If It Wasn't For Bad Luck.....

My daughter and son-in-law came out to visit last week and we decided to go out for a day-sail on Friday.  It just happened to be Friday the 13th but I don't give credence to those kinda things.  At least, I didn't used to.

You see, it all started out good and went downhill quickly.  We departed the marina around 1330 and sailed out to the Bay under really great conditions.  Wind was blowing 12 to 18 knots out of the NNW so we cut across the Bay under full main and genoa, 6 to 7.5 knots the entire way on pretty much a broad reach.  We made such good time we decided to run to the end of Eastern Bay and then figure out what we wanted to do beyond that.  Anchor out?  Head home?

As we approached the entrance to Crab Alley Bay Cheri mentioned something about a loose line flapping around the mainsail.  Huh?  I looked up and saw the topping lift had parted from the end of the boom.  Again.  This happened once or twice before and I was really, really sure I had fixed it.  Guess not.  One time the line had actually parted, broken, so we replaced it with new stuff.  Another time the shackle came loose.

I had a snap shackle on there and thought that would work fine but I guess with the variety of stresses at this point it's not really a good place for a snap shackle.  I need to give this some thought and research a better fitting.  Duh.

We turned up into the wind, furled the genoa and fired up the engine to keep the boat pointed into the wind without making too much headway.  So the line is flying around about 15' off the deck.  I tried to snag it with a boat hook and with my arm fully extended it was about 2" short.  Chris, our son-in-law is about 6" taller than me so he got the next shot at it.  Still no go because with the wind and the waves the line was moving around too much.  We tried wrapping duct tape around the end of the pole with the sticky side out but that didn't work either.  It finally dawned on me to let the topping lift all the way out and pull the line up against the mast to stabilize it.  I climbed up onto the mast pulpit, held the snap shackle against the mast and finally slipped the boat hook through the end and pulled the line down to the deck.  Chris then reached up through the zipper in the Bimini and re-attached the topping lift to the end of the boom.  I think this whole operation took about an hour.  Seemed like a whole lot more though.

Since we wasted so much time playing around we decided to head back to the marina.  Had a wonderful return run, 8.3 knots heeled over at 15 degrees.  Flying!  By the time we got back to Herring Bay it was dark and the wind was blowing a steady 20 knots NNW.  Pulling into the slip required more use of the bow thruster than usual and just as we were about half way in it quit on a thermal overload.  Worse yet, all the lights and instruments started flashing on and off.  What the...?  I ran down below and shut off the breakers to prevent any damage and then resumed parking the boat.

Once we were in and got shore power connected I discovered we had no AC or DC power.  Huh?  We had power on one 30 amp circuit for the air conditioning but no power at the outlets.  When I checked the inverter controller I found a message saying the charger was dead.  It actually said that, that it was dead.  It was now going on 2200 so we broke out the flashlights and called it quits for the night.

The next day, Saturday, we had obligations to get together with family so I didn't get to work on this until later on Sunday.  I got out my DVM (digital volt meter) and started hunting down the problem.  No power at the DC panel.  No power at the main breaker.  I finally found 13 volts going into the big shut off switch for the house bank but nothing coming out.  That's gotta be the problem but it just doesn't make sense.  That switch is very simple, just a set of contacts on a rotating paddle.  What could go wrong?  I suspected this was the source of all our power problems but I wasn't sure about the "dead" inverter so I decided to have the dudes from MTS come take a look at it.  On Monday morning they called me and verified that the switch was bad but more importantly, they let me know that the inverter was OK.  Once they replaced the switch all power was restored with no other damage.  They didn't have an explanation for why the switch would have died but said they'd enjoy tearing it apart to find out.  Have at it.  Hopefully we'll have an answer next time I see them.

So my Friday the 13th was actually good and bad.  We had a great day of sailing with family and I truly enjoyed that.  The topping lift problem was a challenge but we all had fun trying to grab it and we enjoyed working on it together.  The power problem was a pain in the butt though.  We ended up going through the whole weekend without power, which also meant we had no water either.  Grrrrr.

Do I believe in good luck and bad luck?  No, not really.  It's more about about challenges I think, good or bad.  Of course, next time Friday the 13th rolls around I'll probably hide in a closet for the day and try to avoid some of those challenges.

Labor Day Weekend

 Map of Eastern Bay (click here).

At the beginning of September we had four days off, Friday through Monday.  Something to do with Labor Day.  I wanted to take all four days and head south to Tangier Island to do some exploring.  As it worked out that didn't work out.

We had things to take care of on Friday and by the time we got our act together it was 1630.  Knowing we were getting low on fuel I checked the tank and found it was down to 1/8.  If this was my car I'd be pulling into a gas station.  Our boat has a slightly larger tank, 160 gallons, which meant that we probably still had about 20 gallons which could reasonably last us until late February.  Thinking we were gonna take a long trip I would feel better with more so we added that to the list of things to do prior to leaving.  We departed from our slip and headed to Herrington Harbour South for fuel.  Cheri and I had heard separate weather reports neither of which agreed or supported our going south in any kind of hurry.

