herring Bay and home, back in our slip by 1900.

My Summer Vacation was fun. I got to see lotsa things and go lotsa places. I ate fish and other stuff too. I went swimming a lot and got a sunburn. Best of all, I went sailing. I can't wait to go again next year.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part I

2011-06-21T17:52:00.003-04:00

click here for EarthNC charts to see where we went

The installation of the wind generator took much longer than I had anticipated and pushed back the start of our vacation from Friday, 5/27 (which was really wishful thinking anyway) to Sunday, 5/29. Then we started thinking about all the crazy boaters out on the Bay over Memorial Day Weekend and decided it'd be smarter to leave on Monday when everyone else would be heading home. By the time we'd get to Cuckold Creek on the Patuxent River we'd have the whole place to ourselves. Good plan.

So Monday morning, 0730, we're ready to go. I fire up the engine and go below to do our routine visual check to make sure it's behaving properly. It's not. I notice some coolant in the drip pan and as I look around I notice a fairly rapid drip coming from the hose on the thermostat. When I take a closer look I find the hose is split just past the hose clamp and is leaking down the underside and dripping down to the pan. I'm pretty sure this has been leaking ever since we bought the boat. We've always found fluid in the pan after running the engine but could never find the source of the leak. The only reason I found it this time was because I was looking in from the side at an odd angle and just happened to see the leak at the hose.

Because of the leak rate I felt that we needed to change this baby out before we went anywhere. This was the one hose I didn't change when I replaced the heat exchanger. Figures. I had gotten a replacement for it from Yanmar but the hose they gave me was straight and I needed one with an 80 degree bend. When I tried to put it on it kinked so badly I was concerned about flow restriction so I just put the old one back on. Now I'm paying the price for that decision. So, it's 0730 and the local Yanmar dude doesn't even get in until 0900 on Tuesday, this being a holiday. I know it'll take at least three days to get a hose from the factory and even then it might not be the right one. I decided to wait it out another day and see what he might suggest. My brain works best in subconscious mode and overnight I came up with a better solution. Instead of waiting until 0900 for the Yanmar dude I drove down to the local Auto Zone at 0800 and asked if I could hunt through their pre-formed radiator hoses for one that might work. Found what I needed ($10), took it home and cut out the short bend that I needed to make the repair. It looks like it was made for it. Perfect. Did I mention that the Yanmar hose cost $50?

(Chart of Hudson Creek) By the time we took care of a few other things it was the middle of the afternoon. I figured this was too late to attempt a trip to the Patuxent but we could still make it over to the Little Choptank and then have a short run over to the Patuxent the next day. It's always good to be flexible. So, on the hottest day so far this year, 96 in the shade, and with zero wind we motored across the Bay and anchored behind Casson Point on Hudson Creek. This is a beautiful spot, secluded, well protected with good depth, 10', and good holding for the anchor. We got there around 1930 and after we were settled in I went for a swim. The water was slightly salty and felt like about 85 degrees, a bathtub. About 45 minutes after the sun went down a nice breeze kicked up that kept us comfortable for the rest of the night. After breakfast and a morning swim we took off and headed out towards the Bay for our next destination.

(Chart of Cuckold Creek) We motored out the Little Choptank to G3 behind James Island before setting sail, heading up to G1 and then shooting out westward across the Bay. The wind was out of the south at about 15 knots and we tacked our way down to the Patuxent. We then ran under power past Solomons Island and after passing under the Rte 4 bridge turned into Cuckold Creek on the south side of the river. As soon as we got to R4 we turned to port and entered a beautiful secluded little cove on the north side of Mill Creek. There's no houses on this side of the creek and with no other boats we had the place to ourselves. We anchored in 12' of water with good holding and settled in for the night. I had an evening swim to cool off and took a brush to the waterline of the boat and scrubbed off the scumline that had built up over the winter. We had a cool breeze that kept us comfortable throughout the night. In the morning we headed out with a stiff 20 knot breeze out of the north. After we passed under the Rte 4 bridge we ran under sail, main and staysail, for easy one man handling while Cheri was on a conference call. By the time she got off the phone we were out in the Bay sailing wing and wing on a north breeze and had gotten as far south as the Navy target area.

We continued on past Point No Point but as we approached Point Lookout at the mouth of the Potomac River the wind veered around to the west and cranked up to 30 knots. The river is quite wide here, over seven miles across, and as we turned into it we had to tack back and forth against the wind and what we estimated to be 6' waves, not to mention the natural outward flow. "Mr. Toad's wild ride" pretty much sums it up. In fact, after tacking for over two hours and making no progress at all we finally gave in, fired up the engine and secured the sails. Even then, under power at 2500 rpm's we only made 3 knots at best. We eventually made our way over to the northern shore where the waves weren't so bad and made good progress from there up to St. Mary's River. Check out our videos (click here) and (then click here).

(Chart of St. Marys River) St. Mary's River is probably the prettiest river on the Chesapeake Bay. It winds back through wooded hillsides with occasional views of historic mansions. The oldest estate in Maryland, built in 1644, is located here. Once back into the protected shores of the river the wild winds were reduced to pleasant breezes. We worked our way into St. Inigoes Creek and found a good anchorage back in Church Cove with 13' of water and good holding. Despite being surrounded on all sides by large homes, the cove is large enough that we anchored out in the middle and felt totally secluded. There's probably room in this cove for 20 boats but we were fortunate to share it with only one other for the night we were there. I continued with my morning and evening swims here.

The next morning we decided to explore the rest of the river to see if we could find a more secluded anchorage. We powered our way up the river past historic St. Marys City, the first capital of Maryland, and wound our way upriver to Tippity Wichity Island. On the charts this looked like a really nice spot to anchor for the night plus that island just has a really cool name. Once we got up to the area though, we found the banks to be shorn of trees and lined with houses and farmland. The river really widens out at this spot and I felt that as an anchorage it didn't provide the kind of protection I was looking for. We headed back downriver and Cheri went below to bake cookies and cook up some bacon for use in later meals. As we approached Horseshoe Bend I decided we needed to spend some time ashore in the old city for a chance to stretch our legs. We were the only boat within sight and took advantage of that by pulling up to the College dock where we were assisted by a smiling student. We walked into the reconstructed town, wandered through the graveyard reading old headstones and gave Bella a chance to run loose in the large grassy area by the boathouse. We hiked down to Church Point and wandered around the village too. There's a big herb garden behind one of the houses and the nice lady in the gift shop allowed us to fill a bag with fresh cuttings. The big attraction for me was the Dove, a reproduction of one of the ships that brought the first colonists to this area. This thing is only 10' longer than La Vida Dulce. Back at the dock we rinsed the boat off with fresh water, emptied our trash and continued on our way.

(Chart of Price Cove) St. Marys River offers a number of excellent spots to anchor but we chose to head back out to the mouth of the river to get a quicker start in the morning. We were looking for an anchorage that would be fairly secluded and safe. On the north shore of the river right at the entrance is Saint Georges Creek and just inside that to starboard is Price Cove. The wind was still blowing 25 knots out in the open river and we were really hoping for a nice peaceful spot for the night. Price Cove is tucked back out of the way surrounded by flat grassy areas and occasional stands of tall trees. There isn't much protection from the wind but the water is calm being almost totally enclosed by land and, best of all, there are no houses at all. We anchored way back there by the duck blind and had a good breeze to keep us comfortable and the boat hardly moved at all. Swimming was good here too. This is a really nice anchorage.

The next morning (Saturday, 6/4) we headed out around 0930, early for us. The wind had died down to almost nothing so we ran under power out to the mouth of the Potomac. Here we encountered what's called the Potomac Swim (click here), where a large group of crazy people swim 7.5 miles across the widest part of the river. When we arrived there were swimmers and kayaks and small boats stretched all the way across the Potomac. I spotted a pretty good gap and headed for it. Cheri stood up in the bow and kept watch for potential targets. I got a call on the radio from the Coast Guard and responded to them but another boat stepped on my response so I don't think they got it. All of a sudden this high speed USCG river boat comes flying up beside us. I throttled back and they pulled up right next to us and I'm thinking "whew, got all that safety stuff just in time". They asked if I knew there were swimmers in the water and I pointed out that we had posted a safety watch for that very reason. They were duly impressed and told us to carry on and enjoy our voyage. Nice fellas.

Once past the line of swimmers we headed out to Smith Point Light. It was here that we passed fairly close to the presidential yacht U.S.S. Sequoia (click here). This is a 104' motor yacht built in 1925 and is a historic national landmark. She was used exclusively as a presidential yacht until 1977 when Jimmy Carter had her decommissioned, just one of the many unforgettable things he accomplished during his presidency. Hey, let's give away the Panama Canal! But I digress. This beautiful yacht is available for charter in DC for about a gazillion $/hour and I'm wondering what she was doing way out at Smith Point Light. Didn't look like there were any guests aboard but I did see a tall, skinny, black dude at the wheel. I wonder.....

Because of the length of our trip I'm going to divide this up into several parts. It's taken me forever to get this far on it and there's still another week to go. Look for part II coming soon. I swear.

Lucky Strikes

2011-05-16T17:53:00.000-04:00

This past weekend, 5-13, we went sailing. I mean all weekend. On Friday (the 13th!!!) we had our good friends, Anthony and Luzma, join us for a day-sail. They showed up around 1130 with dishes of Peruvian food that Luzma had put together so we sat down for an early dinner. We hadn't seen these guys since last October so there was a lot of catching up to do. Around 1400 we cast off and headed out across the Bay, getting as far as R84A at the mouth of Eastern Bay. The wind was out of the SE at 15 to 20 kts, beautiful day. Anthony manned the helm for most of the way and we returned home by 1900. Good company, easy chit-chat, nice day for a sail.

The next day, Saturday, started out with heavy overcast skies and temps in the 60's. Cheri's nephew, Brian, and his wife, Katie, and their two year old daughter Kaitlyn joined us for a two day sail up to Osprey Point Marina in Rock Hall and back again. There's a really nice B+B there as well as a 5 star restaurant. Brian's parents had reserved a room for them at the B+B to celebrate their three year anniversary and we had volunteered to take care of Kaitlyn on the boat. Yikes!

We got the boat loaded up and headed out around 1100 in the middle of a torrential downpour with lightning flashing overhead. We had reservations for dinner at 1900 so we didn't really have time to wait it out. The rain continued until we cleared G83A just outside of Herring Bay. The sail up to Rock Hall took all of 7 hours with light winds out of the SE for most of the trip. We pulled into Osprey Point Marina at 1810 with little time to spare in getting ready for dinner. Cheri pushed our reservations back to 1945 so we'd all have a chance to get settled in.

Dinner was fantastic, a true gourmet delight. We checked out the kids' room before turning in for the night. They had two rooms overlooking the marina, a closet and a flushing toilet. Pretty swank! Back at the boat the three of us sat up and watched Finding Nemo. For the rest of the weekend Kaitlyn was searching the Bay for Nemo. The next morning, after a quick breakfast we headed out for the return trip to HHN. Winds were 15 kts out of the SSE which gave us a challenge all the way home, requiring tacking all the way down the Bay. The voyage started with our departure from Osprey Point. Motoring out of Swan Creek I misread the channel markers and turned at the wrong place and ran aground. Hitting the side of the dredged channel was like running into a brick wall, almost knocked Cheri overboard. I backed down hard, dragged the keel out of the mud and continued down the creek like nothing had ever happened. We ran down to GC#3 (green can #3) under power because the wind was right on our nose. Once we turned out into the Bay we unfurled the sails and cruised out in light but steady winds at 5 to 6 knots. Unable to pass straight under the Bay Bridge because the wind was blowing from directly behind it we began a series of tacking maneuvers that would last throughout most of the day. We tacked four times approaching the Bay Bridge and probably six more times just trying to get down to Thomas Point Light. Grrr. Every time I tried to overcompensate to get us additional room to maneuver the wind would shift just enough to throw everything off and we'd end up having to tack again to clear an obstacle. There were about six tankers parked out in the mooring field outside of Annapolis and on our final tack around Thomas Point we were interrupted by four loud blasts from behind us. One of the tankers was getting underway and we were directly in front of him. We made a quick turn to port and circled around behind him before continuing on our way.

At this point the wind was still coming directly out of where we wanted to go and a quick glance at my watch revealed that we had wasted the better part of the day tacking all over the place. It was 1700 and we were still about three hours from home as the crow flies. We fired up the engine and headed for Herring Bay at 7 kts. The weather was perfect, mid 70's, clear skies, and we had removed part of the cockpit enclosure to get some fresh air blowing through. As the day wore on everyone stretched out and took a nap. Well, everyone but the guy at the helm.

After we passed West River the wind shifted around to the SE and we were able to break out the sails and shut off the engine. The wind picked up to about 25 kts and we were having a great sail home, heeled over and crashing into the waves. That's what I'm talkin' about! This was when I noticed a really humongous cumulonimbus cloud building up to the south of us and some pretty dark grey, almost blue/black, areas directly below it. I woke everyone up and suggested we get the enclosure back in place because it looked like we might get some rain. We were able to sail for about an hour more before finally giving in to the need to get home quickly and once again fired up the engine and put the sails away. At this point it was about 1915. We were still over an hour from our slip, it was getting pretty late, and the kids had a 90 minute drive home once we got in.

We'd gotten about halfway across Herring Bay when some fairly large rain drops began to pelt the boat. We were headed straight for Herrington Harbour South which we always do when coming in because they have a really huge white tent set up in the marina that you can see from a hundred miles away. Now though, as I watched that tent it disappeared behind a wall of rain. Not two minutes later we were blasted by this tremendous force of wind that came screaming through the bare rigging and spun the boat 90 degrees in a matter of seconds. There were bolts of lightning hitting all around us (I saw four strike the water) and I couldn't help but think about that 59' tall aluminum mast sticking up in front of us. I suggested to Cheri that she might get the fire extinguishers out, make 'em handy just in case. By now the rain was coming down so hard we couldn't see anything beyond the boat and the wind was still howling. The last thing I saw before the rain hit was the #1 marker out at the entrance to the Bay so I knew vaguely where we were. I didn't want to drift in too close to shore and we had shallow water on three sides of us so I eyeballed the compass and steered around for 090 to get us headed towards that #1 marker and deeper water. I kept the engine at 2000 rpm's which was enough to make some headway against the wind and felt like we'd be OK as long as we didn't get hit by lightning. Said my prayers for help with that.

After a few minutes (seemed like an eternity) the rain slackened and the wind died down. The sun peaked out from under the clouds just as it began to settle down behind the trees on the western shore. To the south of us was another wall of rain approaching so I decided to take the break in weather and head for home. I set our course for R2 where we make our turn for Herrington Harbour North. As the rain started up again I asked Brian and Cheri to search ahead for the channel marker. Brian was the first to see it and pointed the way home. We motored home on a compass course and passed through the harbor entrance just as the marker lights came on. It was pretty near dark by the time we got into the slip.

The whole weekend was really great. We visited with some friends we hadn't seen in a while. We really enjoyed our time with Brian and Katie. We got to play with Kaitlyn. I think what'll really mark this trip though is that incredible storm at the end of the day. Wow!

Done With Pride

2011-05-09T12:21:00.000-04:00

Last weekend, 4-30-11, we picked up the hatch screens from Glebe Creek. These are teak framed screens and they're just beautiful. Really nice work. The guy who makes them works out of his home in Edgewater, Maryland. Interesting guy. Cheri wanted to take his picture for the blog and he was really, really against it. She asked if she could take a shot of just his hands with the screens and he wouldn't go for that either. Dude must be on the FBI's Most Wanted List or something. Aside from being quirky, he does really nice work. He even lent me a special drill bit for doing the hinge screws. Putting them up only took about two hours for all eight screens. Easy peazy lemon squeezy. I told Cheri that out of all our projects so far this one had the highest satisfaction quotient. For the cost of the screens we got easy installation and added value to the boat. The extra teak in the overhead adds warmth and a rich wood look. I like 'em! Plus, they keep the flies out. What more could you ask for?

We ordered the doors for the companionway but they won't be in for about four weeks. They're being made in Texas by Zarcor. I don't expect the installation to be too tough on these either and they'll add security and value. We're excited about this one.

