Just hanging out

My apologies in advance for the formatting and the weird little thing at
the bottom of the posts; I only have enough
bandwidth to post via e-mail, but the web host I am going through messes up
the mail format and appends their
little ad to the bottom, which I am currently powerless to prevent.

I'm anchored out in a little cove in the Pearse Islands just east of Alert
Bay right now. I still have a week or so to wait
for Mandy, but I killed off about as much time as I was comfortable with
getting up Johnstone Strait, so better to wait
here.

I made it through Seymour Narrows without incident and in fact a little bit
early. Using the extra ebb current to
carry me, I pushed on past Plumper Bay where I had planned to spend the
night and made it to Kanish Bay and the
Chained Islands. Insofar as I could tell, they were not actually chined
together. However with all the abandoned
logging equipment and empty aquaculture farms, they very well could have
been. For all the natural beauty here—
and there is loads of it—sometimes and some places here seem more like
abandoned industrial sites than pristine
visions of ancient natural beauty. And it's still very much a working part
of British Columbia's resources. Tugs and
barges, with trees or ore, are the most common vessels I encounter here,
with fishing boats running a close second.

There are a lot of little runabouts, too, which serve more or less as
primary transportation for some residents. But
no one seems to live in Kanish Bay.

I spent two days there, then pushed north in a couple of hops. I spent one
night tucked into a little cove in the
islands between Race and Current Passages, and then the next at Port
Harvey. Those were where traffic picked up,
probably because it was getting closer to the weekend—I saw a veritable
convoy of powerboats go past through
Current Passage one evening, then ran into most of them as they were
leaving the Port Harvey anchorage the next
day. There were a few cabins at Port Harvey (which isn't really a port, at
least not anymore, just a large bay) but no
one seemed to be home, except for a crew at the logging operation up at the
head of the bay.

Today I came the rest of the way up to the Alert Bay/Port McNeil area,
since I was out of ice and McVitie's Digestive
Biscuits (or, as I like to call them, "Les Biscuits Digestifs Originaux")
and couldn't bear living like a heathen anymore.
With my culture restored by a short stop at the Alert Bay public wharf and
a quick jog to the grocery store, I turned
back a couple miles and came to the Pearse Islands, which someone had said
was a marine park with decent
anchorage. I can't tell one way or another if it's actually a park, but
the anchorage seems okay—right now it's just
me, tucked into a little cove, and a big mega-yacht out in the bay.

So, I have a few days to kill here, but as long as the sun stays out a
little longer today, I'll be able to take a shower,
and then, fortified with digestives and not stinking, I imagine I'll be
able to stick it out for the week before I can go
pick up Mandy at Port McNeil.

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Semi-connected

Turns out I was able to anchor close enough to Alert Bay to get a weak cell
phone signal. I can get Internet through the
phone here, and on my Mac via the phone, and although the Mac batteries are
limited, as long as there is some
sunshine I can keep my Eee PC going and compose on that then send all at
once via the Mac. It's a little convoluted,
but the upshot is that you will probably hear from me now and again for the
next week or so.

After that, all bets are off—there has been no cell service or any other
services to speak of up the whole of Johnstone
Strait so far, and that is a relatively populous area compared to where we
are headed after Mandy gets back up here
next Friday.

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No worries

As Mandy posted, I'm at the north end of Discovery Passage now, just posting quickly on a pirated wifi signal now at Alert Bay public wharf. Everything is fine, it's just very remote out here and there are few places to call out from. You shouldn't worry if you aren't hearing much from this point forward--phone and internet service is scarce. We'll provide responsible caretaker type people with itenerary stuff to call out the dogs if we are too far out of touch. So, no need to worry, being out of touch just comes with the territory.

Will post more in a few days from Port McNeil.

Scott arrived in Port McNeill (Yay)

I heard from Scott (finally) this morning and he arrived in Port McNeil this morning. The hardest thing he'll need to do now is keep himself occupied until I fly in there next Friday.

So, for those of you like me, who had begun to worry, he's now at his destination.

Hopefully he'll get an internet connection somewhere so he can post the blog entries that I'm sure he's been writing and we can all hear about the trip. It sounded scenic, even if sort of boring at times because you can't sail through this part.

~Mandy

Outfitting - Hillbilly Solar Panels

A lot of Northwest sailors don't worry much about auxiliary power sources. As long as you are in one of the great Sounds formed by the Olympic Peninsula or Vancouver Island, you are almost assuredly within a day's sail of moorage with shorepower available, and due to the fickle winds and currents in these parts, you are very, very likely to be spending part of any given day motoring out of necessity, which will charge up your batteries at the same time. And, of course, when you're talking about solar power, the high latitudes mean high angles, and, well, pretty much everyone is aware of the local propensity toward cloud cover.

Be that as it may, I did some figuring for our energy budget and realized that we couldn't go much more than a day without recharging given the expected usage patterns. As we intend to be more aggressive about sailing versus motoring, and waiting for the wind, not to mention spending a lot of time at anchor versus in a marina, I decided we needed some other option to at least take the edge off our reliance on the engine for electrical power.

Although there is a lot of information available on marine solar power and solar power in general, for the most part it is oriented at the high end--people who are primarily relying on it and have massive arrays to work with. Although we are in a position to need some auxiliary energy source, we actually have a pretty low daily power requirement... on the order of 45 amp hours with a fairly generous set of assumptions. So, with the addition of only around 10AH a day of solar power, I can stave off having to charge with the engine for another two days or so, which is acceptable.

Running the numbers (A*V=W) I figured I needed about a 20W panel. The solar pros can get into an all-day-long discussion about the actual versus advertised wattage of panels, and all sorts of detail about different types of silicon and such, but while I appreciate the math, what I really needed was a practical lesson. So to start with, I bought a cheap 2W panel, advertised as being able to keep your battery "topped up" when you were away.

I unpacked it, threw it up in a portlight on a sunny day, and got out my trusty multi-meter. The charging light was on and I measured it as pumping out a whopping 20V, which according to all the theory I had read, should have been plenty. I measured the voltage on the unloaded house battery bank (two Group 21 batteries) and then hooked the thing up and left it for a day.

Imagine my surprise when I measured again around sundown and found that the bank was lower in unloaded voltage than when I started! It was as if the panel had been sucking juice out, not putting it in! Supposedly it has a diode inside to prevent that from happening, so I checked the output voltage again. Still in the high teens, despite the sun being low in the sky. So I hooked it back up to the battery and measured again. A-ha! When connected, the output dropped to the same background voltage as the battery bank had itself. Although I wasn't sure why, I knew this didn't seem right, since other chargers elevate the voltage of the whole system to around 13.5V, which is necessary to impart a charge.

