Doin' This and Doin' That

 This past weekend (02-18-12) I finally got some serious work done on our electronics project.  Until now I've managed to avoid working on it as much as possible.  There's just so many really good excuses out there. 

On Friday I picked up a Navionics Platinum + card for the chart plotter.  Cool!  Now we're all set with 3D charts and tons of additional info.  I rushed home to try it out, fired up the display and plugged in the card.  Nothing.  Hmmm.  Maybe I should read the instructions.  I went into the manual for the chartplotter (a PDF file with 114 pages) and read through everything.  It says to go into the 3D application and set it up the way I want.  OK, where's the 3D app?  I spent hours going through the program but didn't see anything about a 3D application.  Grrr.

More importantly, whenever I plugged in the card I'd go into the menu and look around and after about three minutes the chartplotter would freeze up.  I couldn't even turn off the power.  I eventually figured out that when I pull the card out the chartplotter would reset itself after a minute or two.  If I left the card in it stayed hung up.  Bad card?  I kinda doubt it.  I'm thinking it must be a problem with the card reader.

Monday was Presidents Day so I had the day off.  I played with the chartplotter some more and tried calling the Raymarine helpline.  They were on holiday too.  I called MTS, the dudes I bought the unit from, and they sent a tech over right away.  I mean, the guy was walking down the dock in five minutes.  Now that's what I call great service.  The tech, Ryan, fired up the chartplotter and showed me how to set up a new application to be used for 3D charts.  Oh!  I see! That makes complete sense.  Too bad they didn't mention that in the manual.  Then he put the card in and the whole thing froze up.  At least it's consistent.  He also tried his own card and that froze up too so we were able to verify that the problem was in the chartplotter, not the Navionics software.  He also tried a factory reset and that didn't help it either.  In the end it was decided to send it back to the factory for repairs.  It's supposed to be back in my grubby little hands in about two weeks.

Since I couldn't play with my new chart software I decided to pull the wire for the radar and autopilot.  I started at the foot of our bunk in the forward stateroom.  All the wiring that goes up the mast runs into a compartment located here and is connected to terminal strips.  The idea is to make it easy to disconnect the wiring when it's time to pull the mast.  So this is where I began by adding another terminal strip to connect power for the radar.  From here I ran 10 gauge, 3 conductor wire (#10/3) to the DC breaker panel where we'll be installing a 10 amp breaker for the radar.  To get the wire pulled from the forward stateroom to the Nav Station required dismantling the starboard side settee and pulling the wire through three compartments underneath.  Two of these compartments contain the fresh water pump and the water heater so while I was in there I also did a quick visual inspection to ensure all was well.  It was.

Next I had to pull the control wire for the auto pilot and the data cable for the radar down through the steering pedestal into the compartment under the cockpit where the genset will eventually go.  This meant unloading the aft cabin's bunk (aka the garage) and crawling through the access panel in the aft bulkhead.  I had to go back and forth between here and the cockpit a number of times because the wires kept getting hung up inside the pedestal.  I finally used my trusty fish tape (click here for more fish-tape adventures) to get it pulled through successfully.  Once I had the wire into the genset compartment I combined it with the wiring for the rudder reference and the power cable (#8/2) and clutch (#14/2) for the linear drive.  I had to feed this bundle down into the trough for the propeller shaft and then pull it through a wire run into a storage bin under the floor in the galley.  From there it gets pulled through underneath the cabinets and into a compartment under the Nav Station.  This is where the course computer will be located and all the auto pilot components will tie into that.

I also had to find a place for the fluxgate compass (click here for Wikipedia's explanation of a fluxgate compass).  It's supposed to be located pretty much centerline in the boat to minimize the effects of side-to-side and front-to-back motion, but has to be away from large cast iron masses such as the engine, which is also pretty much centerline in the boat.  I think I found a good spot for it just forward of the fuel tank on the aft bulkhead of the bilge.

With the worst of the wiring out of the way I feel like I'm pretty much on schedule with this installation.  I still have to mount the radar and pull wire for it up through the mast.  A friend of mine just finished this job on his boat using a 20' extension ladder.  Our mast is a bit taller than his though so I think I'm gonna have to use a bosun's chair.  The biggest problem with this is that I'll need Cheri to haul me up the mast using a winch or maybe even the anchor windlass.  I found a better option here.  A guy up in Maine was selling a fairly new (used only once!) single-handed ATN MastClimber (check it out) for half price.  Using this Cheri won't have to destroy her arms trying to hoist me up and I'll have complete control over how fast I go and when I stop.  Best of all, no screaming back and forth.  Perfect!

While I'm waiting for the chartplotter to come back I attacked the cockpit with polish and wax.  After I laid on the polish I hit it with a power buffer and it really brought out the shine.  This poor boat had spent about eight years down in the BVI and all the fiberglass was looking very chalky.  Last year I buffed out everything but the cockpit so now I'm pretty much caught up.  The buffer really brought out the gloss, looks mighty nice.  I also tried out a 3M product for restoring plastic.  I used this on the bezels for the instruments and also on the line locks for the running rigging.  Wow!  Everything looks brand new!  That's really amazing stuff.

My biggest problem now is that the boat looks so nice I don't want to sell it anymore.

Winter Update

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

Some people never grow up.  Take me for instance. 

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

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

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

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

Apparently that redneck plays by different rules.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy New Year!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Wye Me Lord?

To see a chart of where we were click here

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pre-Thanksgiving Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In Our "Spare" Time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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