We also ordered a wind generator and that's on it's way, should be here in about a week. I spent some time researching this one since there's a handfull of similar products out there. Several stood out among the rest. Superwind (click here) was my first choice. They're made in Germany and the build quality is at the top of the heap. They are the Mercedes Benz of wind generators. Unfortunately, the price is also similar to a Mercedes Benz so I ended up going with my second choice, the AIR-X (click here). We got a package deal on the generator, a mast and a controller. Pretty much everything we need to install it. I also ordered an extra set of carbon fiber blades that are tuned to reduce noise by 50%. Wind generators are notorious for being noisy so I thought this might be a good investment. It's also a good idea to have the extra blades in case a flying fish decides to make sushi. I hear that's not unusual. So, we're taking a major step towards being self sufficient, energy-wise. Now all I need is some time to get this thing installed.

Right now I'm working on putting the engine back together. This was one of those "total snowball" kinda jobs. It started out as just replacing some hoses, then advanced to removing the heat exchanger to get it cleaned. When I realized the heat exchanger was totally corroded into one solid, useless mass I decided to replace the entire housing/core assembly. I bought a shop manual and ordered a new heat exchanger (cha ching). While I was waiting for the new parts to come in I went ahead and started taking apart the old housing. How bad could it be, only has twelve bolts? My new shop manual turned out to be useless for this because it's 99% about rebuilding the engine and only has one paragraph about the cooling system with no info on how to take that apart. I quickly realized that to get the heat exchanger out the alternator and it's bracket had to be removed at the front of the engine and the turbo charger and exhaust taken off at the back. I guess the next step was to rebuild the entire engine but I decided to keep things simple this weekend.

My parts came in and man-oh-man are they ever nice. The end caps are all brass as well as a few of the fittings. It came completely assembled so all I had to do was paint it and put it in. Simple. I masked off the brass pieces and set up a paint booth in, uhm, the back of my car. I needed some place to block the wind. Shhh. Don't tell Cheri. I set up a paint box, draped a tarp over the rear hatch-back door and primed the housing with zinc chromate, this really ugly yellowish green primer used for aluminum. It took three coats to get good coverage. I then hit it with three coats of "official" Yanmar grey which is kind of a metallic silvery grey and gives it a nice finish. With the brass pieces showing it looks pretty slick....for a heat exchanger.

I spent the entire weekend working on this. I replaced almost all the hoses on the engine and in doing this found four broken hose clamps. Yikes! I've never encountered this before and I've been playing with engines for 30 years. Somebody musta really cranked on those poor little hose clamps. I went through and replaced all the old ones with some heavy duty ($) ones at West Marine. I also went over the engine and really cleaned it up, got rid of any rust, corrosion and dirt. Repainted about half the engine with the rest of my "official" Yanmar grey. Once I got the heat exchanger bolted in I realized it was missing one hose barb. I guess I was supposed to grab the one from the old casting but it was totally corroded in place. I ended up making one from a brass pipe nipple with the threads cut off from one end. Better than new!

So, I got everything bolted up and was getting the alternator bolted back in place when I found two broken wires, both black "grounds". I had to get out the schematic to find out what they were for and discovered that one of them was for the tachometer. This is where the music reaches a crescendo, clouds part and the sun shines through. Over the last few months I had been having trouble with our tach not reading correctly, kinda erratic and sometimes not at all. It all makes sense now. This broken wire has got to be the culprit. I reattached the wires and finished bolting down the alternator.

I'm feeling fairly excited at this point because I've been working on this thing non-stop since breakfast and it's now 2030. It's a good chance that I've found the problem with the tach in addition to all the work on the engine. I give it the once-over and find a bag with some bolts and washers. Spare parts? I don't think so. Looking around I find that I had forgotten to finish bolting down the turbo all the way, only had two bolts holding it on. This is what happens when you stretch out a job over three days. Got that taken care of so now I'm pretty sure I've got it all back together. I mixed up a gallon of coolant, 50/50 mix of anti-freeze with demineralized water, and put that in the fresh water side of the heat exchanger. I'm now ready to fire this baby up.

I asked my neighbor, Gayle, to give me a hand so I could watch for water leaks and other problems while he starts the engine from up in the cockpit. He turns the key and hits the start button and nothing happens. Huh? Checked to make sure it's in neutral and tried again. Nothing. We got a multi-meter out and started checking voltages. When he hit the start button we had 13.2 volts on one side of the starter relay but not the other. Gayle is pointing out the circuit to me on the schematic and I see the coil for the relay. Pow! It was like I got hit with a brick! I instantly realized the problem was caused by that little relay coil not being grounded because I had just painted the bracket that holds it to the side of the engine. No metal-to-metal contact for the ground. I removed the bracket, scraped off some paint where the bolt goes through and bolted it back up. Gayle goes up and turns the key, hits the start button and the engine starts right up. Woohooo! It took about 15 seconds for the raw water to pump through the engine and dump out the exhaust (it's supposed to do that) because I had drained the engine dry to replace the hoses and install a new impeller. I looked everything over while the engine idled and there were zero leaks, no problems at all. I was amazed! I mean, I removed a lot of stuff, heat exchanger, hoses, turbo, alternator, exhaust. It all looked good. What a relief. And just in time too. This was Sunday night, I was exhausted and had to go to work the next day. We have plans to go sailing next weekend so this was really my last shot at getting this pig fixed.

While I was running back and forth between the boat and the car on Saturday I noticed something pretty cool just outside the breakwater at the entrance to our harbor. There sat a beautiful wooden topsail schooner. She's named "The Pride of Baltimore" and is a replica of an 1812 privateer. She had been running down the Bay under full sail and ran aground right outside of our harbor. She was moving along at a pretty good clip and came to an abrupt halt, pretty much like she slammed on the brakes. I'll bet that knocked their wigs loose! The crew quickly dropped her sails, all but the mainsail and sat there for two hours waiting for the tide to turn. Finally she floated free and ran off under power with her tail between her legs. How embarrassing. It's hard to figure what really happened but it's my guess that somebody wasn't watching the charts. Either they thought they were somewhere else, maybe entering West River, or they just plain weren't paying attention. I guess it doesn't matter who you are. If you sail on the Chesapeake Bay, sooner or later you're gonna run aground.

Cruisin' Plans

2011-04-26T13:24:00.001-04:00

I think I mentioned I was having a little trouble with the heat exchanger on the engine. I'd been cleaning up the cooling system, replacing the hoses and the impeller, and decided to remove the exchanger core so it could be soaked in a caustic solution to remove any deposits that might have built up. The core is a bundle of copper tubes suspended inside a water-filled cast iron housing and functions just like the radiator in your car except that it uses water for cooling instead of air. The fresh water engine coolant flows through the tube bundle and transfers heat to the brackish Bay water that is flowing through the housing. The core sticks out both ends of the housing and is held in place with "O" rings and end-plates.

The end-plate at the back of the heat exchanger is the one I'm having trouble with. When we first looked at the boat before we bought it I noticed a lot of corrosion where this plate bolts up. I mentioned it to the broker and the next time we looked at the boat it had been cleaned up. I was told they had "fixed" it. What they did was clean away the obvious corrosion and putty up the end-plate with about 28 ounces of gasket sealer. When I took it apart a year later I found the back of the housing had been eaten away by the corrosion, destroying the gasket surface. I was unable to find the "O" ring back there and suspect this might be the original problem, that someone had forgotten to put in the "O" ring when they reassembled it, causing a water leak. It's in a spot that's hard to see so it probably went unnoticed for quite a while, thus the extensive corrosion and damage.

I've been soaking this area with penetrating oil for five days now and still can't get the core out of the housing. It's like it's welded in there. Even if I could get it out I'd still hafta deal with the ruined gasket surface. I talked to Brian at Conlyn Marine, the local Yanmar engine pro, and asked him about replacing the housing, which in my mind is the only real way to deal with this. He didn't want to tell me what it would cost to replace the housing because I wasn't sitting down with a drink in my hand. Uhm, that can't be good. So I went home and decided to just goop up the end-plate as best I could and let it go for a few more years until it was time to rebuild the engine, something we'll need to do before we head out on our cruise.

The next day I called Brian and asked him again what it would cost, just being curious. When he told me it came out to be less than the cost of the wind generator we were going to get. I decided on the spot that getting the engine repaired correctly was a higher priority than the wind generator. I just can't stand the idea of doing Mickey Mouse repairs. The parts will be delivered tomorrow and hopefully we'll be back in business by the end of the weekend. This works out really well. We'll still have time to get the wind generator installed before we go on our trip in June. That'll give us the whole month of May to make sure the engine is behaving nicely.

On May 13th (FRIDAY the 13th!!!) Cheri's nephew and his wife, Brian and Katie, and their 3 year old daughter, Kaitlyn, will be joining us for a sail up to Rock Hall. We'll be staying at the Osprey Point marina and there's a really nice B+B and restaurant there. Brian's Mom and Dad have made reservations at the B+B for Brian and Katie and Cheri and I will take care of Kaitlyn for the night. It's a full day sail from Herring Bay to Rock Hall, 6 or 7 hours. We have reservations for dinner at 1930 so we'll hafta get an early start. Brian is an avid fisherman and is hoping to get some time out on the Bay. Maybe trolling at 8 knots.

We're putting plans together for our vacation in June. We're taking two weeks off, May 27th to June 12th. We're planning to sail down to the Patuxent River (map) and stay in Cuckold Creek ( just past Solomans Island) the first night. From there we'll sail up the Potomac River to St. Marys City for a night and maybe up to Breton Bay (map). Our next destination is Mill Creek off The Great Wicomico River (map). This is supposed to be a really beautiful spot and we may spend several days here. Further up the river is Horn Harbor and we've heard that it's also a good spot, well protected, quiet. From there we'll head south. There are several good creeks but I think we'll go to Antipoisen Creek (map). This is where Captain John Smith almost died from a sting ray barb wound. History is interesting but doesn't need to repeat itself so we'll avoid the sting rays here. We haven't decided if we'll explore the Rappahannock River to the south or head across the Bay and check out Tangier Island (map). Once on the eastern side of the Bay we'll look into the Nanticoke and Honga Rivers (map). I suspect we'll run out of time somewhere around here, especially if we find some good spots to explore with the dinghy. We want to spend as much time at anchor as we can but will look for a marina every 5 or 6 days as a break. I think the main attractions will be Mill Creek and the Nanticoke River. These are both reported to be mostly undeveloped and much the same as they were 400 years ago when first seen by Europeans.

A few years ago my sister and brother-in-law, Ellen and Ed, gave us several books about Captain John Smith and the two voyages of discovery he made around the Chesapeake Bay (check this out). Almost all of the places we're planning to go to on this vacation were on Smith's 1st voyage. I've been wanting to do this ever since we got those books. I want to sit at anchor in Mill Creek and read about what they did there and try to imagine what it was like. Of course most of the areas they went to are way different now with farmland and developments at the river's edge but there are still places that look very much the same. I think this is gonna be cool.

Memory Loss

2011-04-21T10:27:00.000-04:00

Today is April 20th, 4-20. This is significant because our boat is a 420. This day is also recognized by dopers around the planet as a special time to celebrate their smoke-hazed lives seen through bloodshot eyes. Everybody fires up a fatty on 4-20 at 4:20. This goes back a while, at least to the 1990's, to high school doper days and 4:20pm was supposed to be "the time" to meet up after school to get stoned. I know this because I had teenagers in the 1990's. Nuff said. Now, the radio station I listen to, WRNR out of Annapolis, is celebrating today by having the Doobie Brothers do a concert and giving away prizes to callers when they hear songs played that have anything to do with "doobies". I just find this interesting because back in my high school days this kind of thing was all kept hush-hush and underground in a secret society kinda way. That in itself made it special. I think that's all gone now, become pretty much an everyday, out-in-the-open kinda thing. Society has certainly gone downhill.

But the hubbub about 420 got me thinking about our boat, the Island Packet 420, and now I'm wondering if there was some subconscious thing going on when we bought the boat, that attraction to "420". I'm thinking the Island Packet people intentionally named it 420 for this very reason. They knew the people buying it came from a generation pretty much founded (foundered?) on marijuana. The boat itself is actually 44' 7" in length, not 42' as the name implies. Of course, who in their stoned-out mind would pick up on that? I think there's something subliminal going on here and we got sucked right into it. I mean, why did we buy this boat? I had no previous knowledge of it. We simply had a list of ideas, things we were looking for in a boat. I suspect the subliminal image of a Main Salon filled with pillows and thick shag carpet with a 4 hose hookah and a box of Stoned Wheat Thins on the table would make this boat stand out above the rest for some people. All those other boats are really intended for the straight-laced Yuppies and lawyer types. Pretty sneaky of those Island Packet folks.

Of course, this is all just subconscious gobbledygook. We don't even have a hookah. We sold pretty much everything we owned when we moved onto the boat. And our carpet is more of a sculpted Berber. We do have a buncha pillows though.

We actually chose this boat because it fit our list of needs better than anything else out there. The Island Packet is designed and built with the notion that it will be sailed across oceans, perform well in all kinds of conditions with a limited crew and, above all else, keep that crew safe and secure. It's recognized as being one of the best designs out there for serious extended cruising.

We're moving forward with our plans to get the boat ready for our own extended cruising in 2014. We got a nice tax return this year and will be putting that back into the boat. There's three items we want to get this month that will make anchoring out more enjoyable.

1.) Hatch screens - Since we don't have a diesel generator yet we won't be able to run the air conditioner when we're away from the dock. Summers on the Chesapeake Bay can get pretty toasty (and buggy) so we're gonna need to have airflow through the boat while we're at anchor. We already have a screen enclosure for the cockpit and screens for all the ports but that's only part of it. This boat has seven hatches that can be opened up and really get the air flowing through. There's a company, Glebe Creek (click here) that makes nice teak framed screens that hang on hinges from the inside of the hatch. We just placed the order for these and should have them by next week. That'll be nice!

2.) Companionway doors - Cheri spends more time aboard than I do because she works from home two days each week. For a better sense of security she wants to have locking doors on the companionway. Zarcor (click here) makes really nice doors out of Starboard which is low maintenance compared to teak. They also have removable panels so you can put in screens or clear Lexan if you want.

3.) Wind generator - Our two 85 watt solar panels provide some charge for the batteries but not much, and only when the sun is up (duh). We plan to take two weeks in June and cruise around the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay, spending the majority of our time at anchor. To be able to pull this off we're gonna need a better way to charge the batteries so we can have our coffee in the morning and play on the computer all day and watch movies at night. Oh yeah, and have hot water for showers and an icy cold freezer so our ice cream doesn't melt. I've been eye-balling several different makes of generators and I'm kinda leaning towards the Sunforce 600, which is a 600 watt model (makes sense, huh?). It's available through West Marine and they stand behind their stuff pretty well. Plus their store is like 200 yards from our boat.

So, I'm getting this stuff ordered and installed. We also need to have the boat pulled to inspect the bottom, see how the paint is holding up and replace the anodes. I'm thinking about raising the waterline since we've added about 5000 pounds of stuff to the boat in the last 6 months and she's sitting a little lower in the water. While the boat is out of the water I plan to polish and wax the hull which should be a real fun job since all I have is a 3' stepladder.

Last weekend we worked on cleaning up the topsides. Cheri polished out the windows in the dodger and the lenses in the hatches. I polished and waxed the cabin, which turned into an all day job and there's still a lot to do there.

We finally got the water turned back on at the dock. Woohoooo! All winter long we've had a 250' length of hose stretched out along the dock to get water to the boat. Whenever we had to fill the tank it required walking back and forth to the end of the dock to turn it on and off. Pain in the you know what. When the tank was filled we had to make sure the hose was emptied out, otherwise it would freeze and then we'd have no water. This was all about a 45 minute process, all done in sub-freezing weather. Glad to see that over with for a while.

I started replacing the hoses on the engine. This was part of a bigger project, removing the heat exchanger. "They" say all you have to do is remove the hoses, pull off the front and back covers and pop it out. Uh huh. The back cover was really, really corroded. I scraped the corrosion away and found that the engine block was eaten away and the gasket surface is gone. Not just pitted but completely gone. Yikes! How am I gonna get this thing to seal up again? The rear cover had so much silicone sealer on it they must have used an entire tube. Quality work there. I think I'll try this stuff called J-B Weld and try to build the surface back up so the gasket has something to seal to. Another Mickey Mouse job. Not mine, theirs. I honestly don't know why people do things half-assed like this. It only creates problems down the road for people like me. In the end I was unable to get the heat exchanger out and had to ask the local Yanmar dude to come out and give it a try. More on that later.

So this is a pretty busy time of year for us, as it is for most boat owners. We have lotsa stuff to do on the boat just to get her ready for the sailing season plus we have a vacation coming up and we have stuff to get ready for that too. Guess I had better get on it.