After some asking around on Sailnet, I finally got a somewhat straight answer about the phenomena from the gurus. Turns out, although I hadn't ever heard this mentioned before, that the amperage also affects the charging ability. If the force (the common metaphor for amps) of the power source isn't sufficient to overcome that available in the battery, all the voltage in the world won't help. This makes me wonder about the concept of 'trickle-charging' at all... it seems like it couldn't ever possibly work, although a lot of people seem to buy into it. I still haven't heard a reasonable explanation for that... but from a practical standpoint it meant I needed to experiment with a larger panel.

So, I found a decent price on an 18W panel and bought it. It came with a charge controller, although most of what I have read suggests I don't much need one for this size panel and battery bank.

I installed the charge controller in the engine compartment directly over our Protech AC charger. Neither of them are particularly conveniently located, but they are out of the way and close to the batteries.

I didn't hardwire the controller to the batteries yet; I'm going to use the alligator clips until I am sure that the whole thing works, then I'll wire directly to the battery terminals from the controller.

For the internal wiring I just used some 16 gauge tinned wire I had around, and ran it along the existing conduit path from the electrical panels to the cabintop (a lot of the wiring is out of spec, technically--at some point I needed black and couldn't get it, nor the new ABYC negative standard of yellow, but they had white and so I ended up with a bunch that is used for the negative path on a lot of my DC runs).

The cheap panel I got had things configured a little oddly; it came with alligator clips and a male cigarette lighter adapter, but the plugs on these and on the cord from the panel don't match the charge controller. I didn't mind much--none of the included cabling was sufficiently long to make the run I needed anyway, so I cut the connector from the alligator clips and spliced it to the 16 gauge wire coming out on the cabintop. This will match the plug on the cable coming from the panel, so it can be put in place and removed as necessary for weather, positioning, etc.

It's definitely a hillbilly setup. I don't have the room or wherewithal to permanently mount the 18W panel, and I wouldn't want to anyway without having some solid proof that it works well, so I just rig it with cords and strap it to the cabin-top on sunny days (and put it away when things are rough or dark--it's all-weather, but still, things last longer inside). This has the virtue of being easily removable, and easy to reposition at better angles to the sun as it moves or the position of the boat changes. It looks pretty ghetto, but it has been working quite well keeping the batteries topped up. We've had a lot of sunshine and wind so far, and so we've been relying on it almost exclusively, and it's done well. This week as the clouds roll in I'm likely to find more challenges keeping things charged (although happily, the bad weather will coincide with a part of the trip I would have had to motor through most of anyway).

Departing Campbell River

Or I will be soon, anyway. I've just got back from dumping what's left of our accumulated garbage, going to the store for a few last minute items, and taking on water. I'm going to stretch my time at the marina here right up to the 11AM deadline to take advantage of the AC electric, which has been keeping things pretty dry inside (except for the leak from one of the starboard side portlights--sorry, dear, I'm going to have to slather some caulk on it again before you get back or get mildewed in here).

After that, I'll head down to the government dock, where there is supposed to be a pump-out station. Our holding tank and head are both full. They've worked well, but it's time to dump the stuff, and this may be one of the last opportunities to do so in an ecologically friendly manner, instead of just pumping it straight overboard.

It's complicated for a one-man job so that may kill another hour. Then I'll head out and probably detour up through the relatively current-less Gowiland Harbour and site-see through there before continuing on to Seymour Narrows. It may be a long day but you probably won't hear from me again for a little while.

Wooden boat question

I am hoping Mr. Graebel can answer this one, although anyone else who happens to know should feel free to clue us in as well.

We walked past a local boatyard this morning to see a 40+ foot wooden motor yacht on the hard, blocked so that the bow is angled down and the stern up, with two garden sprinklers aimed at and spraying the bottom near the stern. What on earth are they doing? It seems like it's been that way for a couple of days at least, I can't conceive of what they are up to.

Mandy is on her way!

I just watched the floatplane take off. I hope my confusing pre-departure phone call does not delay or defer her pick-up at the other end.

Pressing on alone through Seymour Narrows

I'll be putting Mandy on a plane in a few hours and then facing up to the next thorny problem of the journey, namely proceeding through the fraught passage of Seymour Narrows by myself.

Seymour Narrows is the passage between Discovery Passage (adjacent to Campbell River) and the main part of Johnstone Strait, the long, relatively straight path toward the north end of Vancouver Island. As advertised by the name, the Narrows are, well, narrow. Johnstone Strait and Discovery Passage are not, so much, and as they form the main channel for tidal waters reaching down into the Strait of Georgia, the upshot is that a couple of times a day a really very large volume of water tries to shove its way through the Narrows all at once, leading to wild whirpools, overfalls (basically waterfalls, only the water is falling over nothing but itself), and whitewater rapids which rival those on some high North American rivers.

The periods between these upheavals in the Narrows extend between six and twelve minutes. The Narrows are roughly two miles long; in a small craft such as our boat with little extra power to muscle through, those miles must be transited in those six to twelve minutes. While entirely possible, this calls for some careful timing, and therein lies the problem--while the currents are less outside the Narrows, they are still strong, and timing one's arrival is complicated by their influence.

Small craft are generally advised to take the smaller, but more sedate channels further east toward the mainland, which have more current gates like the Narrows, but smaller ones and less heavy industrial traffic to share them with. I'm sticking to Johnstone for the same reason as the cruise liners and tugs, though; it's straight and fast, and the less singlehanding I have to do (in other words, the faster I can make the passage) the safer and better.

I have two realistic windows for slack water tomorrow, 1130 and 1730. If I choose the 1130 window, I will have to fight flood current coming in from the direction of the Narrows all the way to it. If 1730, I will be swept up toward it on the outgoing ebb. I have to be out of the marina at 1100 either way. So right now I am leaning toward saving fuel and dawdling around in the area here until I can hit the 1730 window. It should take me an hour or less to get there, which means I have to find ways to hang out somewhere other than the marina, but out of the current, until 1600 or so... if I simply wander out into the channel, even without power, around noon, I'll get there too early just on the current.

But I think I can manage that, which leads to my next problem: since I am riding the ebb up to the Narrows and waiting for the window to pass just before it turns to flood, that means as soon as I get through I am almost immediately going to be fighting a current to get any further north--and night will be coming on. So I have to find a place fairly close to the Narrows, on the north side, to put in for the night.

Unfortunately, there isn't very much there. The two closest choices, Plumper Bay and Deepwater Bay, are not favorably reviewed as anchorages in our guidebooks, although the Sailing Directions designates both as suitable. Looking at the chart, I'm inclined to agree with the guidebooks--both are deep, and open to the northwest, which is the direction the prevailing winds come from.

The next realistic candidate is Kanish Bay, but that's another seven miles or so. Facing the current, that could be three or four hours away, making an already long day considerably longer, with no one to spell me at any moment for a rest.

However, the forecast may hold the clues to my salvation in this case. A low is forming over the Queen Charlotte Islands, well north of here, but bringing southeast winds and crappy weather with it for the next day or two. I could do without the miserable weather, but in southeasterly blows, both Deepwater and Plumper bay look far more accomodating than in northwesterlies.