We motored over to the fuel dock to fill up.  I glanced at the wind sock as we approached and it indicated the wind coming out of the east.  I decided to get a line onto the bow and then drive the stern around to the dock.  As I made my move the wind shifted around to the south and caught me with the nose straight into the dock and the stern sticking out in the channel.  Cute.  I quickly used prop walk to bring the stern around the other way and we tied up properly at the dock.  Transferring 120 gallons of diesel takes a while and the hose didn't have a clip to hold it on so I sat there the entire time.  Final bill came to $419.06.  Yikes!

We cruised back out into Herring Bay at 1830.  We had maybe 1.5 hours of good light left and the wind was still blowing 15 knots out of the south.  Our new destination became the Rhoade River, about 2.5 hours to the north off the West River.  We thought we could anchor overnight and figure out where wanted to go from there.  Maybe north of the Bay Bridge to the Sassafrass River, home to my ancestors on the Eastern Shore.  That'd be cool.

We set our sails, main and genoa, as soon as we got out of Herrington South.  We settled onto a course of about 030 magnetic to keep us clear of the shallows off Shady Side.  We were zipping across Herring Bay at about 7 knots running on a broad reach.  Waves were low and lumpy about 3' to 4' coming from behind on our starboard quarter.  Sweet ride!  We were enjoying it so much Cheri suggested we can our plans and head across the Bay to the Wye River, our not-so-secret hide out.

I brought the boat around to 075 and we headed across the Bay on a beam reach.  Waves were hitting us on the side now but we were running at 8.3 knots.  Flying!  We made it across the Bay in no time, less than an hour, and continued up Eastern Bay at 7 to 7.5 knots.  Once past Kent Island the sun set and we continued on in darkness.  We sailed on in the moonless night, heeled over at about 10 degrees, quietly cutting through the water.  The shore lights mingled with other lights around us and we occasionally turned on the radar to confirm there were no other boats on the water.  We turned up into the wind as we came into the Miles River, furled the sails and continued on under power.  We arrived in Shaw Bay on the East Wye at 2130.  We shined the radar one last time to verify positions of boats already at anchor and wound our way through to a good location closer into shore.

This was a dark night with the moon not up yet (waning) and just the stars all around.  The lights on the shoreline were far enough away that they didn't provide any illumination.  The moon was waning, only 25.8718720226389% full that night.  Waxing?  Waning?  Yeah, we had to look it up.  If you can see the moon in the evening it's waxing (getting bigger).  If you see it at dawn or in the early morning it's waning (getting smaller).  Here's more...if the shadow is on the left side then it's waxing, on the right it's waning.  BTW - the shadow is not caused by the Earth, which would instead be an eclipse.  The moon is always lit up 50% by the Sun and the "phases" are due to the angle we see the moon from as it rotates around our rotating Earth.

With the anchor set I shined the flashlight down on the water around us.  I was greeted by 10,000 jelly fish.  Wave after wave of jelly fish.  It was incredible!  In a cubic foot of water there had to have been 100 jelly fish.  I've never seen anything like it.  Musta been a jelly fish convention. I googled it and found that there can be jelly fish "blooms" when the conditions are just right.  Usually in the Spring though.  I'm still thinking this was some kind of a convention.  Republican jelly fish or something.

Saturday we motored further up the river to our cove.  What to my wondering eyes did appear?  Three other boats already anchored here.  Bummer.  I think this is the first time we've come here and not had the place to ourselves.  I gotta admit, it is a fairly large cove and three or four boats are not going to get in each other's way.  I'd just come to think of it as my private get-away.  Guess it's time to search for another spot.

We settled in for the rest of the weekend.  Quiet, decent weather but no swimming with all the jelly fish.  Caught up on my reading and spent some time in the tender rowing around the shoreline.  Very relaxing.  On Monday we headed home around 1400 with a nice breeze out of the NNW which took us all the way home on a single tack once we rounded Tilghman Point into Eastern Bay.  All in all this was a mighty nice weekend.  The weather is cooling off with daytime temps in the 70's.  Good wind, 15 to 20 knots.  Excellent sailing (with some night sailing!) and quiet time at anchor.  Cigars too!  Who could ask for more?

Nap Town

We had company stay with us this weekend, a first for us.  Cheri's niece and her daughter, Jill and Abbie, stayed on board for about 4 days.  We decided to head for Annapolis, thinking that would give us something fun to do, walking around the streets, window shopping and hitting the bars.  For Jill and Abbie, sailing would be a first.  For us, going to Annapolis by boat and using a mooring ball would both be firsts.

We departed later than we had hoped on Friday, around 1300.  The wind, less than 5 knots NNW, was on our nose the entire way so we ran under power.  Bummer.  When we arrived we found all the mooring balls were taken.  I hadn't arranged for a plan B so we stalled in the "south anchorage" while I perused the charts looking for a place we could spend the night and still have access to the downtown area.  We thought of anchoring right there but this anchorage is way out in the open, totally unprotected and boat traffic is constantly cutting through there.  The choppy water alone would make it miserable.  The fact that most of the anchorage is in 35' of water also played into it.  It was now 1730 and this place was packed.  Our options here were limited so we decided to head out and come back the next day.