On a more personal note, Cheri's Dad passed away on March 30, 2011. He was quite an individual. Cheri's younger brother, Scott, wrote a beautiful obituary which tells more about the man than I could ever hope to. I've included it here in remembrance of a special human being.

JACK B. HEBNER

25 September 1923 - 30 March 2011

At high noon, 30 March - Jack Hebner, a USN Retired Master Chief Petty Officer, went to join Heaven's Chief Petty Officer Mess. We lost an honored patriot, an upstanding citizen, and a cherished husband and father. Our loss is Heaven's gain.

Jack joined the Navy during WW II. Over the next 30 years - from the shores of Africa and Bermuda, the decks of Aircraft Carriers like USS FORRESTAL, USS SHANGRI LA, USS SARATOGA and USS ENTERPRISE, and countless bases in the United States - he served with distinction. He served with Honor, Courage and Commitment. As an Air Crewman and Flight Engineer - he gallantly contributed to combat in both the Pacific and Atlantic theaters during WWII. He also participated in the famous Berlin airlift. As a squadron maintenance Chief - he made numerous extended deployments to Vietnam from 1963-1965. Jack was a Sailor's Sailor. After retiring from active service in 1975, Jack and his family spent the next 10 years living and cruising the Caribbean on a 45ft sailboat named POR FIN. After that, he spent 20 years traveling the country in his Air Streamer trailer - catching up with a lifetime of Navy and family friends.

Jack loved life and lived it to the fullest. He said what he meant and did what he said - accomplishing every life goal he set for himself and his family. A man of many interests and talents - he was a scratch golfer, rebuilt car engines, operated HAM radios, painted, played the harmonica, and perfected such delicacies as Beer-Can Chicken, and Trash-Can Turkey. Keen wit, an infectious personality, and a beaming smile made Jack a truly adored and likable soul. He was the brightest of stars all the days of his life.

More than anything, Jack loved his family. He loved with all his being. He is survived by his wife of 65 years, Audrey Kline Hebner, his two daughters Cheri Ward and Holly Olsen, his two sons Jack Hebner, Jr and Scott Hebner, his sister Jane Hebner Kiger, six grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. We'll miss you Jack - God Speed and Open Water to you always.

Have a Day!

2011-03-28T23:45:00.000-04:00

In my last entry, Warehouse Creek, I mentioned some prehistoric fish that surrounded our boat Friday night as the sun went down. We looked them up and are pretty sure they were striped bass and they were spawning. We were surrounded by these incredible fish that some folks will spend a lot of time and money trying to catch. We were feeding them wads of bread. We probably coulda just dipped our net in and snagged a couple without even trying. It was quite a sight and even better now that we know what they were. Some of them were that big too, I'm not kidding. That's my fish story and I'm stickin' to it.

Back in February I came across an ad that was placed by a guy named Vince who has the same model boat as La Vida Dulce, an Island Packet 420. He had ordered some really nice leather cushions to replace the ones he had in the Main Salon. He was trying to find an owner for the old ones before he got stuck with two sets of cushions. I wrote to him and asked for pictures and more info. He didn't have any pictures and the boat was under a layer of snow up in New York state. He did say they were dark blue and in "like new" condition. I told him we weren't in a big hurry and could wait until he found time to get down to the boat. March rolled around and he sent some pictures. Wow! They looked really great. Our cushions are in good shape but they still look worn from service in the charter fleet despite our best efforts to restore them. Truth is, they look downright shabby next to these. So we wrote back and made him an offer he couldn't refuse. I've been waiting 39 years to say that.

Last Friday we loaded up the car and headed out on a five hour roadtrip to Haverstraw Marina on the Hudson River, about 30 minutes up from New York City. We camped out overnight in a hotel and met Vince bright and early the next morning at the marina. It was something like 20 degrees out with patches of snow on the ground. His boat is on the hard until the icebreaker gets that far upstream, probably some time in July. He welcomed us aboard and we got our first sight of the cushions. They were just as described and in near perfect condition. We formed a chain and loaded them all up in our Ford Escape, a pint sized mini-SUV. He even gave us the mattress from the forward cabin since he had ordered an innerspring mattress to replace it. We didn't need it but figured we could keep the extra fabric and dump the foam when we got home. This turned out to be the deal of the century. I think we cut a fair deal on the price and we all felt pretty pleased. Vince turned out to be a really nice guy. We enjoyed meeting him, talking about our boats, and discussed trying to get together some time in the future. I'm thinking this would be a really nice sail, up through the C+D canal, up the coast to the Hudson River and then up the river to his marina. Probably be something like a week or 10 days round trip if we really took our time. Cool!

So, we're driving home with the inside of the car stacked to the roof with cushions. I missed my turn going into New Jersey and ended up going across the George Washington Bridge into New York. Cost me $9.00 to make a u-turn! Driving back through NJ we stopped to pay the toll and the chick in the booth had a mighty nasty attitude, kinda like she had no time for whitey. After we paid I said "have a good one" and she says "have a day". Not "have a nice day", couldn't make that much effort. Great representative for the State of New Jersey. So now Cheri and my favoritest saying is"have a day".

We got the cushions home and they look great! The difference is really incredible. I told Cheri we just added $10,000 in value to the boat. The darker color really adds some pizzaz, makes the interior look richer, colors deeper. Really brings out the color in the teak. Sweet.

So, we thought it was nuts up in New York with snow on the ground when only a week ago we were sailing in 70 degree weather. Sunday we woke up to an inch of snow on the dock. Gadzukes! Never take anything for granted.

Warehouse Creek off Eastern Bay

2011-03-23T14:21:00.002-04:00

Chart Showing Warehouse Creek

Pictures From Our Warehouse Creek Trip

Thursday, 3-17-11, was forecast to be excellent weather, continuing on through the weekend. We used my recent birthday as an excuse to take a four day weekend and spend some time on the hook. We spent most of the morning taking care of our regular weekend chores and finally headed out past the breakwater around 1100. We're concentrating on having Cheri experience all parts of sailing first hand so for the next few months she's the skipper and I'm first mate. She took the helm while I handled the lines leaving the slip. This chick is a natural. Won't take long before she's teaching me.

We had three days to blow and wanted to be able to sit at anchor for most of that. Our primary choices for anchorages were the Choptank River and Eastern Bay. When we got out into the middle of the Chesapeake the winds were light, 10 to 12 knots, and blowing out of the SE. We decided to make the most of that and headed up to Eastern Bay.

From Herring Bay it's almost a straight shot on course 075 into Eastern Bay, cutting across the north end of Poplar Island. With the light winds we were only making about 5 or 6 knots but it was a beautiful day and we were in no hurry. Once in Eastern Bay we sighted R2A and drove for a spot halfway between it and Long Pt., which is on the south-eastern tip of Kent Island. There's some shallow water that extends off this point and taking this course kept us in deep water, mostly 30'. Once past Long Pt. we lined up R2A and the mouth of Cox Creek and headed north, roughly on course 010.

The entrance to Cox Creek is clearly marked by red 2CC and we held that close on our starboard side. Once inside the creek the channel is centered between shores and about 13' deep. All along both sides of the creek are large homes with private docks extending way out there to get to deep water. It's good to keep this in mind because the channel is fairly narrow and the water on either side gets shallow quickly. The charts show a marker, red nun 4, farther up but it musta been washed out in a storm because we didn't see it. Just past this spot is the entrance to Warehouse Creek, off to the left.

We're a bare bones operation. We don't have a chart plotter or GPS or radar or any of the high-dollar high-tech instrumentation. At least not yet. For now we have paper charts that are reasonably up to date and a compass that's accurate within about 5 degrees, some really nice binoculars and a depth gauge. On the south side of Warehouse Creek are a few homes and the channel is about 30' out from the end of their docks. As we headed in our depth gauge quickly went from 13' to 6'. We backed down hard and swung to starboard and watched the depth return to 13'. Remember the game "Operation"? It's kinda like that. We took it slow, 3.5 knots all the way in, dodging port and starboard to stay in the deep water.

There's only two houses on Warehouse Creek, both towards the entrance on the south side. The second one in is called Batts Neck Plantation on the charts. It's not historical since it has a swimming pool and tennis courts but it's a big ol' dump with lotsa square footage, numerous outbuildings and over 400 acres. I looked it up on the internet and there may have been a plantation on this site at one time but I think this house was built in the 1980's. This is the last building on Warehouse Creek and the shoreline beyond and to the North is natural with marshland, tall grasses and forest. We dropped anchor in the widest part of the creek just out from the "Plantation". This spot has about 8' depth with a muddy bottom and is pretty well protected from all sides. We set anchor around 1830 with about 55' of line out. Later on Friday night the wind got up to 30 knots out of the NW and we stuck like glue. I know this because I checked on it every two hours and finally went and sat in the cockpit at 0400 and waited for the sun to come up. What, me worry?

So, we're anchored and got all settled in and had a Bloody Mary to toast the fine day. For dinner we had home made crab soup and then settled down to watch a movie. About 5 minutes into the movie our cool-man 37" LED flatscreen went nuts and the picture got all weird looking. We were concerned about causing damage so we shut it down. It didn't take long to figure this one out. When we're away from the dock we have a power inverter that takes 12 volts DC from our bank of "house" batteries and creates 110 volts AC so we can use our coffee pot and TV, among other things. The problem here is that our inverter (Xantrex Feedom 2000) is "old school" and doesn't provide what's called "pure sine" voltage. Compared to the picture above, our sine wave would be chopped off at the top and bottom and maybe even kinda ragged on the rise and fall. This creates havoc with sensitive electronics. Looks like we'll have to look into a small inverter to provide clean power for things like our computers and home theater. We'll eventually upgrade our system with more storage (batteries) and increased supply through additional solar panels, wind generator and a diesel generator. When that happens we'll probably be looking into a new inverter too.

Friday was absolutely gorgeous with temperatures in the mid 70's. We had blueberry pancakes and cinnamon coffee for breakfast. Mmm, mmm, good! I spent part of the afternoon chasing ghosts in our electrical system and Cheri kicked back and enjoyed the peace and quiet. I eventually sat down and buried myself in a good book out in the cockpit. It got so warm we had to open up the enclosure to let the breeze blow through and considered shorts and T-shirts for the day. Friday night's dinner was pork chops. We try to eat well to keep from feeling like we're camping. Towards sunset we noticed things poking out of the water all around us. At first we thought they were turtles because they looked kinda rough, almost prehistoric. Cheri broke out the binoculars and found they were fish, about 1' to 2' long, cruising slowly at the surface and what we were seeing was their dorsal fins. I have no idea what kind of fish these were. I'm thinking Jurassic Park.

Like I said earlier, the wind kicked up Friday evening and neither of us got much sleep. When we first set anchor the wind was out of the SE. It was now blowing out of the N and WNW at 30 knots. I was concerned the anchor would pull loose and we'd wind up on the beach. I kept going up topside to check my bearings and everything was fine. OK, check my bearings? When we first anchored I took sightings with the compass to easily identifiable spots all around us and wrote them down for later reference. If the boat moved more than just swinging on the anchor these readings would change. This is the old fashioned way of doing things because nowadays all you have to do is set the alarm on your phone's GPS and it'll wake you up from a sound sleep. In fact I have this feature on my phone. I just don't use it because just like those fish, I'm a dinosaur. So at 0400 it was really blowing hard and I finally got up, made some coffee and sat up in the cockpit and waited for the sun to come up. If anything happened I could fire up the engine and keep us in deep water. While sitting there I saw gusts over 35 knots but I did notice that the water never got very choppy because this spot is relatively protected.

Saturday morning was windy and chilly, in the 40's. We decided to pack up early and head back home. We pulled anchor which was challenging in a 25 knot blow. It took two tries before I finally got it and it brought with it a huge clump of mud and oyster shells. While I hosed it off Cheri headed out the creek. After we made the turn into Cox Creek it was difficult to tell where the channel was. There was a streak of muddy water coming off Warehouse Creek and it made the water look shallow, like a sandbar. We veered around it and immediately ran hard aground. We backed down hard, full throttle, churned up the mud and clawed our way back to deep water. We then veered back over to the middle of the creek and continued on like it never happened. Running aground is a time-honored tradition on the Chesapeake Bay.

We continued under power all the way out to R2A before setting our sails because I wanted to check our knot meter for accuracy. The charts show the distance between CC2 and R2A so I timed it to get a reading. Turned out to be right on. We held a steady course from R2A all the way back to Herring Bay with the wind varying between 15 and 25 knots. Once we got near Herring Bay it kicked up to 30 knots and we had a pleasant sail in under full Main and Staysail at 8.5 knots. We dropped our sails after rounding R2 and motored back to our slip. The entire way over from Eastern Bay we never saw another boat until we got into Herring Bay and then it was just one other guy and his two kids. As we came through the breakwater we looked back and saw them out there heeled way over, rail in the water. Looked like they were having a ball.

So, I think we found a nice spot to hide away on Eastern Bay. It had a few drawbacks that are worth noting. The swampy areas are probably a real source of bugs in warmer weather. The location is several miles south of Stevensville, which is at the eastern foot of the Bay Bridge on Rte 50. During our stay we were aware of a low background roar of traffic but you had to listen for it. We didn't find it intrusive but it might be worse in the Summer, especially at 0200 when sound seems to really carry. It is a nice spot and we'll add it to our list of places to re-visit during other seasons.

Eastern Bay is big and has lots of potential anchorages for us to try out. The Miles River branches off at the eastern end with many great looking spots, including the town of St. Michaels. There's also Shipping Creek, Crab Alley Bay and Prospect Bay to explore. Considering that this is all within a few hours sail from where we hang out at Herrington Harbour North I'd say we'll be spending a lot of time on Eastern Bay.

Pre-Season Chores

2011-03-15T16:57:00.000-04:00

This past Thursday (3-10-11) I got home from work around 1900. The wind had been blowing fiercely all day out of the SE and we also got around 2" of rain. The water level at our dock was high, about 3" below the dock, which is about 3.5' higher than normal. Usually La Vida Dulce's deck is level with the dock. Look at the second picture and you'll get a good idea of how much higher it was. The boat was way up there and Cheri was waiting in the cockpit for me with a 5 gallon bucket that I could flip over and use as a step to get aboard. We tied a leash onto the bucket handle and clipped it to the railing on our boat so it wouldn't try to swim away. Sit bucket, stay. Good bucket.

When I got aboard I found that the marina had killed the power for our dock because of the high water. Cheri had fired up the diesel heater to keep things warm and we kept it going through the night. I wasn't sure how much power this thing would eat up through the night so we limited the use of lights and went to bed early, around 2130. I woke up at 0200 and found that the power had been restored and we had both systems running now, the Espar diesel heater and reverse cycle system, so the boat was plenty warm. I secured the Espar heater and took a look outside, found the water level had dropped about 6", the dock lines were doing OK and everything was as it should be, so I went back to bed.

Friday morning Cheri had an appointment in DC and while she was out Brian Butler from Conlyn Marine Services came down to the boat to take a look at the engine. Conlyn is the local Yanmar dealer and they're located right at Herrington Harbour North. Brian's a real nice guy and spent about an hour going over things, explaining everything to me and answering my questions as he went. At $92/hr this was money well spent. I told him about our fun experience with the prop shaft coming loose so he took a close look at that. He explained that the shaft has to be installed so there's no run-out or vibration when it's turning. Oops. When I did the repair we were floating around outside the breakwater and I neglected to get my dial indicator and check the run-out. Turns out I got lucky because it was dead on. Brian also checked the hoses, alternator belt, coolant, oil and filter and the fuel filter, the motor mounts, turbo charger and the tranny. We fired up the engine and ran it in gear and inspected the exhaust, which looked kinda smokey to me. He said the smoke is normal when the diesel is cold and it did clear up as the engine warmed up. He noticed some fuel droplets in the exhaust which indicated the injectors needed attention but said it wasn't a problem just yet and could wait until next season. He gave me a list of things to do which included changing the oil and oil filter, replacing both primary and secondary fuel filters and replacing the alternator belt. The belt was still in good condition but needed to be tightened up and he suggested replacing it and using the old one as a spare. Brian said that over-all, the engine was in really good condition. It's got 3,600 hours on it, which is high, but he said that Yanmars last forever and take all kinds of punishment. With basic maintenance it should last a long time. That's just what I wanted to hear.