So most likely I will explore a few isolated coves near Campbell River tomorrow early afternoon, head for the Narrows in late afternoon and transit at 1728 or whenever it looks calm, and then duck immediately into Plumper Bay and anchor for the night. The next day I'll head out around noon and take advantage of the day's ebb to see how far north I can ride it to a stretch of Johnstone Strait with less swift currents and better selection of anchorages.

The real reason behind our Campbell River stop

So, now it can finally be told, the actual ultimate reason why we put in at Campbell River. Not to drop Mandy off for her plane, not to do laundry, or fuel up, or take on provisions, no... nothing so mundane. The real reason is that this is the first available port of call where "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" could be found playing.

So we went to see it this afternoon. What a fun ride! I thought it had all the right touches in it referring back to the previous movies while avoiding being just a boring re-hash of them. The story wouldn't win any awards but then they never have, having always been intentionally rather cheesy pastiches of old B-move adventures. But many of the old characters are back, sadly excepting Denholm Elliot, who had passed on since the last film (although his memory receives a surprisingly active cameo in an early action sequence) and John Rhys-Davies, whose Egyptian character would probably have been difficult to work into this primarily South American plot.

I enjoyed it immensely and was doubly happy to find it playing here since I had been looking forward to it so much but thinking that I probably wouldn't be seeing it until it came out on DVD, since it will certainly be out of theaters by the time we return from the trip.

New pictures posted

I've finally gotten to a Starbucks and got my Powerbook connected to the Internet with high-speed wireless goodness, so I've been able to upload a backlog of photos to our Flickr account.

Some of our favorites:

The police boat "Lindsay" at the entrance to the marina reminded us of our friend Lindsay, so we had to get a shot of that.



I liked this shot as we pulled out of Desolation Sound in the morning.


Mandy out rowing around Melanie Cove.


Sunset at Squirrel Cove.


Anyway, there are a lot more on the Flickr site--watch them in the slideshow at left on this page or click on one to go to the site and check them out.

Late Entry, May 23 - Squirrel Cove

23MAY08

We ended up making a quick run up the Teakerne Arm on West Redonda Island today, checking out the small provincial park created from the waterfall at the head of the bay there (again, a location featured prominently in “The Curve of Time”). Weather is again postcard perfect, although the barometer has been dropping steadily since mid-morning and a blanket of clouds is hovering ominously on the horizon.

There wasn't anywhere to tie up at the park, and as I had just hauled in the anchor I wasn't too keen to set it again in such deep waters (the more rode over the side, the more I have to crank or hand-over-hand back aboard) but there was a small dinghy float in deep water at the trailhead, so I hovered up close to it and let Mandy off for a short hike, while I pulled back twenty yards or so off shore and killed the engine to drift a bit and read a book. There was no one else anywhere nearby, and we were sheltered from the rather brisk northwest wind, so it was a rather idyllic little half-hour or so. But I'd had my fill of the waterfall by that time anyway, so I went back in and picked Mandy up and we motored down the Arm into the clear air where it joined the channel, where the wind was busy whipping the water into a froth against the current. We raised sail and cruised downwind in our first successful test of Don's whisker pole (works as advertised so far—stronger winds will be the real test, but we would have had problems today sailing wing on wing with our #1 jib up without it, so it's worthwhile in these situations at least), but only for a couple of miles until the wind dropped off and we came abreast of Squirrel Cove on Cortes Island.

This seemed a fortuitous coincidence, so we have ducked in the cove rather early in the day (around 2PM) to anchor for the night. There are five or six other boats already here but it's a large area and we don't have anyone particularly nearby.

Tomorrow or the next day, depending on weather and currents, we'll try to get to Campbell River to drop Mandy off for her flight home.

When Boy is at sea

When Boy is left out at sea to find his own way to Port McNeil and Mandy goes to Ms. Moon and Mr. Frye's for dinner... we can have all the seafood and tomatoes we want with no groaning, whining, or pouting coming from anywhere!

Thanks for the invite. I'm looking forward to it. And, since we are at a marina tonight, I can even have a hot-water shower before getting on that really tiny float plane in the morning.

See you tomorrow. (This first 2 weeks went really quickly, didn't it?)

A replacement dinghy?

We saw this fine red specimen sitting unused on the foredeck of the immaculately kept sloop moored next to us here in Campbell River and we're thinking about making the guy an offer on it. What do you think, Mr. Frye?

I don't ever wanna go home!

Too bad I'll be home in 2 days for my teaching gig. I don't remember ever feeling so torn between two places. I love Seattle. I love my job. I love my cat. I love my friends.

But, gosh, do I love this, too. Perhaps coming home for a big, fun, group class will help give me some perspective, because from here, I'm ready to just keep on going.

(Oh, and I love Scott, too, of course, but he and I are generally in the same place, to he doesn't play into this particular dilemma.)

I wish I could vocalize what it is about all this that is go great, but I really can't. I just can't put my finger on it. Part of it may just be the "vacation" aspect. I can't answer my phone. I can't deal with tedious life problems that real life issues from here. Yet, those issues will still be there when I get back. The bills still need to get paid; it is just easier to forget about it from here. I feel less like worrying about it. I suppose that would all catch up, in time, and it will be more like real life.

Plus, everything written in the guidebooks about these places talks about the crowds. Well, they aren't here yet, but the weather they come for, is. I can't imagine what it all looked like 200 years ago, when the trees were still virgin timber and the wildlife was even more plentiful. Though now the cedar tree have re-grown to a sizeable girth. You can still see the stumps of the giant thick-skinned Douglas Firs left from the loggers, the replacement Doug Firs smaller than what you'd find on most hikes through the Cascades. But I'll take what I see today as well, along with the amenities of a marina when you want some extra comfort and groceries you don't have to catch and kill yourself. (We haven't caught and killed anything ourselves yet, and might never.)

So many people have told Scott and I that this is a trip of a lifetime. All I can say is that I hope you are all wrong! What a depressing thought, to think that we could never experience anything so wonderful as this again as long as we live. I surely hope that isn't true! Last night the only thing that could keep my spirits up regarding the thought of going home is seeing the kitty and the flowers I planted again.

I almost feel badly for those who travel these waters under motor alone, with no sails to push and pull them through the water. Certainly they can't hear the snow geese honking over their engine roar. And with the option of moving fast, most of them do, probably missing the seal heads popping up alongside the boat and the eagles circling overhead. But, even though my light-wind sailing techniques have already improved significantly, it is nice to know the option to fire up the motor and make 5 knots (if not fighting a current) exists. Yet, we made if from Vancouver to here using only about 5 gallons of fuel. And we left Vancouver a week ago. I haven't calculated how many miles that is yet. Maybe later.