We cruised over to Whitehall Bay (click here) with the intention of dropping anchor at the NE end, near Meredith Creek.  As we entered the bay I noticed a small creek running off at the NW end which looked much more interesting.  The entrance to Mill Creek is a tight zig-zag but it's well marked and not difficult.  Once inside, the creek opens up and extends back for a long way, almost to Rte 50.  We snagged a nice, quiet spot just below Providence Cove along an unpopulated piece of shoreline.  Just on the other side of the trees is an Annapolis landmark, the large radio towers at the entrance to the Severn River.

Once we got the anchor set we launched the tender for a trip upstream to explore things for a while. If you look on the chart (click here) you'll see where the depth goes from 7' to 5', changes from light blue to dark blue, back towards Rte 179.  That's about how far we got before turning back.  Not really very far but it was a nice ride with lots of beautiful homes and big boats to see.  Lotsa money back in there.  When we got back to our boat Cheri made pizza for dinner.  We put Abbie to bed and then the three of us crawled up on our bed and watched a movie.

The next day, Saturday, we had French Toast made with cinnamon-raisin bread. Mmm mmmm good.  Finally got under way around noon and headed over to Annapolis again.  I was planning to anchor out in the "south anchorage" for the day and then head further up the Severn River to anchor for the night.  When we got over there though we found that the mooring area was half empty.  We cruised over and snagged a ball that gave us a great spot looking down the throat of "Ego Alley", the nickname for the city docks.  Probably one of the

best spots there and it only costs $35/night.  The Annapolis mooring field has something like 75 mooring balls available with different sizes to suit different sized boats.  The 24" mooring ball is attached to an anchor of some sort, engine block, large chunk of concrete, etc.  The ball floats on the surface and has a pennant attached with an eye in the loose end.  You're supposed to snag this line and loop your own line through it which is then attached to the boat.  When it's time to go you simply let one end of your line go, pull it through the eye and take off.  This being our first shot at using a mooring ball I'll admit it took a few attempts.  The wind was blowing 15 knots out of the ESE so we circled around the mooring field and came at the ball headed into the wind.  I slowly coasted up on the ball but we hadn't pre-arranged any hand signals and I missed it.  With the wind blowing us around and other boats in the vicinity I didn't attempt any maneuvering and just circled around for a second try.  This time we settled on some hand signals and Cheri was able to snag the line.  Unfortunately I decided we were being blown off to the side and hit the bow thruster to bring us back, yanking the line out of Cheri's grasp in the process.  OK, third attempt.  We circled around again, came up on the ball, Cheri snagged the line with her boat hook and had us tied off before, well...you know...before I could yank it away.

Once we got settled in we hailed the harbor taxi and got a lift into town.  We walked around (click here), working our way up Main Street towards St. Anne's on Church Circle.  About half way there we stopped in a small Deli for lunch (crab cakes and Sam Adams Summer Brew!).  Feeling reinvigorated, we continued up the hill, perusing the shops as we went.  When we arrived at the circle we crossed over to the State House on State Circle.  Annapolis served as the capitol of the United States for a brief period from 1783 to 1784 and this building ( the State House) is where  George Washington resigned his commission as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army.  This is also where the state senate ratified the Articles of Confederation in the forming of our country, the good old USA.  Walking through these streets you get a sense of history all around you.  We walked around to Maryland Avenue and eventually found our way to a nice cigar shop about halfway down the road where we picked up some stogies for later on.  We then walked down through the old neighborhoods on Prince George Street to Randall Street and worked our way back towards the docks.  Middleton Tavern invited us in for raw oysters, shrimp and drinks before heading over to Hats in the Belfry on Main Street to try on about 100 hats.  From there we walked down to the harbor and found a good spot on the wall to take a load off our feet and smoke our cigars.  Continuing on we walked around the harbor and checked out all the boats before deciding what we really needed was some ice cream.  There's an ice cream shop right there on Dock Street but it had a line going out the door and wrapping around the block.  Standing in line is not how we like to spend our time so we continued on and found a nice old general store on Market Space that sold ice cream without the wait.  Perfect!

By the time we finished our ice cream and got back to the boat it was 2200.  I checked the weather for an update and found they were calling for rain to start around midnight.  We pulled in the tender and packed up the cockpit.  Finally hit the sack around midnight.  This was such a nice day.  Relaxing pace, good food and drinks, interesting shops and plenty of things to see and a fine cigar to top it all off.  Plus the girls ended up with a few hats!  Note:  in the picture is a monstrous yacht, about 80' or 90', that was parked near our mooring.  I think that thing has been there for at least a couple months.  Probably has to wait for that "once-a year" extra high tide to get back out to the deep water.  Or maybe he's waiting for the price of diesel to go down.  Or he came to Annapolis, wised up and traded it in for a sailboat.  Or it could be that he got in there and then realized he didn't have enough room to turn around to get out.  Or maybe he's waiting for the swelling to go down on those things on his mast.  Yegads, can you imagine the operating cost for that thing?  The dock fee alone is probably more than I make in a year.