That afternoon I changed the oil and oil filter. On a car's engine you change the oil by pulling the plug at the bottom of the oil pan and drain it into a container. It's a quick and fairly easy process, takes maybe fifteen minutes and removes almost all the old oil from the engine. On our boat there is no access to the bottom of the engine and the oil has to be sucked out through the dipstick tube. I found a spot on-line where they suggested using a hand pump with a hose pushed over the top of the dip-stick tube. It's really clean and simple but from what I know of engines, the dip-stick tube does not extend all the way to the bottom of the oil pan so there's no way you're going to get all the old oil out. Not even close. As soon as you put in your fresh clean oil it gets contaminated with the old oil and will circulate dirt throughout the engine, which is just what we're trying to avoid. You might as well run that old oil for another season or two and save yourself the time. I got a pump that uses a skinny little tube that gets stuck down the dip-stick tube and forced down into the bottom of the pan. This pump is pretty cool because once you've built up suction it continues to pull oil out until it's 8 quart reservoir is full at which point a float switch will break vacuum and stop the process. Hopefully. Our little Yanmar engine holds something like 6.3 liters of oil (1 liter = 1.056688 quarts, US, liquid - I had to look that up) so we're not going to fill this baby up even if we get all the oil out. I hooked it up, made vacuum and watched. This is a slow process because of that skinny little tube and took forever with just a dribble of oil coming out. When it started sucking air like it was done there was less than 5.5 quarts in the reservoir. I pumped it a few times to get better vacuum and really jammed the hose down hard to get more oil. I went through this about 5 more times before I finally felt confident that I had gotten as much of the old oil as I could. After replacing the oil filter I added about 6 quarts of 15w-40 oil, ran the engine for a few minutes to circulate the oil, checked the dipstick and found the level to be perfect. OK, this took way too long and made a mess too. The technique I saw on-line could be modified to get all the oil out and would be way better than this. I think I'll try that next time.

Sunday I worked on the fuel system. Our engine has the primary fuel filter mounted on the engine compartment door in the galley. This is comprised of a glass bowl with a 30 micron Racor filter inside. The top has a T handle that screws off for access to the filter and the bottom has a brass plug that can be removed to flush out the bowl. To the left of the filter is an electric fuel pump with a toggle switch that can be used to prime the system after you change the filter. You need to prime the system to get any air out of the lines that might cause the engine to stop running. The previous owner had used 10 micron filters in the primary and when we bought the boat there was a bag of 20 spares. They must have really bad fuel down in the BVI. Brian Butler told me not to use the 10 micron filters because it puts too much pressure on the fuel pump and the secondary filter catches the finer stuff anyway. I asked him if I could trade him my 10's for some 30's but he said he had no use for them. Bummer.

While I was playing with the engine Cheri was getting a head start on the Spring cleaning. We decided we wanted to really go over the boat with a fine toothed comb, really spiff it up before the warm weather got here. We were originally planning on starting on it around April 1st but guess what? April Fools! Something else came up on the schedule and all of a sudden we only had 2 or 3 weekends to get it done. We had planned to take it on together since it's such a big job but with the change of plans we decided to divide and conquer. Cheri doesn't fool around with Spring cleaning and tears stuff apart to expose all the hiding places, cleans out the cracks and crevices with a toothbrush, scrubs everything down and then oils all the wood. She managed to get through the forward head and our stateroom in the time it took me to service the engine. No, I didn't plan it out that way. I just work really, really slowly.

Next thing to take care of is the cooling system. I'm going to pull the heat exchanger and take the core to Conlyn where they'll put it in a chemical bath to remove any build-up inside. I'll replace the hoses connected to that and also replace the impeller that pumps the water through the heat exchanger. The plan is to get this done this coming weekend. Of course the weatherman says it's going to be really nice this weekend with temperatures in the 70's and ten knot winds. Figures. Might just have to go sailing instead.

Good Times, Bad Times

2011-02-28T22:02:00.000-05:00

Led Zepp fan? Click this.

This weekend was fairly mild and with sailing season right around the corner there was quite a crowd in the marina. Most people were working on their boats but there was also a number of people just walking around with their kids and dogs. Kinda like going to the park for the day. Then there was the usual power squadron crowd on the next dock over, started drinking at 1000, yelling and screaming by noon, totally obnoxious by 1400. We suddenly realized how pleasant it's been this Winter having the place all to ourselves.

Saturday we splurged and bought a Blu-Ray player for our home theater. We'd been copying our DVD's onto the hard drive and found that we couldn't do the B-R movies. Some of our favorites are in B-R and we figured it was cheaper to buy the Blu-Ray drive than to replace the movies with regular DVD's. So we picked up a nice Samsung model that up-converts so we can get 1080p on regular DVD's too. Also has a lot of other nice features which we'll probably never use. What's really nice is it does a handshake with our Samsung 37" flatscreen and controls that too. When we sat down to watch our movies we were blown away by the quality of the picture. OK, now we have a pretty nice system. And all we need is enough power to run it when we're out on the hook. That's another project for the list.

The weather report for Sunday (2-27) was calling for temperatures in the high 50's, winds out of the SSW at 10 kts. and overcast skies turning to rain in the early evening. It sounded like it might be a good day for getting out on the Bay but we had some chores to take care of first. Cheri is working on a quilt for a niece's new baby which is due some time in March so she wanted to finish it up this weekend. I took on the laundry so she could finish her sewing. We both finished up by 1100, had the boat secured for sea by 1130 and were on our way.

We cruised out of the marina at a nice 6.2 knots. As we approached the breakwater I gave it a little more throttle to give our little Yanmar diesel a chance to stretch her legs at 2500 rpm's. As engine speed went over 2000 rpm's the boat began to vibrate. I mean visibly shake. What? I'm thinking broken motor mount, maybe something trapped in the prop. Who knows? I reduced throttle and the vibration stopped. I handed over the helm to Cheri and went below to investigate. Easiest access to the engine is through the galley. When I opened the door to the engine I shined my flashlight around but didn't see anything suspicious. I did a full look-see beginning at the front and worked my way back. As the light hit the transmission I noticed the propeller shaft swinging in a wide arc at 1500 rpm's. Uhm, it's not supposed to do that. I called up to Cheri to drop it into neutral and swing the boat around to head back to the marina.

Access to the rear of the engine is in the aft cabin under the bunk. It's also under about 1200 pounds of junk that we've stashed back there. That was planned out well. Took me about 5 minutes to get access to the engine and when I raised the panel I could clearly see what the problem was. The propeller shaft is connected to the transmission through a flange with four bolts. Three of the bolts were scattered around the trough under the engine. The fourth bolt was hanging on for dear life, but just barely. Yikes! I guess it's about time to do some maintenance on the engine!

I don't think we've put more than 40 hours on the engine since we bought the boat. I had been putting off maintenance until March, thinking I'd have her freshened up for the upcoming sailing season. Since March begins tomorrow I'll be getting started on that right away. I had been planning to do things like change the oil and fuel filters, replace the impeller and all the hoses, maybe clean the heat exchanger and adjust the valves. Now I think I'll go over this baby with a fine toothed comb. Maybe start with the propeller shaft and work my way forward.

OK, so back to the story. We're sitting dead in the water, with the engine off to save my ears. We're slowly drifting back towards the entrance to the harbor just outside the breakwater. We have plenty of room to drift for a while and there's not a single other boat in sight. I scrounged around under the engine and located all the bolts and lock washers and bolted the shaft back in place. Getting up from the bunk I notice this huge red stain on the cushion and realize I've shredded my arm on a hose clamp or something. Cheri's still manning (womaning?) the helm and asks if we're ready to head out. I take a minute to wash off my arm and find it's not as bad as it looked. OK Baby! Let's go sailing!

We fired up the engine and ran it up to 2500 rpm's. Sounded good, nice and smooth. We headed down towards red #2, raised the sails and killed the engine. That instant when you stop the engine and all you hear is wind and water is one of the most awesome moments in sailing.

We sailed out into the Bay on a course of 90 degrees magnetic. As soon as we got out there the wind died down and we just ghosted in an Easterly direction at about 3 knots until 1500. I had been watching a tanker coming up the Bay for quite a while. He was apparently moving pretty slow as our courses were converging and we were only going about 5 knots. As we came up to the edge of the deep water channel I luffed our sails a bit and waited for him to pass. It took forever. As he finally went by I decided we'd better head for home and we came about to course 270.

The temperature in our cockpit enclosure was 70 degrees up to this point but as we sailed home it dropped like a rock. Clouds had blocked out the sun and the temperature plummeted to 55 degrees. We were making pretty good time heading back to Herring Bay, 6.5 knots and heeled over at 8 degrees. Cheri went below and fired up the diesel heater which quickly restored the cockpit temperature to a comfortable 65 degrees. While she was down there she cooked up a batch of peanut butter cookies. We sailed back close hauled, steady on our course with flat seas and a constant breeze. I'm talking perfection here. I barely had to touch the wheel! And we had peanut butter cookies! Life is good! As we rounded red #2 for the return run home we dropped the genoa and staysail and let the main out on the port side, running before the wind at 3.2 knots all the way back to the harbor entrance.

We were back at the dock by 1630 and celebrated our "perfect" sail with a cup of hot chocolate mixed with peppermint Schnapps. We earned it. Despite our little mishap the day turned out to be very relaxing. Aside from that one tanker we were the only boat out there. With the light winds, glassy water and the occasional flock of Canadian geese overhead it was very mellow. Cheri suggested we should go out beyond the fish traps some time and just drop the anchor and hang out for the day, enjoy the peacefulness of having the entire Chesapeake Bay to ourselves.

This is Wintertime in Maryland and I'm thinking it's pretty nice.

Dreams Do Come True

2011-02-20T15:32:00.001-05:00

Thursday night (2-17) we finished getting the boat ready for sailing. I got home from work at 1900 and when I stepped through the companionway I found that Cheri had already done 90% of the work. All that was left to do was install the footman loops and 1" webbing straps for the two flatscreens (home theater and computer) and 2" straps and loops for the ottoman. Job done.

Friday morning we got off to a late start due to sleeping in late, goofing off, drinking coffee and waiting for the morning air to warm up a bit. Unfortunately we were on a timeline here because of a commitment to be at our dancing lesson at 1900. The plan was to be back in our slip by 1600 so we'd have plenty of time to get dressed, go out to dinner and still have time for an hour drive to our destination. Good plan.

We headed out at 1100, following one other boat out past the breakwater. We motored down to R2 in Herring Bay because the wind was right on our nose, coming out of the SSW at about 15 knots. We raised the sails as we rounded the marker, shut off the engine and enjoyed the silence. Cheri was at the wheel while I played with the sails, very pleasant start to our day. The outside temperature was 60 degrees (F) but with our brand new cool-man cockpit enclosure we were toasty enough that I was wearing just jeans and a T-shirt and seriously considering taking off my shoes. I'm talking about total success here with the enclosure. Throughout the day it kept us comfortable, even in the afternoon when things got a little nasty.

Here's a link to a chart of where we went (Earth NC). It might help to see where some of the markers are.

After passing G1 we entered the Chesapeake Bay on course 120 degrees magnetic and headed for the mouth of the Choptank River. Visibility was restricted because of a heavy haze and we couldn't see the Eastern shore at all and had difficulty picking up distant markers. We held to our compass heading, adding about 5 degrees to compensate for current, and came up dead on at each marker. The wind picked up a bit once we were out in the Bay, increasing to 20 knots steady and gusting to 25. As we approached R82 about half way across we were really moving, averaging over 9 knots with a top speed of 10.3 knots. With the wind off our starboard side we were heeled over about 10 degrees and makin' like a bakery truck - haulin' buns. Nice! When we broke through 10 knots ( check it out), (and this too) Cheri made up some Bloody Marys to celebrate our first sail of the year. Mmm, mmm, mmmmm. This is, indeed, the sweet life.

The wind died down to about 15 knots as we entered the Choptank. We picked up G7 just below Tilghman Island at 1300 and decided we had better head back home to get in by 1600. I'll tell ya, it was pretty tempting to just keep on going and blow off our plans for the evening but we're all growed up and responsible so we came about and headed home on course 330 degrees magnetic.

The haze burned off and the sky turned from grey to a brilliant dark blue but the going was slow, about 6 knots in a 14 knot breeze. Around 1500 we were halfway across the Bay and I knew we weren't gonna make it back by 1600. So much for being responsible, huh? The surface of the water was pretty glassy and the breeze was variable. Looking off to the West I could see the water was textured and darker due to some wind so we came about to 220 degrees magnetic to try to pick it up. As we sailed into this fresh breeze it quickly increased to 35 knots. We were sailing close hauled and heeling over about 20 degrees but we were really moving now. After passing a tug/barge coming up the Bay we came about and headed North. We reduced sail by furling the genoa and proceeded under full Main and Staysail averaging 8.5 knots.

As we sailed past Chesapeake Beach the winds were gusting over 40 knots, blowing out of Herring Bay. We decided to sail further North to GC 83A before turning into the Bay as this would give us a good angle for our next tack. The plan was to make one tack and sail in towards Herrington Harbor South. Of course with the wind blowing off the shore at a steady 35 to 40 knots we got pushed back out into the Chesapeake on our first tack and had to come about again and head North once more. We did this two more times before finally getting in as far as HHS (aka Rose Haven Harbor) at G 1A where we dropped the sails and motored in the rest of the way to HHN.

I'd like to point out here that we were sailing hard, heeled over at 15 to 20 degrees and making about 8 to 8.5 knots throughout all this. Cheri and Bella were taking a nap in the cockpit through most of it. We tacked a number of times in rough conditions and it was all completely effortless. This is because we were sailing without the Genoa, just the Main and Staysail. Our Staysail is attached to a Hoyt self tending boom (more info here) so there's no line handling required once the sail is set. Coming about is just a matter of turning the wheel, pretty much like driving a car. Well, except that the car is leaning over and crashing through the waves. I'd also like to note here that our cockpit enclosure kept us very cozy throughout all of this. Excellent!

So, as we motored back to HHN Cheri went down below and made some homemade chicken vegetable soup because we weren't gonna have time to go out to dinner. It was 1700 as we backed into our slip with 30 knot winds blowing across our port side. Took us a while to get in but we handled it pretty well, if I do say so myself. I stayed at the helm, goosed the engine in forward and reverse, bumped the bow-thruster side to side and spun the wheel like a madman while Cheri handled the lines. It actually looked like we knew what we were doing!

We made it to our dance lesson with two minutes to spare.

Are You Ready?

2011-02-19T22:44:00.000-05:00

Monday night (2-13) the wind was really howling. The radio reported gusts of 50 kts and I believe it. Every now and then the boat would just lay over and it sounded like a freight train was coming through. Really something. The wind was blowing out of the West and it took all the water in the creek with it. We've been through this several times this Winter already but this was the best one so far. The water receded all the way to the first slip on the dock, just two slips down from ours. We were definitely sitting in the mud by the next morning because the wind was still blowing but the boat had stopped rocking. All that wind had two direct effects on us. It kept us awake all night with the noise and in the morning it made it really tough getting on and off the boat. If you ever had a tree fort when you were a kid you can picture what we had to go through to get onto the dock. Well, maybe I tend to exaggerate a bit but it was a climb none the less.

The weather report is calling for this Friday to have temperatures in the high 60's with 16 knot winds out of the SW. Cheri suggested that we should go sailing. I love that woman! This is one of those heat waves I've been praying for. Just a short blob of warm weather so we can go out on the Bay for a day, give us a taste of it to help us get through the rest of the Winter. Everybody else has their boat on the hard and wrapped up in plastic so we'll probably have the entire Bay to ourselves.

This being our first time out since last October (yikes!) we're going to have to spend some time getting the boat ready to go. We've been living aboard just like we were in a house and there's stuff that's been set down or hung up without a thought as to how it would behave heeled over at 20 degrees or crashing through 15 foot seas. As if......

So, we've got a few projects to take care of, things to be nailed down or put away. The aft head has become a walk-in closet / storage unit. We've got all of Cheri's ankle length skirts and coats hanging in there. There's also all the high priority appliances that won't fit anywhere else, such as the coffee maker, hot-air popcorn popper, crockpot and pressure cooker. That list is in order of priority by the way. If we can get this area under control then we still have to work on the forward stateroom. In there we have our new home theater which isn't quite finished, meaning that it's not even close to being ready to go to sea. I think we're gonna need some duct tape or something.