And I'd think that power boaters don't take the opportunity to get to know the areas so intimately. Currents play in big when sailing, as do hills and mountains and islands and other micro-climate makers. As sailors, it seems we need to understand the landscape in greater detail. We need to learn to get along with its rules. Perhaps power boaters do, as well, but I can't imagine it is to the same extent.

Today I bought a wall-mounted keroscene lantern from the marine supply store. It doubles as a functional article as well as a souvenir. I can't wait to light it tonight. We didn't bring enough candles along, and with our stove all weird, it is nice to burn something to keep the dampness down. The lantern is quite beautiful, I think, and should serve its purpose well. Plus, because of the radar mount project, we had a rivet gun and rivets aboard and easily mounted it to the stainless steel sheeting behind the quirky stove. It is quite lovely. My only worry is that the glass will somehow end up broken. It is designed to stay upright no matter the pitch or heel of the boat, which means it can bonk into the stove chimney or wall behind up under extreme conditions.

Campbell River is a nice little town with all the goodies of a real town, yet it is a waterfront working marine town, so boat supplies are available at a price meant for everyday people and not just those is dire need of repair items. Tomorrow we plan to go to the bookstore and then catch a movie. There is even a Staples store that I hope to get an exacto-knife from for a little boat clean-up project. And it is a small enough town that it is all in walking distance of our marina.

It really is all good!

Late Entry, May 22 - Prideaux Haven

22 MAY 08

We're anchored out in Melanie Cove in the Prideaux Haven area of the Desolation Sound Marine Park entirely alone right now. Didn't see a soul on the way up except for a lone crab fisherman out tending his pots in Homfray Channel.

It's another beautiful day up here today, sunny and nearly seventy degrees out. We had a decent sail today—we didn't really have far to come, perhaps eight miles total from Galley Bay, but we started out in a whipping wind and made good time for the first thirty minutes. Then we got into the mouth of Homfray Channel and the winds got confused, and we spent the next three or four hours zinging back and forth between making about a knot of speed and making about 6 knots (that's zipping along pretty briskly, for you non-sailboat folks—our hull speed, or the theoretical maximum speed with which our length and form of hull can pass through water, is only 7 knots).

Toward the end, approaching the entrance to Prideaux Haven, the wind calmed again and wafted us along a just about 1.5 knots right about 30 yards from the shore of a nearby island. It was whisper quiet, and we just drifted along, watching the trees, a brace of seals sunning themselves, and clumps of starfish clinging to the tide line. It was very peaceful and pretty. Then we heard a low, rising roar astern and turned around to see a grey, four-engine plane coming right at us about two hundred feet off the deck. He zoomed right over the top of our mast and then continued up the Channel, making a slow climbing turn up into the clouds and leaving us in peace once again. It must have been a Canadian Navy plane out on some sort of exercise—I didn't recognize the type and it happened so fast we didn't get any pictures. Certainly a reminder that no where in the world is quite so isolated or quiet as it may seem, however.

We took the dinghy ashore right after we dropped anchor here and hiked up the trail at the head of the cove hoping to find the remains of the apple orchard there planted by the logger “Mike” described in “The Curve of Time” by Muriel Blanchet. But all we found was a trail that turned quickly into a streambed (or vice versa) and a massive blow down at the other end. It was a nice hike, anyway.

Not sure what we'll get up to tomorrow—we have another day or so we can spend here in Desolation Sound before we have to head out toward Campbell River for Mandy's flight home. If the weather holds—and I think we're lucky it's been so good so far this time of year—I'm sure we'll enjoy wherever we end up.

Made it to Campbell River today

We're tied up at Discovery Harbour Marina this afternoon and for the next three nights--phones should be working and we'll have more or less regular Internet through Monday as a result, so if you want to get hold of us, now is probably the time!

We've been out of touch on account of the relatively remote conditions in Desolation Sound. I managed to send the last post to the blog via e-mail on the very slow cellular connection we got in one particular location, but the formatting was all messed up (my apologies--fixed now). I have a couple of posts written from the hinterland there that I wasn't able to put up, so I'll add them to the blog some time this weekend.

We've been having a fine time and the weather has been incredible. It's 78 degrees out now, bright and sunny. It rained perhaps a half hour last night, but other than that it's been gorgeous these past few days, and that's been very fortunate considering the majestic scenery and the fact that May isn't usually so generous, weather-wise. Looks like it is nice in Washington now, too, hope those of you there are enjoying it too.

We're here in one spot so long because Mandy has to catch a flight out on Monday. We definitely wanted to be here by Sunday night, and I gave us two days to get here from Desolation on account of Cape Mudge, which we had to round to get here, has an evil reputation in certain wind and tide conditions... I wanted to keep the option open of backing off and trying later if those were the case when we got there. Happily, they were not and we came right in, nearing 10 knots of speed on the ebbing current up Discovery Passage.

The marina is quite nice and there is an adjacent shopping center where I can stock up before heading out again. The people up here are wonderful and we're looking forward to taking the town in a little bit more tomorrow (although it's an open question how much is going on in a small town on Sunday...).

Anyway, will post more later, just wanted to say hi since we're here.

Oh, and for those of you wondering about the status of our dinghy: it's just fine. We've had it all over rough rocks and oyster shells and all it got was a little muddy. Now if I could just get Mandy to row a little faster...

Brief update

Wednesday, May 21 2008
Had the second of two very nice days of sailing today, cruising up north
into 10-30 knot winds from Pender Harbour to Sturt Bay on Texada Island and then on to Galley Bay in Desolation Sound, where I am writing this. It probably
won't be posted for a few more days, as Internet is hard to come by in this
marine park area.

Everything is still working well; since we have not been motoring at all
except to get in and out of anchorages, we've been relying on the solar panel to keep our electrical topped up, and it's done a bang-up job... better than I expected, even. It's helped that the last two days have been mostly sunny
after a little morning drizzle.

Garden Bay turned out to be a bust on Day 2 of our stay—it poured rain,
blew like the dickens, and after a day of going stir crazy, we topped it off with a dragging anchor which we had to reset in limited space at dusk.

It turns out that I am having some problems relaxing, and that was at no
time more evident than our second day in Garden Bay. It was a miserable day; we had hoped to row ashore and go see some sites, but it was pouring down
rain and blowing like the dickens and we wound up being cooped up on the
boat all day without much to do... apart from watch other boats come in and take up spots around us, closer and closer, until it got a little claustrophobic.
We had particular fun watching one gent trying to anchor—he must have
dropped and tried to set twenty times in a variety of places (some far too close for comfort) before he got a good hook down in a decent spot.

After we finished laughing at him, we looked around the bay and realized
that we, ourselves, were no longer where we had originally anchored at... in the brisk winds, our anchor was dragging, and suddenly WE were the ones getting
too close for comfort to other boats.