We were on a tight schedule for Sunday because Cheri's older brother was stopping by for a quick visit in the afternoon so we had to be on our way early in the day.  We got up at 0630 and had a quick breakfast before getting under way.  Once we were clear of the mooring field we set the sails and were on our way.  Wind was about 10 to 12 knots NNE which was good for the beginning of our trip, giving us a nice breeze on our port side and good speed over ground (SOG) of about 7 knots.  After we got down to Thomas Point Light we turned more before the wind and our speed dropped off to 5 or 6 knots and we sailed wing and wing with the main out one side and the genoa out the other.  We cruised on like that for about an hour with everyone except me asleep in the cockpit.  Approaching Herring Bay we secured the sails and went in the rest of the way under power.  Backed into our slip around 1430.

This was such a nice weekend.  Got some sailing in.  The anchorage in Mill Creek turned out to be a really great spot.  The time in old Annapolis was a total joy.  I also researched anchorages in the area when we couldn't find a place to anchor on Friday and it looks like there's several good places further up the Severn River worth checking out.  But best of all, our visit with Jill and Abbie was a blast.

Chesapeake Perfection

Last weekend (8/2 to 8/4) we sailed out to our favorite spot on the Wye River.  Again.  It's just the most serene place I know within a day's sail from our marina.

We didn't get going until 1430 because of prior commitments.  Once we got the sails up we were making over 7 knots the entire way though.  The wind was blowing out of the SSE, 15 knots, so we had it on our beam the entire way across the Chesapeake and up into Eastern Bay.  Made it all the way to the Miles River on a single tack too.  Sweet!  We sailed right up to the entrance to the Wye River before dropping the sails (uhm, furling the sails) and then motored the rest of the way to our destination, Ward's Cove.  Had the whole place to ourselves except for the occasional crabber.  And I won't mention the one that showed up at 0300.

We anchored further out from shore than we usually do in order to take advantage of the nice breeze.  The anchor was set and we settled in for the evening by 1830.  That's a four hour run from HHN, record time.

Saturday I spent way too much time trying to repair the broken handle on the forward head door.  It had gone limp on us during our trip to Bermuda and wouldn't stay latched.  I pulled the handles off and removed the latch mechanism.  I could see a broken spring inside but didn't want to go to the trouble of dismantling it any further.  Instead I swapped out the latch from the door to the forward stateroom.  This door stays open 99.999% of the time so I figured it could donate it's parts until we got a replacement.  The thing I didn't account for was that these two doors open in opposite directions  This meant that the latch had to be turned around as well as the lock mechanism.  Took me several tries before I got that one figured out.  In the end, my ten minute repair took over two hours but we now have a door to the head that'll stay shut.  That's important!

It was pretty grey out all day Saturday.  We rigged tarps over the sides of the Bimini in case it rained and spent most of the afternoon in the cockpit enjoying the breeze.  Sometimes it's nice just to kick back and waste a day away.  Cheri worked on her watercolor painting and I worked on a Bloody Mary.  Later in the afternoon we got in the tender and rowed around the cove.  We ventured  further out than we had before and found a nice inlet just up-river.  We explored that for a while and decided it was probably too shallow to bring the boat into.  Too bad.  This is a pretty nice spot, cut way back from the river, completely out of site.  I suspect the water's only about 3 or 4 feet deep though.  On the way back to the boat we fired up our cigars and drifted with the current for about an hour.  Sooooo laid back.

Back at the boat I still had half my cigar left so I crawled up in the bow seat.  Cheri surprised me with a Breakfast Martini (orange marmalade and vodka, mmmmmmmm).  I sat there for another 45 minutes and listened to the birds and watched the fish jumping out of the water all around us.  This is such a peaceful spot, very mellow.  It draws you into the serenity and practically forces you to relax.  "Sit there.  Shut up.  Breathe.  Enjoy".  I can take that kind of abuse.

For dinner Cheri made pizza (the best - cheese stuffed crust, hot sausage, mild spices) which we enjoyed while watching a movie.  After the cloudy day the evening air was cool with the sky crystal clear.  When the movie was over I went up on deck and stared at the stars for a while.  This is a great anchorage for that.  There are no homes along the shore, no intrusive lights, and the nearest town is St. Michaels which is miles away, just a distant glow.

Sunday morning we slept in late.  We had waffles, eggs and coffee for breakfast and then just laid around and enjoyed a clear, breezy morning.  We finally packed up and headed out around 1400.  Once out into the Miles River we found a nice breeze, 15 to 20 knots out of the NNW.  After making the turn into Eastern Bay we had a straight run all the way home at 7.5 to 8 knots.  Actually had to reduce the genoa by about 30% to keep the rail out of the water and make for a more comfortable ride home.  I think I've mentioned before that our boat runs best when heeled over 15 degrees or less so it really pays to reduce sail.  In this case it had little affect on our speed and we enjoyed an exhilarating run back to the marina.  Another four hour sail for the record books.