Aside from all the little stuff that needs to be stashed we have three or four major pieces that would create havoc if they started bouncing around the interior. We brought in an ottoman to the Main Salon that's made a big difference in the comfort level out there and has also given us a great place to store Cheri's sewing machine. By itself it probably weighs 20 or 30 pounds, not exactly a lightweight. With the sewing machine and a few other things jammed inside I'm sure it weighs more than fifty pounds. I plan to add two footman loops to the base of the starboard side settee and we'll strap it snugly up against that using 2" webbed strapping. Our cool-man 37" flat screen also needs to be secured for sea. Originally I was planning to make up some nice teak blocks with brass hold downs but for now I think I'll use the footman loops and web strapping here too, only 1" webbing for this one. This'll probably become one of those projects that never gets completed because it got a "temporary" fix. I guess that's OK as long as it looks good and does the job. Another spot that needs securing is the 23" flat screen monitor for our Mac-mini at the Nav Station. This is mounted on an arm that has tension adjustments on each joint so you could really lock it down if you wanted. I just recently got it adjusted the way I like so it's easy to swing out of the way to get to the power panel behind it. I had originally planned to use a hook and eye to secure the arm against the cabinet but now I'm thinking this would be a great spot for some more footman loops and webbed strapping.

OK, so aside from 300 pounds of small stuff scattered around the boat I think we have it all under control. We have a regular routine of putting stuff in designated places each time we go out sailing. I say "we" but it's really Cheri who has this all organized. Anyway, during the sailing season we have it all down to a science and can be ready to go in about 20 minutes. This time it'll take a bit longer so we're working on it ahead of time so we can get an early start.

Woohoooo! We're gonna go sailing!

Ice Ice Baby

2011-02-10T09:14:00.000-05:00

Living aboard La Vida Dulce has certainly been a learning experience. The first part wasn't too bad because the weather was still nice and we had weekends of sailing to look forward to. In my inexperienced mind I thought that the winter wasn't going to be all that different and even planned on some weekend sailing during those heat waves in January. Uh-huh, dream on dude. Life on board in the wintertime is a whole different game. First and foremost, it's just too cold to go sailing. There have been days when I thought to myself "we should be out there" but the reality is that my crew has no interest in getting frostbite and I haven't tried sailing solo yet. To be completely honest, I'd probably get out there and be miserable.

Of course going sailing is pretty much a pipe-dream anyway because since mid December we've been iced in for all but two days. OK, so I'm exaggerating, but not by much. According to the National Weather Service for December and January we had 10 days with the high below 32 degrees (F) and 60 days with the low below 32. I'm talking frozen creek here. So sailing has been pretty much out of the question unless you have a boat with 1/2" steel plate in the bow. Being iced in has been interesting in it's own way. I started out being overly concerned about ice building up around the hull and would run the engine at 1500 rpm's in reverse for an hour or so twice a day. This served to stir up the warmer water below the surface and break away the ice for a pretty good distance around the boat. The dock lines held us in place at our slip and the water just flowed forward across the hull. It worked great but it was noisy and used up precious fuel which now has to be carried in by hand. I eventually stopped doing this and settled on using the boat hook to break up the ice about a foot or so out from the hull all the way around. Even when the ice on the creek was 4" thick it stayed thin around the boat due to my boat hook and the natural motion of the boat. We do have to keep an eye on it though.

OK, so ice is pretty much the main theme here (I would also like to mention that we've been making ice cubes in our freezer, one tray at a time, and it's been working out very nicely. Just gotta have those Bloody Mary's!) Since we've been iced in so much it's created a problem that we didn't foresee. With our new handy-dandy gold plated ($$$ cha-ching) 60 gallon holding tank we can last about 2 weeks between pumping out. I'm a pretty simple guy, don't mind making the trek up to the showers on most occasions. Cheri on the other hand is a total "Princess" and demands the comforts of home. I don't blame her at all here, in fact I think she deserves it. Way back in the beginning I promised her this wouldn't be "camping" so we've made every effort to make life on board as comfortable as possible. And why not? It's our home, not a pup tent!

Herrington Harbour North makes a big deal about being "green". They have tidal marshes and nature walks and recycling stations and lotsa rules about working on your boat in a "green" manner. The owners are very active in "Save the Bay" kinda stuff. The owners, by the way, are a father/son team, not some faceless corporation, and they operate things on a personal level. They also preach customer service.

So here's the rub. Since we've been iced in for most of the time this winter we hired a company, Safe Harbor Sanitation, to come to the boat and pump out our holding tank. These guys were supposed to have some kind of agreement with HHN for this service. Some companies provide this service using a boat and come right up to your slip and do the dirty deed. These guys have a system mounted on a cart and they can come out onto the dock which is what's needed when the creek is frozen over. So we called these guys and arranged to have them come out every two weeks and take care of things. They came out at the end of December, once, and then we never saw them again. Two and a half weeks went by and we called them a number of times, left messages, and never heard from them. After three weeks we were feeling rather desperate and asked HHN to launch a boat to break the ice so we could get over to the pump-out station. We explained our situation and they grudgingly helped us out. While they were breaking the ice for us I walked out the dock to the pump-out station and found they had "winterized" the system and there was no way for us to get pumped out. Uhm, we seem to be having a breakdown in communication here. I talked to the folks at the office and they made phone calls and finally we got a hose hooked up and pumped out our tank. The folks at the front office said they'd be happy to help us out next time as long as we gave them enough notice to get things set up. OK, sounds good. Great customer service.

Two weeks go by, it's time to pump out again. Still no word from Safe Harbor so on Tuesday I call the office and ask to have arrangements made to pump out on Friday. "No problem" they say. Friday comes and the station is all set up but we're iced in. The entire creek is iced in all the way out to the breakwater. I walk over to the office and on the way there I run into the yard manager who is the dude in charge of all operations, including setting up the pump-out station and having the ice problem taken care of. I asked him about getting the boat out to clear a path for us and he said no-way, it's too expensive. He suggested we hire this company, Safe Harbor, to do it and I told him my sob-story. No tears from this dude. He said we should do like everyone else at the marina and use the facilities over by the pool. Huh? There's ten other boats at HHN who are live-aboards during the winter and supposedly we're the only ones asking for pump-out service. The marina thinks all these people are using the "facilities". Right. I know the owners of two other boats and both of them are pumping their tanks into the harbor. This is illegal by the way. It's also pretty disgusting when you figure that one of them is also using a water maker. Gag me with a spoon. That's like putting your well right down the hill from your septic tank. So I ask the guy what happened to customer service and what about the extra $100/ month we pay to be live-aboards.. He says that covers the extra toilet paper we use. Wow, what a deal! I walked up to the office and asked for some pump out tokens and they made sure I understood that we were the only ones using this system. Grrr. They really need to think about what they're doing here. We're trying to "do the right thing", the legal thing, and they're trying to make us feel bad about it. So now we're starting to realize that live-aboards are just a pain in the ass to this marina. Why let us stay here in the first place?

I returned to the boat and told Cheri we were gonna start looking for another marina. I explained what happened and she picked up the phone and called the owners of the marina and relayed our story. Half an hour later the ice was broken up and the "son" half of the father/son team was sitting on our boat discussing our problem and promising a solution. Wow! That's fast action! This guy explained about their interest in the environment and how their goal was to be the "greenest" marina on the East coast and at the same time to be known everywhere for their customer service. OK, that's great but the staff has a bit of re-training to go through. He said he was going to reinforce the company goals at the next staff meeting. I picture everybody getting chewed out after being told about some unnamed boat owner who's been having problems getting pumped out. Hmmm, I wonder who that could be? I'm pretty sure the staff will soon have a new nick-name for the owners of La Vida Dulce. But maybe not. Maybe this'll all turn out for the best. Maybe HHN will truly become Super-Green and be the Shining Star of all marinas on the East Coast. Maybe they'll even provide dock-side pump-out service in the winter. And just maybe I'll wake up tomorrow morning and be twenty years younger.

So, yikes! I've really gone on and on about this. I started out to say how different life on-board is in the winter. Ya don't go sailing after all. You eat, sleep and work during the week and then on weekends you eat, sleep and work on the boat. Plus you get to haul 25 gallons of fuel down from the parking lot every weekend. And break ice away from the hull. I'm sure there's more. Maybe the biggest challenge is being cooped up inside because of the weather. It's kinda like spending every weekend being locked up with your wife inside a walk-in closet. It's only gonna be as good as you make it. People keep saying that we're "Living The Dream". I just hope that when I wake up we can go sailing.

Finding Closure?

2011-01-25T12:47:00.002-05:00

OK, this morning (01-24-11) it was pretty chilly. Inside the boat we've managed to keep it pretty comfortable, around 75 F. It was 7 degrees F outside this morning. Brrrr! I'm pretty sure that's the coldest it's been so far this winter. In fact, since Saturday it's been in the 20's and lower each day. The creek froze over solid in two days with the water temperature at 32.4 degrees. We're in the thick of Winter now.

On my walk to the gym it was so cold the decking on the dock had shrunk up and each step I took pushed the boards back down on the nails, giving off a loud "CRACK". My first couple of steps had me thinking I was gonna go for a swim. The things you think at 4am.

For the last two weekends Cheri and I have been working together on another project for the boat. We're building an enclosure for the cockpit that will be similar to putting up storm windows on your screened-in porch. We already have a Dodger/Bimini that stays in place year round (see the picture to the left). It's made out of a canvass product called "Sunbrella" that holds up well to marine conditions and provides protection from the sun and rain. The rear section is the Bimini and the front is the Dodger, which also has a windshield built into it. Last Spring we had North Sails build us a screened in enclosure that ties into the Bimini and Dodger and this has made it possible to sit up in the cockpit in the Summer evenings when flies and mosquitoes would normally be forcing you down below at gunpoint. The screens also act as a windbreak and we've used them several times to help make life bearable when we were underway in cooler weather.

Unfortunately, the screens don't keep out the cold. We were going to have North Sails also build us a Winter enclosure that uses a clear 30 gauge vinyl called "Eisenglass". This is the same stuff the windshield is made of but not as thick. The guys at NS quoted us for this project and it was "out of scope" for our budget, especially after the Great Holding Tank Escapade (click here for more dirt on that). We re-prioritized our wish-list and moved on to other things, like the Espar heater (more info on that project).

In the meantime we invested in a Sailrite sewing machine so we could do some of our own canvas work and maybe even take on sail repairs some day. This has opened up a whole new creative world for us. The Sailrite machine is a real beast (check this out), very heavy duty, and can sew through stacks of tin cans if it needed to. We probably won't be needing that but now there are new projects being added to the list such as winch covers, hatch covers, wind scoops for the hatches, etc, etc, etc.

We visited Sailrite in Annapolis to get some materials for our first project and the owner, Dan, introduced us to a very cool design for a cockpit enclosure. The basic idea is to make panels of Eisenglass that will attach to our cockpit screens with a zipper across the top and snaps down the sides. This is opposed to seperate panels requiring their own Sunbrella frames with zippers on three sides and snaps across the bottom. Because it's a simpler design the cost for materials is considerably less, about $700 versus (approximately) $1.2 gazillion. Instead of doing hatch covers we decided to make our cockpit enclosure for our first project. Other than a complete Winter cover for the boat or making our own sails, this is probably the biggest canvass project we'll ever take on. What were we thinking?

OK, so it's not really that big of a deal. The screen enclosure is broken up into seven panels so we can just do a little at a time and not feel so overwhelmed. We started in the center of the three panels across the back. There's a couple of tricky features here. The top has a curve to it and the zipper follows this curve. The panels on either end also go around the rear corners of the cockpit. Where the zipper attaches across the top of the screen we didn't have much material to work with so Cheri added a strip of Sunbrella here and the zipper attached to that. Down each side of the Eisenglass we sewed in pull tabs for the snaps. These were also made with Sunbrella and are simply strips about 1" x 5" folded in half so they're about 2.5" long. These overlap the vinyl by about an inch and this provides some extra strength for the snaps. The socket side of the snap is inserted through the tabs and the button side goes through the frame for the screen. Check out this short video to see our cool-man snap installation tool in action(click here). We spaced the snaps about 10" apart down each side. For right now we're leaving the bottom of the Isenglass unattached. It hangs down below the cockpit coaming and is a little difficult to get at. If we really need the extra tension we can add snaps there too.

We're averaging about one panel per day. We could probably do more if we were really dedicated or if we didn't have laundry to do and meals to make or if we were getting paid. Maybe. This is a good pace for us and it looks like we could finish up next weekend. As of now we have all three panels across the back finished and the larger ones on each side. We have just two more to go, the ones that are the most forward and attach to the Dodger. The one on the Port side is used as the main entrance to the boat while we're at "Home Port" so after we finish the Eisenglass panels we're going to make an extra panel for here that will replace the screen and make access easier. This will be made of Sunbrella with maybe a window in the middle of it. It'll be hung like an entrance to a teepee so you just have to flip it out of the way to get through. We'll use this during the Winter while we're tied up for the duration. We don't have the final design fully worked out yet but the idea is to keep it simple and provide easy access.

When the weather warms up we'll take down the Eisenglass panels and store them flat in a zippered pocket made with Sunbrella. That'll be kept in the aft cabin on a narrow shelf above the foot of the bunk. Our aft cabin doesn't get much use so we're trying to design some changes that'll make better use of the space. It's where Bella sleeps but she doesn't take up much space. When we have guests staying overnight this will be their room so we need to keep it useful for that. But we're thinking it would be really nice to set it up as a workspace where the bunk will convert to a settee and have a worktable and more storage. We're working with a cabinet dude on some ideas and we'll share them with you when we figure out what we're doing.

The cockpit enclosure has been a great project. It gives us something we can work on together. We found that we can do that and we don't scream or fight or anything. It's fun. This has also given us something we needed for the boat at a pretty hefty savings (gazillions). I'm hoping that the enclosure will give us more time out on the water in the Spring and Fall but it'll also make life aboard more comfortable at the dock. We got a new fondue pot that'll be great to use in the cockpit now that it's closed in. C'mon by and check it out.

Wrap It Up!

2011-01-16T18:37:00.001-05:00

Lately we've had quite a few projects that have piled up, all requiring some finishing touches to bring them to conclusion. I'm talking about things like the infamous Espar heater installation, the long-winded water pump repair, the peculiar power plug escapade, and, and, and..... it just goes on and on.

Last weekend (01-08-11) we picked up some brass eye screws to finish off the power plug thing (click here for the original story, about halfway down). I wanted to have a way to prevent the plug from coming loose and causing an arc-flash condition again. On the end that plugs into the boat we have a twist-lock plug with a locking ring that screws down and holds the plug tight in the receptacle. On the dock end it just plugs in and hangs there with all the weight of the cord pulling down on it. I'm not real sure why they don't have twist locks on both ends but I suspect it's kinda like car manufacturers and planned obsolescence. Anyway, I installed an eye screw on each side of the plug, then wrapped a bungee strap around the power cord and stretched it up to each eye. I'm pretty sure those power cords won't be moving much now.

The next thing we took on was the never-ending water pump repair (same link as before, just a little further down). This started out with our Jabsco water pump suffering a cracked upper plate. We ordered replacement parts for it and went without water for 3 days waiting for them to come in. After repairing the pump it worked fine for a week before suffering a second outage, different part. This time we decided to order a replacement pump and use the old one as a back-up after we repaired it. When we ordered the new pump through West Marine they told us if we had any problem at all we could bring the pump back. Good thing, considering it cost us $480. When we installed the pump we found the water pressure to be woefully low. It wouldn't even make it through the water filter at the galley sink. On closer inspection we found that the old pump was a model 36800-1000 and the new pump is a 36800-0200. The biggest difference between the two is that the -1000 runs between 20 - 40 psi and the -0200 runs between 10 - 20 psi. I'm not real sure what application anyone would have on a boat for a 10 psi pump. When I talked to the folks at West Marine they said no problem, just bring in the pump and we'll order the -1000. A week later they called to tell me the -1000 was on a six month back order because Jabsco had dropped their supplier for the diaphragms and didn't have a new supplier in place yet. What??? That's insane! What a way to run a business. By this time my replacement parts shoulda been in and I could just rebuild the old pump (again) and get on with life. I called to find out where they were and found they hadn't been shipped yet because one piece was on back-order from Jabsco. This is ridiculous. I went on-line and searched for pumps running 20 to 40 psi. Found one from Shur-Flo that runs 20 to 45 psi at 4 gpm. Perfect. Even better, West Marine has one on the shelf and it only cost $189. Plus they offer a 5 year warranty for an extra $20 that covers it 100%. If anything at all goes wrong they give me a new pump. Uhm, gee. Why am I wasting all this time with Jabsco? We installed the new pump and lived happily ever after. The top picture shows the original problem, cracked plate. Bottom picture shows the old pump (Jabsco 36800-1000) on the right and the new pump (Shur-Flo 4901-0211) on the left. I think the Shur-Flo looks like a little mechanical bull. Kinda cute.