So we capped the day off pulling up and resetting the anchor at dusk, going through probably five or six attempts before finally getting it down and set good in a safe place. It was complicated by the number of new boats, the
increasing wind, my aching muscles, and what turned out to be a rather slick bottom. Despite assertions to the contrary in a number of popular cruising guides, a couple of other folks anchored nearby told us that the bay has
quite a reputation locally for dragging, particularly toward the end of the
season. I guess we got it started a little early.

So that day was a write-off. The next was pretty good. Although it started with light winds and some rain, the wind picked up nicely and blew off the clouds in the bargain and we had a great sail up Malaspina Strait to Sturt Bay on
the northeast shore of Texada Island. Even better, there was no one at the anchorage there, so we had our pick of locations and a lot of swinging room. The swinging room is important because the holding power of the anchor
increases dramatically the more line (or "rode") that is paid out to it.
Happiness is more rode, I have discovered. Put out enough and your anchor will hold like a rock. But the downside is that the more rode you have out, the larger
the possible circle in which your boat may swing. With other boats nearby,
this must be reduced sufficiently that you can't swing into them if for some reason you drift in the wind and current at a different rate than they do.

On our own in Sturt, though, I paid out five parts rode to one part depth... a generous number for northwest waters.

We lucked out, though, in that we barely beat another boat into the bay there. They were larger and had been gaining on us almost since we left Pender Harbour, but then the wind picked up and despite an ill-advised man-
overboard drill we conducted, we outlasted them in the blow and kept too much sail up when they dropped theirs, and we beat them handily to the anchorage. They tied up at the public pier instead.

Today the forecasts were for high winds again, so rather than getting
caught out with too much sail for conditions, we changed out our 135% Genoa for our #1 Jib before we even left. It was a very good call—winds were stronger
today if anything, but the boat was more balanced and sailed much better, even beating into the wind. Nonetheless, because we had to tack back and forth upwind to get to Desolation Sound, it took us about nine hours. I was glad
for the early start since it got us here before 6PM.

There is a gale warning on right now and they are predicting storm force winds tomorrow, so we will either sit tight in the fairly secure spot we are tucked away in here, or if we do go anywhere, to make a short hop to somewhere
else in the Sound that has a fairly well-protected route.

Pender Harbour

We had a nice little three hour sail up the Sunshine Coast from Secret Cove to Pender Harbour this morning, precipitated in a bit of a panic but concluded by a very leisurely afternoon.

The panic: after planning a lazy morning and a slow start upon bedding down last night, I got up this morning without a care in the world. We had a fine breakfast of omelettes with smoked cheddar and salami (I found both at the farmer's market on Granville Island) and lazed about checking weather on the Internet. Then I looked out the window. You may recall my describing our anchorage last night as “tenous.” This morning, it had become downright cozy—the tide was out, and the shore was encroaching on our already slender spot.

I wasn't immediately worried; we'd done the math on the expected tidal range and figured our swinging room would be adequate even at the lowest value, which wouldn't occur until 11AM anyway (it was eight at this point). But it looked too tight to me anyway, and it looked like the tide had dropped much lower than expected.

“It was only supposed to drop three feet to low this morning, right?” I asked Mandy.

“Yes.”

“It's already down at least four!”

Turned out there had been a “ahem” miscommunication about dates or locations or some such the previous night when the tides were checked; what we thought was a drop of only three feet was instead going to be nearly ten.

So I bound up on deck, hauled up the anchor, and away we went.

After that, the sailing was great—we motored out of Secret Cove, and into Pender Harbour, but everything in between was lovely downwind cruising. I still didn't get a chance to try Don's whisker pole, unfortunately—although the wind was constant, the direction shifted frequently and while we didn't have any uncontrolled gybes, we had a few unplanned ones. Either way, I didn't go to the trouble of setting the pole or a preventer, since it was light wind and we were back and forth between tacks frequently.

We dropped anchor pretty close to the Seattle Yacht Club outstation dock in Garden Bay in Pender Harbour. Pender Harbour is much like Secret Cove only bigger—there are a number of little nooks and bays within it, each with a set of marinas, private docks, and vacationing boats anchored about. When we told people we were going to Alaska, they generally seemed to picture a lot of empty space and desolate, stark wilderness, but the Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver is Party Central, crowded with people, homes, vacation plots, and boats. It's still quite a lot of fun; there is much to see and enjoy. The weather continues to be fabulous, and it's still a holiday weekend up here and everyone is having fun.

We inflated our dinghy and rowed to the dinghy dock at Garden Bay Provincial Marine Park, then had a nice walk over to John Henry's Marina, which has a small general store. We were out of soap, our salt was caked into a slab after wintering on the boat, and we just needed a little hike to stretch. Although not designed for walkers in the slightest, Pender Harbour is a beautiful little community and we enjoyed all the various homes and gardens we hiked by on the way.

Mandy, with her childlike fascination, particularly liked the shoreline at the park, which was lined with starfish, anemones, and other various aquatic creatures going about their daily business. All she has been able to talk about today is her desire to buy an island and live on it, presumably in this general vicinity, and populated with similar sorts of creatures. I've finally gotten her to snap out of it and put her to work up on deck scrubbing the chrome while I type this. She is out of battery power for her laptop; my little Eee PC can plug into the cigarette lighter with a generic adapter I have, so I can keep going like the Energizer bunny... particularly now that I have the solar panel rigged up and it's so sunny out.

We'll probably stay here another day or so. I think I mentioned we are bagging the idea of going up Princess Louisa Inlet this time out, so we have the ability to take our time and this seems like a fun place to spend a couple of days. The anchorage is good, services are close, and the weather is nice—would that the whole trip were like this!

Pictures posted

I managed to get a fair chunk of our pictures from the past week uploaded to our Flickr site this morning. You should be able to see them either in the rotating slideshow at left, or by clicking on the current picture to the left and then browsing the Flickr site directly. I haven't had a chance to annotate all of them just yet.

Mandy's update

It is time for me to add to the blog again... While we are under way I can think of all kinds of things to say, but once I am here in front of the computer, they all escape me.

Everything seems to be going quite well. The boat finally got dried out in Vancouver after being tied up at the Graebel's without any heat in it for a few weeks. And it helps that the weather is perfect: warm and dry. It is just now beginning to feel as homey as it did when I lived on it. I think the dryness factor plays big.

I hadn't expected to have an internet connection after Vancouver until I fly back to Seattle a week from Monday, so I had considerable work to get done there. This trip is supposed to be more than doing work from exotic places, but I can accept if that is occasionally required. After all, I do think it is probably more fun to sustain a career from a boat than from the office. Who knows, maybe this will end up being a trial run of something like that!