The little blurb about the night sky reminded me of something we saw on our sail to Bermuda.  Marine phosphorescence.  I think I saw it from a distance when I was in the Navy years ago but I remember it as a glow in the water.  What we saw from our boat was more like sparks from a campfire, only greenish/blue, and sometimes in bigger globs, like when chunks of burning paper rise up from the flames.  We could see it in breaking waves too and used it's glow to help steer on really dark nights so we'd meet the waves at a good angle even though we couldn't see the wave itself.  I tried to find a picture on the internet but couldn't find anything that even resembled what we saw.  Probably for the same reason we don't have any pictures of it....we were so fascinated by the phosphorescence we didn't even think about taking pictures.  It was so faint though it probably wouldn't have shown up in a photo.  Nice memory though.

Looking Back and Forth

Looking back on our trip to Bermuda I'd have to say we're fairly satisfied with the work we've done on the boat so far.  There are a few things that need to be improved and we're now working on a list of new projects to take on over the next year.

Improvements mainly have to do with the job that was done in the galley last Winter.  There are a few things we've found that just don't work as well as we thought they would.  The biggest thing is the lids for the fridge and freezer.  We removed the strut that originally held up the single lid thinking we'd get better access with it opening wider.  This looked good on paper but in actuality those lids are now much heavier because of the Corian and they don't open far enough back to stay on their own.  We need to add a latch to hold them up or go back to the struts.  We're also having a clearance problem with the lid seal on the fridge and it's slowly destroying itself every time we close the lid.  The one other thing that didn't work out is the location of the faucet.  They set it back too far from the side of the sink and it needs to be moved about 2" closer.  Fortunately we still have a piece of the Corian counter top and can make an oval piece to cover the hole and give a little more thickness around the new location.  The concern was that the Corian would crack if the faucet was too close to the edge but I think we'll be OK by doubling the thickness.

On our list of new projects, this coming Fall we're planning to have some cabinets made for the aft cabin.  The largest one will be at the head of the bunk along the port side of the hull.  There's a shelf there now that had been previously widened to 10" and that will now serve as the base for the cabinet (in the picture this is where the hat is).  We're also thinking about adding a cabinet on the aft bulkhead between this shelf and the bump-out for the genset (in the picture, the genset is out of the picture to the far left).  The space has already been taken from the bunk because of the genset and a shallow cabinet there would serve well for storing tools.  We also want to add a storage slot in the overhead where we could slide the Eisenglass panels for the cockpit enclosure.  We're making storage pockets for each panel (seven panels total) out of cheap cotton sheets but they need to be stored flat to keep the panels in good shape.  The slot only needs to be about 2" in height but would take up the entire ceiling over one side of the bunk.  This space doesn't have headroom for standing up at the bunk but you can crawl around on it OK.  I don't think the overhead storage slot would take away from that although we are slowly chiseling away at that aft bunk and will eventually get it down from a double to a single.  On the bright side, if there's a couple staying aboard we could still stack 'em up in there pretty well.

In the forward head we have an idea for adding a cabinet for more storage but we're not sure at this point if that'll get done this Fall.  We do have plans to replace the manual pump toilet with an electric one though.  That's pretty high on the priority list.  In fact it's right at the top.  We want to plumb it with fresh water instead of raw water from outside to prevent the hoses from going bad.  Using raw water they get a buildup of calcified crud on the inside that leads to poor flow and eventual stink.  It'd be nice to avoid that if we can.  We've been flushing with fresh water for the most part already so hopefully our hoses are still good, all having been replaced in 2010.  The electric head will be wired up to the leads for the bow thruster since that's located almost directly below the toilet and the wires are beefy enough for the job already.  I seriously doubt anyone will be using the head while we're running the bow thruster.  The noise alone would drive them out of there.  Using fresh water we'll have to change our water pump to a continuous pressure pump instead of the variable one we have now.  It currently runs between 20 and 40 psi and a continuous pressure would be an improvement all around.  The new pump is on order, Whale constant pressure (p/n UF1815), rated at 4.75 gpm and 45 psi.  This project is already moving ahead!

Another project for the forward head is to add better lighting.  There's a 115VAC line under the forward bunk that I could easily tie into and run up the forward bulkhead for an extra outlet at the head of our bed.  It'd be an easy job to take it through the wall to a spot above the mirror for a light fixture in the head.  That line is already GFI protected.  We just need to find a nice light fixture that'll fit in that small space.

Topside we also have a few projects coming up.  We have two 85 watt solar panels currently mounted on the Bimini frame.  I have two 140 watt panels waiting in storage but we need to build a frame to hold all four.  I have a design in mind that would be free-standing instead of using the Bimini frame.  It would be mounted to the toe rail giving it more width and be made of beefier SS tubing than the 1" stuff that's up there now.  We looked into an arch but it's more elaborate than what we need and definitely too expensive.  I think we could have a frame built locally for less and tie it into the existing wind generator mount located at the aft port side corner of the boat.  Maybe even add a second wind generator on the starboard side.  Maybe we could also attach the Bimini frame to this and clean up the clutter in the cockpit a little bit.  Man, this dreamin' can get carried away.