Our next project was to finish up the Espar diesel heater installation. We'd been running for about two weeks with the return air duct disconnected to verify that this was the source of our error codes indicating a restriction and overheating. It was. I had originally routed the return duct from the rear wall of the aft cabin into a tight turn, about 110 degrees, to port and straight into the heater. Since I had about 15' of spare duct laying around I re-routed this line so it now runs straight back from the aft cabin, under the cockpit, makes a broad turn around the steering gear and heads forward again with another broad turn at the aft cabin bulkhead and finally connecting to the heater. It's now been running for a week in this configuration with no error code. I think I'll eventually build a short bulkhead in the port side cockpit locker and mount the heater so it's facing fore and aft. This was my original plan and if done properly would really be the best setup. For now, we've got a working system that'll get us through the winter.

After getting the return line set up I went through the entire system and insulated all the ductwork. From the Main Salon forward we used the cool-man bubble pack with aluminum backing. This stuff is really great, only 1/4" thick but very effective as long as the temperatures aren't too extreme. The other end of the ductwork, the section going from the heater up to the Main Salon is where the temperatures are pretty extreme. I'm not exaggerating! In the hanging locker in the aft cabin we were concerned our clothes would spontaneously combust. In the storage locker just aft of there, closer to the heater, we had two bottles of wine that we'd forgotten about. When we found them two days after first firing up the heater the corks had pushed out about half way. Those babies were gonna blow! Way too warm in there! Probably ruined the wine too which is a major bummer. So for this section we first wrapped 3" fiberglass and then covered it with the bubble wrap stuff. This has worked out great. Our clothes stay warm but not toasty. The wine has been moved to a better location. While we were at it we also tied down all the wiring and fuel line so this project is pretty much complete. For now anyway.

On board La Vida Dulce we've suffered a mutiny. The crew has recently refused to man the rails when it's necessary to move the boat for pumping out the holding tank or topping off with fuel. I threatened 40 lashes but she just giggled. Whatsa man supposed to do? So now we've contracted with a company to come down the dock and pump out our holding tank. It's not too expensive and keeps the crew happy. For fuel we went out and bought 5 five gallon Jerry cans (yellow ones for diesel, red ones are for gas). In town there's a gas station that they'll knock off 20 cents/gallon if you tell them it's gonna be used for "off road" only. I guess there's a road tax that they can leave off if it's used for boats. So we're paying $3.12/gal there, versus $3.35 down the road or even $4.51 at a fuel dock. Yikes! That's quite a savings so now we're hauling 25 gallons at a time by hand. We started off with a half tank of fuel so I don't really know what kind of consumption we're dealing with on the heater yet. I think while the return air duct was off it was going full bore the whole time trying to heat 20 degree air and was really sucking down the diesel. It seems to be running more in coast mode now so it should be using less fuel.

So we've finished some projects up. That's a good thing too because my list just keeps getting longer. We survived a mutiny with very little bloodshed. Life on board is pretty cozy with our new heater. Best of all, as of this past Christmas we have exactly four years to go until we retire. Our official date is 12-25-2014 but with sick leave and time off for good behavior we might be able to cruise outa here as early as June 2014. Hey, look there! Do ya see it? That's the light at the end of the tunnel! Woohooo!

Got Me Under Pressure

2010-12-29T09:29:00.000-05:00

My last entry mentioned something about the water pump calling it quits. Unbelievable! I mean, that week was enough to instill mortal fear in the hearts of fabled heroes. What more could go wrong? I discovered it doesn't pay to ask that question.

Our pump parts were delivered promptly on Wednesday afternoon, 12/22. Thursday morning was spent with my cousin Phil Ward and his family who were visiting from Costa Rica. Phil works with Intel and is down there for two years teaching the locals how to make microchips from banana leaves. OK, that's just a guess. Anyway, we had a real nice visit over breakfast at the Double T Diner in Annapolis. Sure was nice to see those guys. After we got back to the boat I grabbed my pump parts and got to work.

The upper plate on the case had cracked all the way across in front of the piston support. This created two problems. Underneath the plate is the diaphragm and uneven pressure from the crack was creating a water leak. The other problem was that the pump piston is mounted to this plate and it's motion was now way out of whack, wobbling all over the place and seriously reducing system pressure. The replacement parts gave me a new plate and piston assembly.

The pump on our boat is located on the starboard side underneath the settee. After removing pressure from the system I had to disconnect the two water lines from the pump. The one coming from the tank had a continuous slow flow so I jammed it in behind the water manifold to hold it upright above tank level and stop the flow. The other hose only drained out a small amount of water and wasn't a problem. With the breaker turned off I removed the power connection for the motor. Four screws hold down the pump and with those out I could work on it at the table in the Main Salon.

Disassembly was pretty straightforward, removing the belt and motor and then removing four screws holding down the plate. When I pulled up the plate I discovered the real cause of the problem. The diaphragm is sandwiched between the broken plate on top and a valve plate underneath. The valve plate has two screws holding all this together and one of the screws had snapped off. These screws are the self tapping type and the replacement top plate comes with un-threaded holes. I would bet a hundred dollars that the screw was broken when it was installed and whoever put it in just closed it up and hoped for the best. The reason I say this is because after I got it all back together Cheri took a shower and mentioned that the water pressure was better than it had ever been. That pump hasn't put out good pressure since it was last assembled. I hate Mickey Mouse repair jobs. "Hey Pluto, that should be good enough to hold it for a while". Grrrr.

It only took a few hours to repair the pump and I still had plenty of time to set up our new flat screen. We got a Samsung 37" LED screen with a Polk Audio sound bar and wireless subwoofer. We wanted to mount it on the wall at the end of our bunk in the forward stateroom. The wall is 1" thick plywood with a teak veneer on both sides. The screen only weighs 23 pounds so there shouldn't be any problem with support. The wall mount is made by Sanus Visionmount and holds the screen very close to the wall, within 0.6". The screen itself is only 1" thick so the whole setup is pretty unobtrusive. I used #14 x 0.75" panhead screws to get plenty of grab.

The mount hangs the screen on a lip along the top of the bracket and then uses two clips at the bottom to hold it in place. These clips pop in place with strings and springs and plastic brackets and I picture it all becoming a real problem at some time in the future. If any of that broke it would be very difficult to remove the screen to repair it. We need something better than that. Incorporating the lip at the top of the bracket into my own design, I plan to add my own brackets at the bottom using teak blocks and mount two lever-clamps to hold the screen in place. The blocks will be mounted at the sides and will prevent the screen from moving around. That oughta do it!

I don't know if you can tell from the previous blog entries but life here on La Vida Dulce has been pretty hectic lately. I'm not kidding! It seems like every spare moment of our lives has been spent installing stuff or repairing something or doing this and that to make room for living aboard. Enough! Once we got the heater going and the power restored and the water pressure back we decided to take it easy for a while. We spent our first Christmas aboard with just the two of us. And Bella. We sat around and watched movies, drank Bloody Mary's and downed some pretty good vino too. We took Bella out for a really nice walk around the marina and just kinda hung out for a coupla days. Man that felt good. Now we're rejuvenated and ready to take on the next disaster.

Why do I keep saying these things?. It's now 12/29, one week later. I got home from work last night and Cheri was saying something about a wet spot on the carpet. Bella, you bad dog! When I took a closer look it wasn't Bella's fault after all. Water had dripped out of the speaker that's built into the side of the starboard side settee. Hmm, that seems odd. That's the same place our newly repaired water pump is located but the speaker is like 2' above the pump. I'm feeling a bit trepidatious at this point. My logical conscious mind tells me that the pump is probably shooting water onto the back of the speaker. My horror movie based, illogical subconscious mind pictures a two hundred gallon aquarium beneath that cushion. As Cheri pulls up the cushion I'm tempted to grab her out of the way in case some shark comes leaping outa there. When I look in the compartment I see some water here and there but nothing terrible. No sharks either. The obvious cause of the problem here is that the small plate on top of the diaphragm is broken in two and water squirts out around the shaft of the piston each time it moves. OK. No big deal. It's not the same part (#6 in the exploded view) that I just replaced. That would be just humiliating. This is the small disk (part # 8), one of two, that sandwiches the diaphragm, probably to give it better shape when pumping. My question is, how did this happen? Probably was damaged when the upper plate broke and I just didn't notice it. Or maybe I screwed up on the reassembly. As I take the pump apart for the second time I look everything over carefully. No other apparent damage. The matching plate underneath the diaphragm is in good condition. I rotate the pump through a full cycle to see if anything might come in contact with it but there's plenty of room. I don't get it.

I also don't get to complete this repair right away. The part I need is the only part that's not included in the kit I just bought. That figures. I go on-line and order a replacement (and a spare). Delivery will be 01/03/2011. Here we go again. Cheri and I discuss our options and decide to call West Marine in the morning and get a replacement pump. We'll still repair this one but keep it as a back-up for the next time this thing quits. Having water on-board is a high priority. With a back-up pump we can swap the bad one out in a few minutes and make the repair at our leisure. OK, there, I've convinced myself. That's what we're gonna do.

Winter Pics at Herrington Harbour North

2010-12-22T15:05:00.003-05:00

It Happens in Three's

2010-12-21T10:28:00.000-05:00

Last week (12/15) I took off Wednesday and Thursday from work because I needed more time to get the heater installed. Up until then I had only been using the weekends to work on it and progress was pretty slow. During the week I get up at 0400 to start my day and don't usually get home until 1900. We then have dinner, relax for an hour and hit the sack by 2130. With this kinda schedule nothing else gets done Monday through Thursday so weekends are reserved for everything else, including chores and projects.

So, Wednesday morning I wake up in the middle of the night for some unknown reason and realize that it's pretty cold in our room. I take a look at the thermostat and it says it's 56 degrees and the system is on but no heat is coming out. Not good. I jump outa bed and tear apart the settee in the Main Salon to get to the reverse cycle system hidden underneath it. When I pull open the panel to the compartment I find a block of ice where the heat exchanger is supposed to be. This is what I feared would happen. The water temperature had finally gotten down to that magic point where everything just freezes up. I knew it could happen, just didn't expect it so soon. It's been unusually cold this month, way below normal, and it's finally caught up with me. I tried cleaning the water and air filters hoping that might help but it had no affect. This system was beyond hope of operation for this season.

So now I have a real problem. We have a couple of electric space heaters but there's no way they're gonna keep this boat livable. I gotta get this diesel heater going right away. Cheri took Bella over to the Perfect Pet Resort (check it out) to hang out in comfort for a few days while we worked in the cold. Our dog gets better treatment than we give ourselves. We gotta rethink that one.

The first thing I did was cut holes in the bulkheads for the return air duct. I hadn't really planned this part out until now so I kept it easy and ran it to a high spot on the aft bulkhead of the aft cabin. This will draw the air back through the boat and hopefully help to heat this section of the room at the same time. It's also the easiest way to run the duct. I had originally wanted to run it under the reefer in the galley because it would have helped to evenly distribute the heat to the other side of the boat. This option would have required way too much effort and I just didn't have the time for that now. Easy is good. So I got the return duct hooked up and while I was in the cockpit locker I also ran the combustion supply and exhaust lines and wrapped the last with braided fiberglass mat as an insulator. The exhaust line can get smokin' hot so it's a good idea to protect everything around it from melting down. Once I got this done Cheri and I ran the fuel line. The kit comes with a coil of copper tubing to be used for this but I found it to be about 10' short so we went out and bought a 50' roll. Should be enough, eh? We ran it under the cabin sole from the fuel tank, past the engine, out through the generator compartment under the cockpit and into the locker. Here it connects to the fuel pump and then runs up to the heater. The fuel pump needs to be mounted at an upward angle between 15 and 35 degrees to keep air pockets from forming which would kill the fuel pressure. We used a special fitting at the top of the fuel tank and ran the riser tube down through that, cutting off the bottom at a 45 degree angle so it sits about 2" off the bottom. That'll help to keep tank grunge out of the line.

With the fuel taken care of it was time to run the power and control lines. The kit comes with a nice bundle of wire that's connected at one end to the heater through a pre-assembled multi-pin connector. From there it branches off into three bundles; fuel pump, power and ground, and a 6 wire bundle to be connected to the thermostat/control. All of these required adding connectors of one type or another. The fuel pump and power went fine. By the time I started in on the thermostat line it was 2000 (8pm) and I was getting pretty tired. This line uses a six pin connector that requires adding pins to #18 wire and inserting them into a two piece connector. Once the pins are in they have these little prongs that pop out on either side to hold it in place. The first pin I put in went fine until the wire pulled out and I had to get the pin back out to redo it. Couldn't get the pin out. Drove me completely nuts. Cheri tried and it drove her nuts too. Just as we heard the boys coming down the dock with the straight jackets I chopped off the pins, cut off the connector from the control box, and soldered the connections to complete the circuits. Enough is enough. If I ever have to unplug this thing I'll add the proper connector then.

With this completed I hooked up the power and we fired it up for the first time. We heard the heater wind up, sounding like a turbine engine. Pretty neat! We verified the fuel pump was running by the click, click, click sound it made. We felt air coming outa the vent in the Main Salon but it never got warm. After a few minutes the heater shut itself off and all was quiet. We sat there for a minute or two, all bundled up in our winter coats and hats, long johns, two shirts, pants, doubled-up socks and gloves. Hmmm. I started it up again and it went through the same cycle, then quit. I knew in my heart that it was just trying to pull fuel through the line and wouldn't run until it had pressure but here it was, 2330 (1130pm) and we had everything riding on this baby. We both said a prayer and tried it again. Success! Two minutes before midnight we had heat, twenty hours after beginning this marathon.

The following day we woke up to a warm and cozy boat. We decided to take some time off and finish the heater the following day. I still needed to tidy up the wiring and secure all the ductwork so the job isn't quite finished yet. Around noon we were headed out the companionway when I glanced over at the Nav Station and saw that the batteries weren't being charged. Huh? As I looked into it I found there was no voltage on our #1 shore line connection. I went out to the cockpit and saw that the little indicator light on the power cable was lit, showing that voltage was present. When I unplugged it I found the white neutral connection was fried on both the cable and the socket. I then remembered having to reset the breaker yesterday morning while we were running the fuel line. I think the boat had been rocking with the wind and the plug had worked itself loose causing the connection to arc. Bummer. I spent the rest of the afternoon and about $200 making this repair. Grrrrr, what else could go wrong?

I had to ask, didn't I? Somewhere in the midst of repairing the fried wiring the heater shut off. ??? I turned it back on and it seemed to work OK. It shut off once more later that evening and once again reset OK. The next day we actually made it out to finish our Christmas shopping and while we were out I called Bryan at Annapolis Cruisair to ask about the heater shutting off. He said the factory preset is for 10 hours on the heater but that it could be re-programmed for continuous running. He sent us an e-mail with the code we needed to do this. When we got back to the boat that evening it was 54 degrees inside. Yikes! I installed the new code and it's been working fine ever since. That was just a glitch though, doesn't count as a real problem.

OK, so that does it, right? Not quite. That evening the water pressure pump started running on it's own, non-stop. I pictured our freshly filled 250 gallon water tank being pumped into some unseen compartment and I began tearing the boat apart. The first place I looked was the pump itself and found it shaking like crazy and spitting water all over the place. I killed the breaker and the water leak stopped so the crises wasn't such a crises. When I looked at the pump up close I found that the housing had cracked and the motor driven piston no longer had any support, making it wobble all over the place. Every time it tried to pump, water would squirt out the cracked housing. No big deal. I can fix this. The next day I went over to West Marine to find that they didn't carry the part I needed but could order one for me. It would take three weeks for delivery. Not good. I couldn't see Cheri putting up with having to hike to the marina showers for the next three weeks. The salesman told me I could replace the whole pump and they did have those in stock, only cost me $480 too. No thanks. I went home and searched on-line, found a supplier (Pump Agents.com) who had my part in stock and could have it to me by Wednesday, 3 days. OK, that's do-able. We'll have water pressure back in time for Christmas Eve.