I'm reading the book "Seasoned by Salt" by a semi-retired husband and wife who cruised the east coast of the US and to the Caribbean and back, and I am jealous that they can take their time going places and staying places. They have ten months, we only have two, and our two months are broken up by my Seattle obligation two and a half weeks in. Yet I take comfort that this couple felt just as unprepared upon departure as I think we did. And we are getting to do it 20 years earlier in life than they did, so the trade-off is okay. Scott is always handing me books about sailing to read. He used to give me scary ones where boats sunk or people died or other catastrophic things happened. I think he wanted me to feel the same necessity of preparedness that the book instilled in him. But, to me, it just made sailing scarier, and the disasters more inevitable, no matter the amount of preparation. So now he gives me happier stories with smaller lessons. I was surprised tonight that shortly after my book made me giggle out loud, his book, "Fatal Storm" made him laugh out loud as well. Maybe I just don't see the books the same way. He has since finished that book and started reading "Fastnet, Force 10" which is supposed to be even deadlier. Strange guy, that Scott.

Today's trip up to Secret Cove was beautiful, and Vancouver was beautiful, and all-in-all, it isn't hard to see why we're doing this. I don't think either of us had any mission to find ourselves or many of the other reasons people seem to take trips like this. I think we both just really wanted to go sailing. I remember the day the trip was decided (well not the date), but we were at the boat, working on it as usual, with no trips planned. On that day it seemed that all of our boat time would be spent maintaining and never going anywhere. My dad had passed away a couple of months earlier and I now had nothing tying me to quick contacts or airplanes. A conversation went something like this:

"So, let's just plan to go to Alaska."
"Okay."
"When?"
"It's too late to plan a trip for this year."
"Let's go next year."
"Okay."

And it really was that easy to decide. For two people who never seem to agree on anything at a first go, it seemed destined to work out. We fretted most about what to do with our kitty, Rosie, for a few months, until Don graciously agreed to cat-sit/house-sit. (Thanks again, Don!)

I suppose I did hope to glean a little more insight into what makes Scott tick. Since he talks so little, it seems easier to just watch him to understand him than go by what he says. So far the only thing I learned is that, after all this time we've been together, he would have preferred I use both seasoning packets if I prepare 2 packages of Ramen instead of just one. Without this trip, I may have never known. Why did he never tell me before? That is still a mystery. Maybe in a few more weeks I'll have unlocked that one as well.

We have eaten food other than Ramen. I cooked up some of the freeze-dried beef stroganof that was a gift from the Graebels upon our crossing over into Canada. To borrow a word from Terry, that stuff is "spooky". You boil water, then turn off the heat and add some chunky powder, and 10 minutes later you have some pretty tasty beef stroganof. Where did the beef come from? Weird.

With any luck, we won't find ourselves grounded from not tying an extra line to shore, and in the morning we'll be off again. Adding the additional line would have meant the pain-in-the-butt job of inflating and then deflating the dinghy. Scott did think about swimming the 50-60 feet to shore, which I would have found tremendously amusing, but he decided not to. I caught a picture of him while he was looking over the bow pondering it. The wind is very light and there won't be current here and even low tide is only 3 feet below high tide today, so we really should be fine. It is the cutest danged spot to be anchored though!

Secret Cove

I'll try to get some pictures up in the morning, it's really beautiful here.

We're anchored tenuously in a place called Secret Cove, up the Sunshine Coast a bit from Vancouver. I say "tenuously" because we neglected to factor in that this weekend is Victoria Day weekend here in Canada, and the entire population of metropolitan Vancouver is out on the water for the three-day vacation. Half of them are anchored out here or in nearby Smuggler's Cove, both popular tourist stops anyway. So we're wedged in to a less than desirable location, having arrived later in the day than the powerboating contingent. The only real advantage is that we're right across the cove from the marina, and I can hop on their wireless network.

We had a pretty nice sailing day today. The winds were sketchy--certainly never approaching the Small Craft Advisory that Environment Canada kept blaring on about--but generally sufficient to move us north with a helping current at our backs. We left Vancouver about 8AM (which was as early as the fuel dock opened... we haven't had a full tank since we left Seattle, and we needed some ice) and dropped anchor here around 6PM. Not too shabby, although we motored intermittently through the more variable winds.

The weather is just incredible. A cloud front was chasing us from the south all day but never caught up, so we had sunshine the whole way. It's still nice even now, but I imagine that will change.

The cove is a cozy little three-armed bay off of the Strait of Georgia, decorated with miniature islands, walled with evergreens, and stampeded by fun-loving vacationers. We're tucked off to one side with a couple of fishing boats which look a little stunned by all the activity. I like it, though... it reminds me of summers when I was younger on Lake Coeur d'Alene in Northern Idaho, which was and probably is very much the same sort of summer-time playground that this appears to be.

We're a little ahead of where I expected we would be but not as far as I had hoped, and due to the vagaries of scheduling, we're thinking now that we are going to have to cut Princess Louisa Inlet out of this trip. It's just a little too tight to get there and then back to Campbell River in time for Mandy's flight back to Seattle. It's a mixed blessing. We were really looking forward to Princess Louisa, but on the other hand we don't have to keep pushing ourselves now, and can slow down and enjoy the trip a little more. The inlet isn't going anywhere; we'll have chances in the future to get there, I'm sure.

So at this point I am thinking we'll just dawdle along a little tomorrow and maybe only go as far as Pender Harbour, another recommended stop (which we would have otherwise missed if we had to charge on for Princess Louisa).

Personal Notes

Luke: Found a coat which could only belong to you sitting forlornly out on the boat ramp at the Graebel's place, sodden and alone. Take better care of your stuff! Your mom and dad work hard to put those clothes on your back!

Graebels: The coat hanging over the tub in the guest bathroom belongs to Luke (see above). Also, thanks heaps for the foulies, They have made at least two days tolerable so far which otherwise would not have been.

Terry: I think we found a coat belonging to you, also, except that it was at our place still, in the basement for some reason. Don can fetch it for you I imagine.

Don: There's a coat in the basement on or near the foosball table which is probably Terry's... please fetch it for her (see above). Also; Vancouver is loaded with hotties, I can only recommend you drop all work immediately on Mr Frye's kitchen and head north by whatever conveyance you find most expeditious.

Loyd: See above, re: hotties.

Kym: Can you send me George's current e-mail address? The one I have doesn't seem to go anywhere. Thanks!

Fisherman's Wharf, Vancouver

We chose to put in at False Creek in Vancouver because it is a noted center for small boating and thus convenient to chandleries and provisioners, and because we didn't really want to be dodging freighters getting through First Narrows at midnight to get to the other major cluster of marinas in the city, Coal Harbour. In False Creek, Fisherman's Wharf is the designated spot to clear customs, and given the hour and our options it was the first choice for moorage for the night.

While chosen almost entirely for convenience, as it happens our selection has put us right in the middle of a vivid, thriving tourist mecca. We are right in the middle of downtown Vancouver and adjacent to the Granville Island area of small shops and open markets. It's a lovely little spot with the world on our doorstep and I regret that we don't have more time here to simply kick back and enjoy it (and get our money's worth out of the sky-high moorage rates!).