Our cool-man tender derrick is almost complete.  I have the cleats and stuff needed to finish the derrick itself but for storing the tender on deck we need something cooler than a couple of 4x4's.  A really nice cradle, maybe made of teak, would be just the ticket.  I think the cradle would most likely be 6' long boards angled in towards each other just a bit so that the tender could slide onto them from one side or the other.  The boards would support the fiberglass hull of the tender and maybe have a canvass pad for a smooth ride.  The picture kinda shows what I have in mind but mine would would go across the cabin top just behind the mast from port to starboard instead of running fore and aft like that one.  I'm also thinking the cradle would be attached to a stainless steel frame (1.5" tubing) that would attach to the handrails on either side of the cabin top.  It would have to be high enough off the deck so the hatch in the Salon could open a bit for some fresh air but not so high that the dinghy would block the helmsman's view forward.  We'd probably have to come up with a slick cover for the tender too, maybe one that matches the Dodger and Bimini.  Yeah!  Now we're talkin'!  This is gonna be a fun project!

The list is longer but if I write it all out then it get's kinda intimidating.  This is a good start and if we can get this done in the next six months we'll be doing well.  Let's get to it!

Gearing Up for Going Out

This past winter we concentrated on gear we thought we should have for our Bermuda adventure including safety items, necessary toys and things on our "electronics" list.

We added an auto pilot system which was absolutely essential considering we only had a crew of two.  Having to drive the boat manually for 5 days straight, shared between two people would have been dangerously exhausting.  We also added AIS (Automatic Identification System) which turned out to be very useful, especially at night.  The module has to be programmed by the company you buy it from, in our case MTS.  They put in information about La Vida Dulce including the boat's name, LOA (length), Beam (width), Draft (depth), location of AIS antennas on board, MMSI #, USCG documentation # and our boat's call sign.  All this stuff gets broadcasted along with our GPS location so other ships can see where we are and contact us if necessary.  From their display they'll be able to tell who we are, where we are and what direction and speed we're going.  We'll also get this same information about them.  On more than one occasion this turned out to be very useful and we were able to contact large ships that were on a converging course with us and verify that they were aware of our presence.  AIS in conjunction with radar made sailing at night do-able.  Another thing that got a lot of use was a remote microphone with full controls for the VHF radio.  The radio is mounted below at the Nav station and having this mic mounted at the helm made life easier and safer.  We had used a hand-held VHF radio before but it's range was very limited, just a few miles at the most.  Our main radio has up to 25 watts of power and it's antenna is mounted at the top of our 59' mast.  We routinely made contact with other ships over 15 miles away.

One of our big concerns was getting a life raft for the trip.  We looked into buying one but there are a few things that held us back.  A life raft for off shore is built to higher standards than one for coastal or inland waters.  The floor is insulated, the material it's built from is more rugged, it has a canopy and a whole list of additional stuff to keep you alive in harsher conditions.  This is all good but it comes at a hefty cost.  We wanted a six man raft and the price for that is over $4000.  On top of that they're required to be sent back to the factory every one to three years to be inspected.  If we bought one now it'd have to be sent in shortly after we leave in 2014.  Another option for us was to rent one for this trip.  We looked around and all the ones we saw were about $65/day.  That comes to around $1365 for this trip alone.  Yikes!  That's a pretty good chunk of change and would go a long way towards ownership.  Tough call.  Then we got a note from one of the other guys going on the trip with us and he found a rental place in Norfolk that gave us a six man raft for $550.  I jumped on that!  The one we rented was in a satchel and we stored it in the cockpit locker.  We kept it loose in there thinking we wanted to be able to get it out in a hurry.  This turned out to be a bad idea because that satchel weighed about 90 pounds and during that storm on the return trip it really got knocked around, tearing loose both the depth sounder module and the diesel heater.  When we invest in our own life raft I think we'll get one in a canister and mount it somewhere up on deck.

We invested in an EPIRB.  This is a cool little device that when activated sends out a radio beacon that interfaces with the international search and rescue satellite system.  The idea is to get responders going within the first 24 hours of a disaster, the time period of highest survivability.    Our EPIRB is manually activated, which means we have to unclip it from it's mounting bracket.  Once unclipped it automatically begins sending out it's signal.  There is another type that begins when immersed in water.  I guess that's good if you forget to unclip it or something.  Maybe one less thing to think about.  Personally I think I'm gonna be concentrating on that little EPIRB if our boat is going down.  I'd probably rip it right off the wall.