Just so ya know life isn't all work and no play we went out last night (12/19) and bought ourselves a Christmas present. It's a 37" LED flatscreen that's only 1"deep. It's the widest screen we could fit on the boat and it's going at the foot of our bunk (we're gonna be able to watch movies in real comfort now! I'll be guaranteed to fall asleep every time). We also got a mount that's made to fit the screen right up against the wall which is perfect because I still hafta squeeze by to get into bed. We also got a cool-man audio system for it. The screen has four HDMI inputs so we'll be able to hook up the awesome movie system (click here and scroll to the bottom) my cousin Steve gave us as well as the Mac-mini (click here for more on that) and still have room for more.

As you can see, I'm now up to my ears in unfinished projects. We got hit with a few problems (a few?) but managed to keep from crying. We're warm and comfy and can smile when we look out the port and see people walking across Tracey's Creek. Huh? It's been so cold for the last month that the ice is now 4" thick all around us. We got that heater going just in the nick of time.

Cheri and I send our wishes for a merry Christmas and that the new year brings you good health and plenty of joy.

Plan C, Revision 32

2010-12-20T08:55:00.000-05:00

This past weekend (12/11) my main goal was to finish the duct work for the D5 installation. I had previously run all the ducts for the heated supply air through each compartment on the port side of the boat. I only needed to run the return air duct and for this I needed to have the heater itself mounted. In this picture the heater duct is black. The gray duct is for the Cruisair reverse cycle A/C and heat that was installed last Winter.

The heater comes with a nice heavy duty mounting bracket with all the mounting holes punched through and ready to go. It's even painted. I planned to mount this bracket to a plywood shelf that would be attached to the inside of the hull on the port side, aft in the cockpit locker. I chose this location because it provided the most clear distance around for running the ducts with the least amount of restriction. I would attach the shelf to the fiberglass hull using 3M 5200 adhesive and add fiberglass mat with a 4" overlap for strength. This was the plan.

Before committing myself to plywood I made a cardboard mock-up shelf held together with duct tape. The location I had chosen doesn't have a straight flat surface in sight and I want to have a close fit for good adhesion. It's also important to have the heater sitting level once it's installed. Using cardboard I could make all the necessary adjustments with a box knife. With my mock-up held in place I marked corrections, cut, marked, cut and marked some more, until I felt I had it really close to perfection. This sounds like a pretty easy chore until you mix in the fact that you're inside a cockpit locker with a floor that slants at 45 degrees and it's so confined that the only way to turn around is by standing up with your hands over your head and exhaling while you turn. Oh yeah, did I mention that it's 24 degrees out today? Now that I've set the stage, let's continue with the story. I trim up my mock-up shelf to perfection, then take it out to the dock where I trace the parts out onto my plywood and cut them out. Before I screw and glue everything together I decide to stick it together with some duct tape and take one more check, just to make sure I got it right. I climb back into the locker and hold my shelf up in place with one hand and place my level on with the other. I watch in amazement as the level slides off the side and crashes to the floor of the locker before slipping into the bilge. Hmmm, not quite level. What happened to my perfect measurements? As I'm climbing out of the locker the shelf collapses in on itself and falls apart. I take this as an omen and sit down in the cold to rethink what I'm doing. Grrrrrrrr.

Cold air is really good for concentration and clear, level headed thought. It's also good for uncontrollable shivering. I was just reaching this point when I realized that attaching the shelf to the inside of the hull probably isn't the best way to go. The heater weighs about 25 pounds. Take that out in some choppy seas and we'd probably be looking at a hole in the side of the boat and a $3000 anchor rattling around in the bilge. So, in that same cockpit locker is a bulkhead made of 1" plywood that separates it from the aft cabin. I decided to turn the heater 90 degrees and mount it on the bulkhead. Now, instead of facing fore and aft it'll be facing port to starboard. It'll be super strong there but there are several downsides to this location. Sound will be transmitted through the plywood so I'll hafta put in a sound barrier, probably rubber bushings or something. The real problem is that now the heater is mounted perpendicular to the run of ducting which will add a restriction. I'm still within the #10 limit of the heater so it'll be OK but the return side will also have a bend in it and that might put it over. I feel like I've reached one of those "no-win" situations. I'm going to put it together and see what I get. If there's any problems I'll rework the ducts to open them up some.

Right now I've gotta get this thing going. On Friday we woke up to find the creek completely frozen over. Monday, 12/13, when I jumped off the boat to go to work I found the dock was covered with ice and then, just to make a point, it started to snow. So far we're doing OK. The heater project is moving forward. Cheri spent the weekend with some of that plastic foam insulation that's backed with aluminum. This stuff is about 1/4" thick and I didn't think it would do any good at all. She cut panels of it for all the ports and hatches and covered the exposed side of the hull in the forward stateroom. She covered that and the mast with some quilted material which gave it a real nice look. After the first day with this stuff in place the boat stayed very toasty down below and we don't have to run the reverse cycle heat as often. The cabin sole is now warmer too, probably because all that heat is being forced down into the bilge. We opened up some of the storage compartments under the floor and found them to be not warm but definitely not freezing cold either. So now the boat is really comfortable and hopefully that'll hold us until the diesel heater is finished. I can always count on Cheri to come up with the best solution. The real wall we're up against here is the water temperature. It's been dropping like a rock since the end of October. Just last night I sat down and re-read the manual for the Cruisair reverse cycle system. It says in there that if the water temperature gets too cold we stand a chance of the heat exchanger freezing up and causing damage. That might be kinda disappointing.

Just as a side note: While I was re-reading the Cruisair manual I discovered that the little booger is totally programmable. Ever since we moved aboard we've been fighting this hurricane type noise when the thing is running. It's so loud we've been turning the system off in the Main Salon when we watched a movie. We've been turning the system off in our stateroom at night because it was keeping us awake....with the fan on low! So now I find out I can re-program the fan speed. I dropped it from 38 (factory setting) to 25 and also programmed it for intermittent running. Now when it runs you can barely hear it and when it gets the room to the set temperature it shuts off and waits until it drops below the preset before turning back on again. This is wonderful! There's all kindsa stuff you can do with this system. I think I'm gonna sit down tonight and re-re-read that book again!

The Heat Is On

2010-12-02T17:34:00.000-05:00

A while back we visited the Annapolis Boat Show with the mission of finding a heater for the boat that would get us through the winter. We talked to Bryan Marshall from Annapolis Cruisair (Cruisair website) and settled on an Espar Airtronic D5 kit. The D5 is a diesel burning forced air heater the size of a shoebox. It consumes about 1/10th gallon per hour and produces up to 18,000 BTU. This little baby will be hooked up to our 150 gallon fuel tank, which should be more than enough to get us through the winter. Check out this video (how it works) for a really nice detailed description.

So, we bit the bullet, laid down the big bucks and ordered a kit. With the Boat Show discount we paid $2900 which is a good deal but still a major outlay for us. Bryan was really helpful and let us split the payment over two paydays. Annapolis Cruisair runs out of a small shop, boxes stacked up everywhere, everyone's friendly and laid back. They called me the following week when my parts came in and, being anxious to get started on it, I jumped in the car and raced over. Because this thing is so small I didn't really give any thought to the weeks worth of laundry, five bags of groceries, two suitcases and Bella's travel crate already in the back of the car. Silly boy. When I got there the office manager and her dog walked me around to their receiving dock, rolled up the door and pointed to this humongous box. She helped me wedge it in through the back hatch of our Ford Escape, wished me luck on the install and ran off to find her dog. I would later need a crowbar to get the box out of the car.

Back at the marina I unloaded the contents of the box into a cart and hauled it out to the boat. The kit has just about everything you would need for an "average" installation. Two sizes of flexible duct (90mm + 75mm), vents, reducers, clamps and other hardware, fuel line and pump, exhaust hose and more.

Before you do anything else you're supposed to sit down and plan out the system. Because of the amount of heat generated the unit must have free flowing air. Each restriction in the air duct accumulates and causes heat buildup at the heater which will automatically shut off at a predetermined temperature to prevent "component meltdown". To help with planning the system and reduce restrictions, Espar has assigned a numerical value to every component. Ducts are specified by diameter and length and also by if they're in the primary or secondary system. Primary is the main run and secondary would the part that goes out from a "Y" to a vent. There's a rating for 90 degree bends and for different types of outlets or vent plates. The heater itself is rated as a 10 and the combination of everything else must be less than that. So, the first thing I did was to ignore the installation manual, skip the pre-planning-by-numbers and begin installing the ducts. I got the main run of 90 mm ducts installed with a "Y" for each of my planned outlets, four in all with reducers and smaller ducts for each. Then I sat down and calculated the number total for what I had. Came out to 14.75. Hmmm says I, could be a problem. I read through the book, went on-line and read all of the Espar info there and discovered that the two sources didn't totally agree on the ratings. I decided to go with the book because it favored my design by about a point. I was still over 10 though. I hadn't cut through anywhere for the vents yet so I modified my original plan a bit. The vent locations I chose are in the aft cabin, Main Salon, forward cabin and the forward head. If I use closeable vents and 75mm ducts on three of the lines then the ratings for everything from the "Y" to the vent can be ignored because most of the time these lines will probably be closed. It says that right in the book. The line in the Main Salon will be 90mm duct with an open grid vent that will always be open and provide enough flow to prevent the heater from overheating. I plan to run a return line from the galley back to the heater to provide even circulation throughout the living area. This'll also be 90mm duct with an open grid vent. OK, so now when I calculate it all out I come up with 8.0. Perfect!

So, here it is, first week of December and I still don't have the installation finished. November didn't provide much free time to work on it because of holiday travel and family obligations. At least that's my excuse. Next weekend I hope to complete the air duct installation and maybe run the fuel line. I still have to make a mount for the heater itself which will be located portside aft under the cockpit. The mount will be made from plywood and glassed in to the inside of the hull. Never done fiberglass before so that should be fun. Also have to run lines for combustion air and exhaust and power control and thermostat from the Nav Station. Let's see......about three more weeks 'till Christmas, still gotta do some shopping for that. My four day work week just got canned for the next month so I'm down to a two day weekend. The night's are now getting down into the 20's and the water temperature is in the 40's. Our reverse cycle heater is still keeping us toasty but probably not for too much longer. I'm startin' to feel the heat but it's not coming from the D5.

Mickey Made Me Do It

2010-11-30T11:07:00.000-05:00

Since May, 2010 we've gone from a 3700 sq. ft. house with a finished basement to a 45' boat with two storage sheds; one 10' x 12' and the other 5' x 10'. Over the last few months we've been concentrating on downsizing even more. The smaller shed was in Upper Marlboro, about 20 minutes away. We grabbed it to take care of overflow at the last minute when we moved out of the house and realized we had way more stuff than we had planned for. We've been slowly weeding out what we didn't need and have finally eliminated the smaller shed. The other one is about 5 minutes from the boat in Deale. It's a shed in a fenced-in lot but it's bug infested with ticks, fleas and mosquitoes, and now we find we have a problem with mice too. When it rains the lot becomes a mud bath and the door leaks so all our stuff gets wet. I don't know which is worse but when combined it convinced us to find something better.

What we found was a really nice temperature controlled storage warehouse in Edgewater, just south of Annapolis. This place is pretty sweet. It's three stories high with interior-only access by two large elevators. Each floor has isle after isle of storage units, all sizes. When you come in through the gate you punch in your code to open the gate but then have to enter it again at the door to get in the building. This is because each unit is tied to the front desk and they get an alarm if one gets opened without the code being entered within a certain amount of time. There's music playing throughout the building, it's clean, secure, high tech and, did I mention clean? We signed on for their smallest unit, 5' x 10', so now we're pushing again to down-size even more. What we really want is to have a place to store our out-of-season clothes and a "few" odds and ends such as tools. And spare parts for the boat. And Cheri's clown and face painting stuff. And about 5 suitcases, backpacks and duffel bags. Oh yeah, all our scuba gear too. We have two wardrobes for the clothes and some nice modular shelving that we kept from the house. We're able to store stuff pretty much floor to ceiling and still have a narrow aisle down the middle. We also keep a small stepladder in there so we can reach the stuff way up there. This should work for four more years. Then we'll hafta dump all this stuff too.

Saturday, 10/23, we took a break from playing the storage game and went sailing. The folks on the boat next to ours have been friendly since we first moved in and we have been trying to get together with them for a sail. We talked about anchoring out overnight together but ended up just sailing around each other outside of Herring Bay. We spent about two hours taking pictures of each others boats and it turned out to be a lot of fun. You don't get many opportunities to have pictures of your boat under sail. There are photographers who will chase around you in a speed boat and take beautiful pictures but they charge hundreds of dollars. We got about 90 shots of each boat, did some simple editing and ended up with some really great shots of both boats. And had fun doing it. Here's a link (LVD Under Sail) to some of the pictures. We also got a video of La Vida Dulce coming about (LVD tacking). It's kinda bumpy because Diane was trying to open a beer while she was shooting the video so you gotta hold on tight while you're watching it. Those prone to sea-sickness should avoid it all together. One more thing.....yes, I know the sails are luffing.

Winds of Change

2010-10-21T17:34:00.000-04:00

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

2010-10-13T09:27:00.002-04:00

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

2010-10-12T11:21:00.000-04:00

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.

Rendezvous With Destiny

2010-09-15T09:23:00.001-04:00

This past weekend (Friday 9-10 to Sunday 9-12) was tonsafun. Saturday morning was the Rock Hall IP Rendezvous so we made reservations for a transient slip at Osprey Point Marina for Friday and Saturday night. On Friday we got all packed up and ready to go by 1100, fired up the engine and did a quickie visual inspection of the engine compartment to make sure everything was alright. It wasn't. There's a fiberglass basin underneath the engine with a throwaway pad in it that's supposed to collect any drips and leaks. The pad showed quite a bit of pink fluid and when I lifted it I found a puddle. This is not good. I opened up all the access panels and searched for leaks, ran my hand all over the parts of the engine that I couldn't see and didn't find a thing. I'm not very familiar with a diesel engine yet so I asked our neighbor if he'd take a look. Gayle is a longtime live-aboard and has probably seen it all. He and his friend Mike came over and quickly confirmed that it was a coolant leak. We checked over everything; engine, tranny, hot water heater. Couldn't find a thing. I cleaned up the mess and we decided that it'd be best to just keep an eye on it.

So, we finally got outa there at 1400, pretty late start for going to Rock Hall which is about a 6 hour trip for us. We made good time though and crossed under the Bay Bridge at 1730. We continued by sail until we were off Love Point which forms the western shore of the entrance to the Chester River. The wind was slowly clocking around to the North, the direction we wanted to go, and we were still a ways out from Rock Hall so we fired up the engine and motored the rest of the way in. We were greeted into Swan Creek by a beautiful sunset and made it into the marina just as it got dark. Perfect timing.

Saturday morning, as part of the "Rendezvous", there was a race scheduled to start at 1000. This was supposed to be a "fun" race and serious competition was not encouraged. My cousin Steve, his wife Vicki and their son Brandon volunteered as crew and showed up smartly at 0830. We quickly reviewed how the winches work and what to look for in a properly set sail. We also discussed how best to humiliate the competition and opted for the water canon over the paint ball gun. We showed up on time (Tom on time - that should go in the record books), raised the sails and practiced sail control and coming about. With the wind coming out of the NW I knew we were going to have to jibe around the marker at mid course so we went over that too. A jibe is when you're sailing with the wind coming from behind you and you change course, causing the sails to swing over to the other side. The biggest concern is for the mainsail because of the boom and the weight involved and the possibility of damage to equipment and personnel. Another concern in a jibe is how to get the genoa over to the other side. We wanted to reef it in almost all the way and then let it out the other side once we were on the new course. That was our plan and we practiced this before the start of the race. There are 2 kinds of jibes - controlled and uncontrolled. I was hoping for the controlled type.