Granville Island and the surrounding area demonstrate what the phrase "mixed use" really means. Unlike the featherweight "mixed use" developments you see in the States, which almost uniformly have residential apartments over the top of commercial office space, Granville Island has militant mixed-use that would give those condo-buying American yuppies hives. Together with a farmer's market (a la Pike Place in Seattle), restaurants, and the usual scattering of arts and artisan shops, the Island has a school, several marinas, a boatyard, and a working concrete factory. You dodge big mixing trucks getting in and out of the public market area.

As if that weren't enough, the surrounding neighborhood (largely in the shadow of a large bridge which passes over the center of the island) is packed with quaint, almost European condos and apartments, and small corner shops which have largely been edged out of American life by Wal-Mart and Target (not that I have anything against Wal-Mart or Target... half the stuff on the boat probably came from one or the other, you can't argue market advantages). It's a lovely little place without straight lines, anxieties, or hurries. I can't help but envy the people here. Although it's probably just a "grass is greener" sort of thing, they all seem on this beautiful spring day like they have pretty nice lives, and a nice life is really all I want for myself, either.

It seems to me sometimes that it's much easier to be Canadian, and probably easier on one's mind as well. Although there is sometimes a defensive "little brother" aspect to the Canadian psyche (what else was that popular and entertaining Molson "I am Joe" ad responding to?), I can't help but feel they get the best of both worlds. Almost universally well-liked, respected, and tolerated, Canada has an enviable standard of living and the opportunity for quiet, introspective politics and lifestyles which aren't always at the forefront of some sort of frenetic controversy the way things often seem in the US. I don't know how much of this vision I have to ascribe to simple misconception and how much to apportion to the very real benefits of being out of the world limelight but living just north of it.

At any rate, I seem to feel every time I come to Canada as if I would feel better if I could stay, but perhaps it's best to just leave that as a compliment to the country and its friendly, helpful people and stay away from any deeper analysis.

We're happy to be here and enjoying our day. We'll be setting off north in the morning, headed toward Jervis Inlet.

Everything is working!

So far, and though admittedly we haven't gone very far or been in anything particularly rough, I have to say I am very happy how well all the systems are working on the boat. Of course, most of it is brand new, but in a way this has been the shakedown for a lot of it, and it's performed perfectly.

Getting the radar installed was a pain but it paid off on day one, as we likely would not have been able to even leave Port Hadlock without it in the fog. We dodged a number of boats and ships we wouldn't have been able to see under normal circumstances.

The integration with the chartplotter, overlaying the radar picture on the chart, is also invaluable for confirming position and visualizing the situation. The chartplotter itself is something else we wouldn't have been able to do without, as we have a small gap in our charts between Point Roberts and Vancouver. Picking our way along the edge of Robert's Bank and through the forest of nav buoys off the Fraser River (with its heavy commercial traffic and currents) with just the depthsounder and our Mark I eyeballs would have been a real drag, especially under sail.

And having the autopilot to do the driving has been a lifesaver as well. This coming from two people who spent two years hand-steering everywhere... letting the machine drive is infinitely preferable. While we still have to have one of us on deck all the time and keeping a lookout (especially in these waters, near major West Coast harbors and full of deadheads and small craft), the AP allows that person to stay forward in the shelter of the dodger instead of in the weather at the wheel, and allows them to spend more time navigating, looking around, and performing other small tasks (pee breaks!) that otherwise would require another set of hands at the wheel. This reduces fatigue considerably. I can't imagine our 16 hour day yesterday if we had had to hand-steer the whole way.

I even got our solar panel jury rigged yesterday when it was sunny and monitored it putting a charge on the batteries (we were running down a little with heavy radar use from the day before).

Right now the only real drag is our diesel heater; it runs for like an hour then the fuel flow cuts out. While it's possible to heat the cabin somewhat like that, we have to partially disassemble it to get it going again every time, which is a problem when underway--you don't want your head down, below decks, sniffing kerosene while rolling around in chop. I need to call the manufacturer while we're in port today and see if they can give us any pointers. I've cleaned the thing, checked the fuel flow, and everything else I can think of but it's not obvious why it isn't working when I take it apart; it just starts working again after I do.

On the whole, I'm quite happy with things, though, and have an extra degree of confidence going forward that the boat is working as it ought to be.

What happened in Vancouver...

Well, nothing much has happened in Vancouver yet, actually, since I just got up and we got in at midnight last night. I have high hopes, though!

Let me back up a bit. I had intended one of those grand "we're off on our big adventure" type posts to let everyone know that we were on our way, but didn't run into a sufficient combination of time and Internet between when we got home from Las Vegas and now. So we've been a little out of contact. Sorry. We're not dead.

We drove up to Hadlock from Seattle on Tuesday mid-morning and spent the rest of the day ferrying loads of stuff out to the boat and putting it away. It was a pretty miserable day, raining off and on and generally providing a very dreary counterpoint to all the sunshine we had been used to in Vegas. We weren't able to get a lot of things done in between it being too wet to work on deck much and missing parts and such, so that was a little depressing as well.

We got up at 0530 Wednesday to get underway by 0600 to catch the ebb out of the mouth of Admiralty Inlet and make it to Rosario Strait (heading north past the San Juan Islands) by slack current there. It was foggy and raining again, very wet and miserable. In between the chartplotter and the radar, though, we were able to pick our way north through Port Townsend bay under power and get out into the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where visibility improved a bit and the wind picked up enough to raise sail.

Despite being wet, we had a decent sail northward with light following winds up through about 1300 in Rosario. Then the wind died down and the current wasn't helping much so it was back on with the engine. With all the messing about with the wind, we weren't making the time we needed to get to our intended destination of Sucia Island, so we ducked in at Clark Island and spent the night on a buoy at the Marine park there instead.

We got up the next morning and dinked around a bit longer than we should have before getting under way about 0715. We had good sailing weather right off the bat; it was overcast, but a nice breeze out of the northwest had us cruising along at 3-4 knots. Of course, since we needed to go northwest, we spent a lot of time tacking and made only 1-2 knots over ground toward Vancouver, which is where we wanted to be.

The sky cleared as we went, and the wind picked up a bit and we had some real fun sailing north past Point Roberts. It was fresh enough that we dropped a reef in the main at one point but that didn't last more than an hour before the wind dropped and we shook the reef out again.

Finally, a combination of dropping wind and current coming out of the Fraser River slowed us down enough that it was apparent we weren't going to make Vancouver at all that day without firing up the engine. There isn't really anywhere else to duck out of the Strait of Georgia down there, and nowhere else to clear Canadian Customs, so we were pretty much stuck with that destination. So we dropped sail and motored on from about 1930 to 2300, when we arrived at Fisherman's Wharf in False Creek.