Other safety items we added were personal harnesses/lifevests with tethers and jack lines.  Jack lines on our boat are attached just aft of the bowsprit at deck level and run along both sides on the cabin top.  They terminate at padeyes mounted on the outside of the cockpit coaming.  There's another pair of jack lines in the foot well of the cockpit.  The idea is that you wear a harness at all times when topside while underway.  The harness is attached to the jack line by a tether that's either 3' or 6' long.  If you need to go forward from the cockpit you stay clipped in at the cockpit until you're clipped onto the jack line going forward.  On some boats the jack lines run along the deck on each side.  We chose to run ours along the cabin top to keep the tether point in closer to the center of the boat in case someone fell, hopefully preventing them from going overboard.  Our harnesses are also our life vests and will automatically inflate when submerged more than 4". We were faithful about using this gear and not taking any chances.  The harnesses were kinda hot though so in mild weather during the day we didn't wear them in the cockpit.  We did stick to our rule about wearing them at night and for going up on deck at any time.  We had two instances in particular when the harnesses paid for themselves.  The first time was when the mainsail blew out.  Jeff and I were on deck in pretty nasty weather getting the main wrapped up and secured to the boom.  Waves were breaking over the bow and more than once I was up to my knees in water.  The second time was on the trip home from Bermuda.  Cheri went up on deck during a squall with 45 knot winds to untangle the out-haul for the staysail.  Only with good harnesses, tethers and jack lines would we have even considered going out there in that kind of stuff.

We had intended to get a single side band radio (SSB) which is a high frequency radio capable of communicating around the world and is also able to send and receive e-mail messages which is very handy for getting up-to-date weather information.  Our cash reserves dried up before we got that far though so we fell back to plan B and rented a satellite phone.  It seemed like a good idea as an alternative to the radio but in actuality we had a terrible time getting a signal and were only able to make one call the entire time we were out.  Before we head out in 2014 we're getting an SSB.

One other thing we did to prepare for our trip to Bermuda was finding a place to stash our dinghy.  Up until now we've been storing it in the dinghy rack at the marina when not in use or pulling it behind the boat when going out to anchor somewhere.  That has worked fine for on the Chesapeake Bay.  Out on the ocean though it's a whole different can of worms.  You don't want to tow it because it'll slow you down a bit which can really add up to extra time on an extended cruise.  More importantly, in rough weather the dinghy can break free and be lost or damaged.  Many boats have davits but for ocean passages you don't really want to have the dinghy hanging off the back of your boat either.  There's a danger of following seas, large waves, breaking over the stern and causing damage to the dinghy and your boat.  The safest place to stow it is up on deck.  Our dinghy is an inflatable with a hard, fiberglass bottom, is over 10' in length and weighs more than 80 pounds.  Not something you're gonna just yank out of the water and toss up on deck.  I could use the mainsail boom as a type of crane but it's tethered by the mainsheet and a bunch of other lines and would be limited in height and swing.  I've been mulling this over for a while and came up with something that would work better for me.  I picked up an old spinnaker pole at a yard sale.  It's only 14' long but is plenty stout at 3" in diameter.  I put together a 6:1 block and tackle with 75' of 7/16"double braid line.  I also had Atlantic Spars and Rigging build me a double D fitting that looks like a fat figure eight, made of 3/8" stainless steel rod (see the middle picture).  This fitting goes in one end of the spinnaker pole and our spare main halyard attaches to the top of it.  From the bottom hangs the block and tackle attached to a harness holding the dinghy.  The other end of the pole mounts on the mast just to one side of the boom.  I now have a fully functioning derrick that extends out far enough over the side of the boat to easily hoist the dinghy using a three point harness.  It's very handy to be able to hang the dinghy off the side of the boat several feet off the water to allow it to dry before stowing it away.  This also is a good way to prevent algae growth on the bottom of the dinghy when it's not in use.  To stow it we haul it up over the lifeline and set it on the cabin top just under the main boom.  I've set up two four foot 4x4's to act as a cradle to keep it off the deck and allow airflow underneath.  These are only temporary though and I plan to eventually make something that's permanently mounted and sits a few inches higher.  Our dinghy deflates and folds in on itself to just the size of the fiberglass pan and neatly stows inside the zip-top bag it was delivered in when we bought it.  There are a few things we need to add at the mast to make everything work smoothly.  We need a line clutch for the primary main halyard to free up the one winch on the starboard side of the mast.  We also need two 6" cleats to tie off the two control lines; the line from the block and the secondary main halyard that hoists the pole.  For now these lines get tied off to the mast pulpit, the safety railing on either side of the mast.  When not in use we store the pole on the lifeline stanchions using Forespar spinnaker pole mounts.  The first time I used this system for launching the dinghy it was kinda cumbersome because I had to figure everything out as I went along.  The second time it went much smoother and really showed it's value.  Once we have everything in place I think this will be a really nice addition to the boat.  It provides a good safe spot for storing the dinghy and doesn't block the view at all when you're seated at the helm.  It's fairly simple to launch and recover, even with just one person doing the work.  It also gives us a second use for the pole as an inexpensive whisker pole for the genoa, something I've been wanting for some time now.  Two birds, one stone.

So Much Stuff!!!

When we sold our house and moved on board we were able to sell pretty much everything we had in a short time.  Nevertheless, we still had a pile of stuff we just couldn't let go of.  There were the expected things, stuff we wanted to hand down to our kids, family heirlooms.  But there were also quite a few "things" that we just couldn't let go of yet.  A large portion of this was Cheri's kitchen stuff.  She had assembled a copious collection of tools and gadgets for her gourmet kitchen.  Breadmakers (2), pizzelle maker, waffle maker, rice steamer, slow cooker, pots and pans of all sizes, apple peeler, hand held and countertop mixers and just a ton of utensils, bowls, dishes, etc.  She also had several sets of really nice dishes and a beautiful collection of antique tea cups and tea pots.  And plenty more.