The race was run in classes by the size/model # of the boat; 28 - 30, 35,38 - 40, 42 + 420, 44, and 485. Or something like that. Classes were released five minutes apart, starting with the 28 - 30 boats. The start was kinda humorous because the wind was pretty much non-existent, between zero and maybe two knots out of the NW, and everyone just kinda ghosted along. It was in this first leg that we made our best progress and ghosted from the back of the pack to the middle. Brandon made it all happen by going up forward and poling out the genoa with a boat hook. As we approached the first turn the wind started to pick up. The next leg required a tack at about the midpoint because the wind direction prevented us from heading directly for the mark, R4. It was difficult to gauge when to turn back towards the mark. Several boats misjudged it and had to tack a second time, causing them to fall back in the pack. We cut it so close I was a little concerned we'd come back with some red paint on our hull. As we rounded R4 we performed our controlled jibe but the genoa didn't cooperate and we lost some time here. The run back to GC #1 was before the wind and very slow. At one point we were so close to another boat we could have boarded her. Woulda been a great time to break out the water canon but we were too busy eating and talking to waste time with such foolishness. After finally drifting around GC #1 we came into the wind and returned to the start/finish line close-hauled and moving right along. We crossed the line behind 5 or 6 other boats. At the banquet afterward we dined on some excellent crabcakes, guzzled some cold beer and proudly accepted a "first in class" trophy for our efforts. Woohooo! The overall winner was John Hellwege's Dad on an IP 44. This was his 3rd time winning the cup, a beautiful colored glass trophy that gets handed down each year. Next year Hellwege's goin' down! Steve and his family returned with us to the boat afterward and stayed until sunset. We talked about the day, teased Bella endlessly and drank a toast to teamwork. Here's a link (race pics) to more pictures from the race.

Sunday morning we awoke to rain beating on the deck overhead. We showered at the excellent facilities ashore and had quiche, fruit and coffee for breakfast at the Osprey Point Inn. We were on our way by 0930 with a brisk wind and heavy mist. Once out on the Bay it became very disorienting because you couldn't see the shore and the wind and waves kept knocking us off course. We were supposed to be on a 210 degree heading but every time you looked at the compass it had drifted off by about 30 degrees. It got to the point where we weren't trusting the compass. When we finally got off Love Point we stopped the engine and checked the wind. Twenty knots. We put up the sails and blasted all the way home. We still couldn't see anything until we were practically on top of it though and actually shot right through the large ship parking lot just below the bridge and almost sailed into Annapolis. When I finally saw a marker I realized we had gone too far West and turned up into the wind as tight as I could. We held a course of 195 degrees the rest of the way home with the wind and waves constantly trying to drive us onto the shore. It was a wild ride, heeled over at 20 degrees most of the time and making 7.5 to 8 knots. We cruised into Herrington Harbour at 1440 in record time, just a hair over 5 hours.

Throughout the weekend we continued to check the engine compartment for leaks and never found even a drop of engine coolant. ??? We did find another leak though. When we were heeled over our 2.5 gallon water bottle (plastic) went flying. At start of flight it was full. When we found it there was only about a gallon of water left in it. It took a while to clean up but at least it wasn't maple syrup or something like that.

All in all, we had a great weekend. It was really nice to spend time with my cousin and his family, we enjoyed our first race, we got to meet some of the other IP owners and we had some really excellent sailing. Life is good.

Dang Me, Oughta Take a Rope....

2010-09-08T17:00:00.002-04:00

This past weekend was packed fairly full. We started off on Friday with Hurricane Earl bearing down on the East Coast. As of Thursday night it, he?, she?, was off the coast of Virginia, straight out from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The storm's course was projected to take it pretty far off the coast and our area was expected to get rain with winds up to 50 knots. Still, these were projections and hurricanes have been known to do whatever they please, no matter what the meteorologist says. I kept a close watch on the storm, getting updates on it's location every few hours and it did indeed appear to be headed out away from the coastline. We made use of Cheri's new dock-lines and doubled them up with the old ones. We cleared the decks of anything that might be capable of taking flight in high winds but we decided not to remove the dodger or bimini covers for the cockpit. I did lock down the solar panels using their wire tie downs but doing this made me keenly aware of the amount of weight that is supported by the aluminum frame for the bimini. The whole thing would probably take off like a kite in hurricane force winds.

So we were prepared for a good blow and half expected to see some kind of storm surge. What we got was an overcast day with an occasional drizzle and winds as high as 3 knots. Not even good sailing weather.

We spent Saturday clearing out our second storage shed in our attempt to downsize even more. This storage is about 20 minutes from the boat, not really convenient but it is dry. We've been using it for a backup until we could clear out some of the stuff left over from living in the house. Our primary storage shed is in Deale, about 2 minutes from the boat but it's located in a bug infested field with ticks and fleas and mice. And mud. We plan to reduce our stuff even more and move what's left into a temperature controlled spot near Annapolis. Convenient? Not at all but at this point I think we'll be down to seasonal things and won't be needing access to it so often.

We've been watching movies on our cool-man Mac mini in the main salon. We both felt the need for a little more comfort and thought a good ottoman would really fit the bill. We found a nice one at Bed, Bath and Beyond that's just the right height for propping up your feet and also provides good storage for Cheri's sewing machine with room to spare. The padded lid even flips over and turns into a coffee table top with fiddles (raised edges) to prevent stuff from sliding off. Perfect! This thing just might replace the table in the main salon. We didn't have room for the four folding boxes that came with it so we tossed two and will hang onto the others just in case we find a purpose for them. We plan to strap this baby down to one of the settees when we're underway. It weighs about 30 pounds empty and would make quite a projectile in a knockdown.

Sunday we had our friends Anthony and Luzma join us for a sail. They arrived around 0930 and we sat around and talked until about 1100 before heading out. Once out on the Bay we found pretty good winds, about 12 knots out of the SSE. We decided to head up to Thomas Point Light so they could check it out. Along the way the wind varied from about 12 knots to zero point nada. It was odd, all or nothing. We'd be barreling along, having a great time and then all of a sudden it would just stop blowing and we'd coast for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then it would pick up again. Went like that all day. Luzma is from Peru and brought along some great food, stuff I couldn't pronounce but would definitely eat again. Mmm mmm mmmm. All in all we had a really nice visit and a decent day on the water. We got back to the dock around 1800 and had coffee and a shot of Amaretto di Amore liqueur. This is our new tradition to top off a good day of sailing. We met Anthony and Luzma when we were in the midst of selling everything we owned in preparation for moving aboard. They bought a chair we had advertised on Craigslist and then came back and helped us all day at the garage sale and continued to help us through the most frantic parts of moving out. They are wonderful people, true friends.

Monday we again had some friends come by for a sail. This time Sharon and Fred Carr joined us from Silver Spring. Sharon is Cheri's music teacher and Fred is the assistant Pastor at our church. They helped us out last month by letting us stay in their home while they were on vacation up in Canada during the final week our boat was being repaired. When we stayed at their place we noticed a buncha pictures of lighthouses so we thought it'd be good to run by Thomas Point Light (again) and Bloody Point Light on the other side of the Bay (the picture here is of Bloody Point Light before the 1960 fire and explosion that brought it's useful life to an end). Winds for this day were projected to be about 2 knots so we were planning to have to motor our way around. When we got past the breakwater though, we found that there was some good wind out there. It was blowing out of the SSE and we started out for Bloody Point. When got out into the middle of the Bay I gave it some thought and realized that if we returned from Thomas Point to Herring Bay we'd be tacking the whole way, making for a longer trip.

With that in mind we changed our course and sailed on a "broad reach" up to the South River. Sailing with the wind coming from behind can be uncomfortable because you're traveling with the wind and not getting much cooling effect. You're also traveling with the waves and the boat tends to roll a lot. Sharon started feeling queezy shortly after we came to this new course and we sent her up on deck for some fresh air. This helped and she was feeling better before too long. As we got close enough to see the lighthouse we found about 3 different sailboat races going on in the area and decided not to interfere. We changed course to 115 degrees magnetic and headed East across the Bay. We were now sailing on a "close reach" on a "starboard tack" (aargh, sounds so nautical, can I hear ya say "lardy dar"?). The wind was holding nicely through the afternoon and had in fact increased to about 25 knots. Seas were getting a bit choppy. Fred tossed his cookies and we decided to reduce sail and try to make things more comfortable for our guests. We doused the genoa and ran under a full main and staysail. As we approached the Eastern Shore we crossed the original channel of the Susquehanna River with a depth of 175' (Chesapeake Bay Chart). Approaching the eastern side of this natural channel the depth quickly goes to about 9' so we came about and headed back across the Bay, this time "close hauled" on a "port tack". Now we were headed on a course of 240 degrees magnetic which should take us directly into Herring Bay but it also brings us about 45 degrees off the wind and the waves, which makes for some pretty lively sailing. The wind is now blowing a steady 30 knots and the waves were building up pretty big. We buried the bow at one point. We had wind howling and spray flying and poor Fred was puking on a regular basis. We rode like this for about two and a half hours with steadily worsening conditions. Things didn't let up until we rounded red #2 in Herring Bay which lines us up with the entrance to Herrington Harbour. By the time we got back to the slip Fred had lost about 25 pounds but he was feeling much better. We sat in the cockpit with coffee, Amaretto and cookies and talked about our day.

I gotta admit that I had mixed feelings about this day. Fred and Sharon are dear friends and we wanted this trip to be a "thank-you" gift for all they did for us so we really felt terrible that it was so rough on them, Fred especially. On the other hand, this was some really rockin' sailing, wild and woolly and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. No, I didn't prolong the trip and Fred's misery just so I could enjoy the day. When he first started feeling bad we were already at the farthest point from home. Should we have returned under power? It wouldn't have bought us anything. We would have been on the same course, at the same angle to the wind and waves and I seriously doubt we would have made better speed. I guess the real question is would I have prolonged it if I had the choice? Let me think on that for a while. Somewhere it's probably written down in some ancient book that if you make your Pastor puke then you're gonna go to Hell. I'm pretty sure about this.

On our sail home from Rock Hall on 8-29 we encountered a problem with the mainsail and were unable to unfurl it (click here to read the original entry). I resolved the furling problem a few days later. The main halyard isn’t supposed to be under tension. When I eased up on it I was able to slowly unfurl the sail all the way with my hand by turning the furling mechanism inside the mast at the bottom of the sail. The mainsail was rolled up loosely inside the mast and pockets of sail were being pulled out through the slot. As I saw this happening I would re-furl the sail just enough to get it back inside the slot and then continue unrolling it. Once I had the entire sail out I adjusted the topping lift a bit tighter to get the boom just above horizontal. With this done I was able to furl the sail using the line from the cockpit and it worked beautifully. I maintained just a bit of tension on the out-haul as I furled the sail and it went in very nicely.

John Hellwege of Gratitude Yachting clued me in on the mainsail halyard being over-tightened as the main cause of this problem. He said the second biggest cause is an aged sail which will stretch and sag at the outer edge (leech). Sails can be re-cut to correct this problem and extend their life.

My other problem was the sump pump for the forward shower. I found a nice replacement for it from Jabsco (p/n 37202-2012). I put it in and found that the real problem was that the power line was shorted and the voltage was drifting between 2 - 13 VDC. This was causing the original pump motor, the old lump of rust, to overheat because it didn't have enough umph to crank the pump. I thought it was shorted windings and didn't bother to check things any further. My bad. I haven't had enough time to trace out the wire all the way but I do know the problem is under the forward bunk because I've traced it from the switch to the bunk on one side and the pump to the bunk on the other side. Hmmm. Let me see now. The most recent work done on the boat was also at the forward bunk. Coincidence? I don't think so.

Home Is Where I Want To Be

2010-08-31T18:44:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was total turmoil. After many postponements we were finally supposed to pick up the boat on Friday, 8-27. We had been staying at Fred and Sharon's place that week while they were in Canada. They were scheduled to return on Friday afternoon so we were all packed and heading out the door that morning when we got a call from John Hellwege at Gratitude. When they sprayed the primer the day before it didn't set and had to be sanded down and redone. This would take all day Friday and they'd need Saturday for final assembly and cleaning. This really threw a wrench in the works because we were now out of options for a place to stay, requiring a stay in a hotel. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but we have a dog (well, a 6 pound beast) and 99% of the decent hotels don't allow pets. We booked a room at the Comfort Inn at Chestertown and considered sneaking her in under our coat. When we got there we sat out in the car debating how we were gonna get her past the front desk. In the end we decided the best way was to be totally obvious about it. We walked in the front door pulling our bags behind and with Bella in Cheri's arms. The lady at the front desk never said a thing, probably didn't even notice. Too busy picking out her next lollipop.

After we got settled into our room we headed over to see the boat. I had picked up 2 six-packs of beer to share with the dudes doing the work, thinking this would be a nice way to show our thanks. Walking out to the dock we offered several beers but they were turned down. Huh? This is a boat yard right? Lardy-dar types everywhere ya look. When we got to the boat, Howard was the only guy there, just finishing up the fiberglass work. I offered him a beer, told him how much we appreciated all the hard work. He declined the beer. I opened one for myself, took a swig, asked him if he was sure he didn't want a nice, ice cold beer on a 95 degree day after working his butt off on the boat. "No thanks", says he, "I'm on my 76th day of recovery". Oops. "Well", says me, "I'll drink to that!" ( I modified history a bit here but the truth is I did have a terrible time getting anyone to hoist a cold one with me.)

We washed down the topsides while the cleaning crew took on things down below. There was quite a mess from all the cutting and grinding of fiberglass and the dust had permeated pretty much everything. Howard had cleaned up the forward compartment once already and then these guys went over that again and everywhere else too. After they left, Cheri and I went below and went over it again ourselves. We had all our clothes to move back aboard and didn't want our stuff to be full of fiberglass. That stuff's kinda itchy, ya know? We finally finished up around 1930, made up some chicken salad sandwiches and had our first meal aboard in 2 months.

Sunday morning we got up around 0730, had breakfast aboard, got cleaned up and prepared to head home to Herrington Bay. When we cast off we took the old dock lines and stashed them in the cockpit locker. These things were so old and stiff it was like trying to bend steel cable. For Cheri's birthday I gave her 4 new dock lines, 3 strand line, 3/4" x 35', just what every girl dreams of. As we cruised down the Bay we tied a double loop bowline in one end of each line so they'd be ready when we got to our slip. Leaving Rock Hall, Cheri took the helm and took us around to the fuel dock. We were getting low, down to 3/16's of a tank, and I was concerned about the fuel pump sucking up crud from the bottom of the tank. Our tank holds 150 gallons and with the impending bill for the holding tank I wasn't too excited about paying $500 (diesel is currently $3.49/gallon) to top off with fuel. We put in $200 worth and it brought us up to 3/4 full on the gauge. Must not be a linear gauge. Doesn't matter, that should be enough to last us for another year.

So at 1030 we head out into the Bay on a course of 210 degrees magnetic. This takes up directly to the main span of the Bay Bridge and it also takes us directly into the wind. At least what wind there was, maybe 5 knots. Because of this we chose to run under power until we could point further south and would then raise the sails. We had a full days cruise ahead of us, at least 6 hours, and still had to drive back to Rock Hall to retrieve our car, about a 4 hour round trip. This was gonna be a long day no matter what we did. So, we maintained our course pretty much all the way to Thomas Point Light. At this time I checked the wind, looking good at about 12 knots out of the WSW, and proceeded to raise the mainsail. Actually on our boat you don't raise the main so much as unroll it. We have in-mast roller reefing (see the picture) so you just sit in the cockpit and tug on a couple of lines and the sail is set. At least that's the way it's supposed to work. Not this time. I started crankin' on the out-haul, the line that pulls the clew of the sail out along the boom (see the picture again), unrolling it from the mast. It was really tight and wouldn't budge. ??? Two days later I was told that this could be caused by having too much tension on the halyard, the line used to raise the sail to the top of the mast. At the time I didn't have a clue (clew?) so we just motored the rest of the way home. Bummer.

It was a pleasant cruise though, temps in the high 80's, nice breeze and not a cloud in the sky. We got back to Herrington at 1630 and by the time we got back from getting the car it was 2130, bedtime. Long day.

One other thing we discovered was that the sump pump for the forward shower didn't work. At first I thought it might have been related to the work that was done on the holding tank since the wiring goes through the same area. The way our showers work is they have a deep fiberglass pan built in under the floor of the shower. I think the reasoning here is that it's more efficient to let the water collect while you shower and then pump it all out at once. There's a plunger type switch that you pull out when you're done taking your shower and it starts the sump pump which runs for a few minutes and then starts to growl when it sucks air, at which time you turn it off. Anyway, I needed to verify the problem with the pump so I pulled out the plunger and went to check the voltage at the pump. By the time I got in place to check it, the electric motor was hot to the touch but the pump wasn't pumping. The shaft from the motor is connected to an offset arm that drives a piston connected to a diaphragm. The pump mechanism moved freely but the motor wasn't turning which indicated an electrical short in the winding of the motor. The pump is just a big clump of rust so we'll replace the whole unit instead of only the motor. Of course, when we looked into a replacement pump we found that this model has been discontinued so now we need to source a replacement. Ugh.

So,we're finally home. Now if we could just find some time to get settled in. With Hurricane Earl due in three days I'm sure we'll have more to discuss before too much longer.