Cheri is also an artist and has quite a collection of oil and water color paints, easels, paper and canvasses, brushes and books.  Oh, did I mention she also like to sew and make quilts.  For this she has three sewing machines, hundreds of spools of thread and a collection of material that had been organized by color and stored on floor-to-ceiling shelves on an 18' long wall.  Oh yeah, she's also a musician and was playing piano when we bought the boat.  She down-sized that to an 88 key electric keyboard and we tried having that on board for the first year or so.

We're both into photography and have a pretty good collection of cameras, lenses, filters, tripods, bags and flashes.  At least we're doing digital now.  That's a big savings in storage space.  I'm also into model railroading and have a collection of kits that I plan to build after I retire.  With that goes paints, brushes, tools, modeling vise, chalks for weathering and more.  I'm planning to build one kit at a time as small dioramas and ship them back home to storage.  Once we've sailed around until we can't stand it anymore I hope to build a model railroad and incorporate all my dioramas into it.  This plan is probably not very realistic but I'll give it a try for a while and see how it goes.  Another hobby I had until recently was working on cars and motorcycles.  This hobby is kinda tough to do while living on a boat so I've given that up.  Not exactly a hobby but I do most of the work on the boat myself so I also have a pretty good collection of hand and power tools.  Oh, yeah, I'm also learning to play the guitar.  Besides all that we also have extra clothes for work and off-season.

All this is to show that we still have a pretty good pile of junk that either needs to be reduced or find it's way onto the boat.  The heirlooms and hand-me-downs were in storage in Florida but had to be relocated back up here recently so now we have two temperature controlled storage compartments in Annapolis and a small shed at the marina for boat stuff.  We've decided to give now those things that would have been left to family in our wills later on.  That kinda kills the party when we pass away but so it goes.  After being on the boat for three years we are beginning to see what gets used and what doesn't, what we really need.  There's a lot of stuff in storage that could realistically just go away and we'd never miss it.

The past two weekends we've been sorting through our storage units and reducing the stuff.  We've now got it down to just one unit and with a little more work we could actually get a smaller one.  Last weekend we finished up early on Saturday afternoon and decided to sail somewhere and anchor out.

We didn't get away from the dock until 1600 so our options were kinda limited.  With the wind coming out of the SE at 15 knots they were reduced even more and our only realistic choice was going to the Rhode River, about 2 or 3 hours away to the North.  We'd never been to the Rhode before but had heard it was very nice and fairly secluded.  We ran before the wind on a broad reach and made about 6 knots before finally turning into the West River.  It was getting on to 1900 at this point so we packed the sails away, rolled 'em up, and motored the rest of the way into the Rhode River.  This is indeed a pretty spot.  The shore is lined with tall trees and heavy vegetation.  There are houses but they seemed more set back into the trees and were less obtrusive here.  Our chart showed two islands toward the end of the deep water and I planned to find a protected anchorage behind one of them.  As we made the last turn in the river we found a large community of boats already anchored.  I quickly spotted one of the islands but the other, the bigger of the two, was not where it showed on the chart plotter.  I began to doubt my GPS as we slowly motored in and as the display showed us driving up on it's shore I quickly turned around.  We still showed 10' of water under us but I could not make sense of what I saw.  Or didn't see.  We passed a small marker that had the word "shoal" printed on it and I spotted another further back.  Cheri called up a GPS app on her iPad and said the island, High Island, was marked as "submerged".  Woulda been nice if my chart software had mentioned that.  We motored over by a large group of anchored boats, dropped our anchor in an open area and let out 60' of chain.  The anchor held and we settled down in the cockpit with our Bloody Mary's to enjoy the evening.  After sitting there for about 20 minutes I realized we had anchored and drifted back very close to that "shoal" line.  I also noticed lapping waves about 10' off our stern.  We still showed 10' of water but we were very close to the top of that submerged island and the waves were breaking over the top of it.  Ten feet away.  We put down our Bloody Mary's and relocated the boat to another spot, further away from the crowd and also further away from the submerged island.  We enjoyed a quiet night after that.

The next morning we slept in late and finally rolled out around 0930.  The first thing we found was that it was raining.  Yesterday's prediction had said 20% chance of rain.  Nice job guys.  We had all our hatches open and things were soaked.  After drying and cleaning up the mess we looked around the anchorage and realized the crowd was gone and we were one of two boats left.  This is more like it!  We had coffee and scones and sat around and enjoyed the rest of the morning.  We finally took off around 1430 and headed home in between 20% thunderstorms.

All in all I'd say the Rhode River is an OK spot for an over-nighter.  It's close to HHN so it works especially nice if we're making last minute plans.  It is a pretty popular spot though, fairly crowded, and not exactly my number one choice for a good get-away kinda spot.  It also has this huge underwater island that's not properly marked on the charts.  Local or previous knowledge pays off here.  And I guess sometimes ya just gotta really pay attention to where you're going.  This boating stuff is not as easy as it looks!