Never having been there before, we relied on information in the guide books, which said do not, under any circumstances, tie up before contacting the Harbour Authority. Fortunately, the Authority is supposed to be open 24/7. Well, after repeated radio calls, we couldn't raise anyone, and finally Mandy got through on the phone after a couple of tries to the night watchmen. He directed us to the customs clearance dock, where we cleared through with a quick phone call, then set us up with a slip for what was left of the night.

And now it's this morning. Phew.

What happened in Vegas...

Well, nothing all that exciting, actually.  My sister got married in a quite nice, quiet, lovely little ceremony at Lake Las Vegas which was not at all the stereotypical tacky Vegas wedding we might have feared, but rather a tasteful, enjoyable small service which might have been done in any small green grotto overlooking any pleasant little lake, but just happened to be near Las Vegas.

We're at the airport waiting for our flight home right now, after which we'll do some laundry, get packed up, and head for the boat.

As predicted, our colds largely disappeared just before we flew down, but after four days of dry desert air my cough and sore throat are back, so I'm looking forward to getting home.  The weather has been just perfect but I'm still going to enjoy getting back to a little more humidity, I think.

The plan right now is to finish up some business in Seattle tonight and head up to Hadlock in the morning.  There are three or four things I absolutely want to get done before venturing out onto the Strait (although the current forecast is for light winds the next several days) and we'll see how much time that takes on Tuesday... if we can catch a good tide at a reasonable time we may leave then, otherwise Wednesday morning.

Outfitting - Radar

I already detailed the chartplotter installation which comprises the other half of the radar setup; the chartplotter provides power and viewing screen for the integrated 2Kw radar from Raymarine, so those bits were out of the way when we went to get the radar up and running, and all we really had left to do was mount the radome and route the cabling. Of course, those are the hard parts.

After eyeballing things a bit, I decided to mount the radome a couple of feet above our mid-mast steaming light, drop the cable down the interior of the mast, and out again just above the mast step, across the cabin-top to the port-side grab rail and then back to the plotter beneath the dodger. This isn't the perfect installation, but it will allow us to do it without unstepping the mast (ideally, you'd route the cable down into the cabin and back to the screen somewhere inside) which is outside our budget and timeframe right now. Additionally, it lets us do it while leaving our options open to go inside in the future... and without punching any additional holes in the boat.

A rudimentary inspection of the mast revealed that it was not one of those with conduit inside it--the existing wiring and halyards simply dangle freely inside. So we would have to drill carefully putting the holes in, and also figure some way of snaking the radar cable up from the base to the mounting point. My plan was to simply drop a nut on a string down, fish it out the bottom, and tape the connecting cable on to pull to the upper hole. The holes for the cable would have to be fairly sizeable, and we would need to use some sort of grommet or chafe guard to keep the cable from cutting itself on the metal.

I had picked up a Seaview mount for a reasonable price at the boatshow in January and their recommended method of attaching the mount to the mast is cold-riveting. I was initially planning to tap and screw it into place, but the more I thought about it, the better I liked the rivets. I'd never worked with them before but I went out and picked up a hand-riveter and it seemed pretty straightforward compared to screwing things in. This way, we only had to drill appropriate sized holes and then slap the mount points on, rather than messing about in the air with a tapping set.

Speaking of messing about up in the air, we (or I did, at least) realized early on that it was going to have to be Mandy doing so. She weighs about 100 pounds soaking wet, while I am almost double that; it's not too tough for me to winch her up but there is no way she'd be able to get me off the deck. The downside to this is that she doesn't have the upper body strength to run the riveter very easily.

We picked the nicest Saturday in early April to make the installation. It started off poorly; I forgot the radome, the toolkit, and the mount platform diagram. As it happened, none of that mattered, but it was a preview of things to come.

Mandy had to work in the morning, while I killed time at the Fisheries Supply annual swap meet, and then scrubbing the deck, and then helping shuffle boats around at the marina as they moved a big houseboat into the dock. She finally showed up around lunch time, and we got something to eat and called my friend Dave for a hand.

Dave and I used to go rock climbing, but Dave hates heights. I give him full credit for the few seasons of climbing that we put in, because he went up and did it time after time, never freezing up but always extremely deliberate and cautious. This is why I called him; I knew he'd be extremely safe even if I tended toward being cavalier about matters.

I've never heard of anyone else using a separate safety line while climbing the mast, but we had never done it before and I figured it might be difficult at this late date to find another partner to sail to Alaska with, so while I followed the conventional method of hooking Mandy to a halyard and winching her up, I also rigged a spare halyard as a safety line and had Dave run a belay on it as I hoisted her up. In addition to that, I sent her up with a loop of webbing to wrap around the mast and clip in to her harness... if all else failed, as far as she would drop would be the spreaders.

There were no problems getting her up to the right spot, and as soon as I got her tied off, I hoisted up a bucket with the necessary tools and materials. I tied some cord around the heavier bits of equipment and had her secure that to the bucket so that Dave and I didn't have to worry about wearing a drill on our heads. I had her tie the bucket off, then hoisted the assembled platform on the same line--that allowed me to take the weight off it while she positioned it against the mast and marked the drilling points for the holes. Then we lowered it back down again and Dave and I disassembled it and sent back up just the mount plates, which she could then tape in place and rivet in with nothing else in the way.

All that went pretty well. Things started going south as Mandy started drilling in. The mast is about a quarter inch thick, heavy aluminum, and she had almost no leverage. It took a long time to get a hole into it. Then, despite practicing on the ground, and having a riveter with better leverage (courtesy of our dock-mate Jack), she wasn't able to get the first rivet set. We dropped her back to the deck and went through the process again, and then hoisted her back up and she was able to get a total of three (out of six per mount plate, for a total of twelve) drilled and riveted. But after that, she was out of oomph, and we had to call it a day.

Based on that experience and time factors, we decided to complete the installation on the hard in Port Townsend. The stability of the mast improved and we also had sufficient help around to crank me up so I could handle the stuff which required significant grip strength (drilling and rivetting). Mandy and I switched off going up and down; I finished drilling and rivetting the mount points and drilling the hole for the cable. We abandoned the second safety line but continued to clip into webbing around the mast while we were up there, in case something happened like, say, accidentally drilling into our own halyard.

The process took most of the day Saturday. Mandy bolted the mount to the mount points, then I went up, had the radome hosted up, and bolted it onto the mount. Unfortunately, I was unable to fish down the messenger line for the cable, so we had to hoist Mandy up again, who got it down on the first try and pulled the cable up through. Then it was my turn again; I connected all the wiring, fitted a grommet to the cable where it passed through the mast, and put the cover on the radome. Getting the grommet in was a real fight--Seaview included one with the mount kit, but it turned out to be far larger than we needed, so I had to perform surgery aloft to get it to fit. By this time, the wind was kicking up and blowing me and the tool bucket around, so it took a while. Finally I got it cut, inserted around the cable in the hole, and glued in place.

After we got the boat back in the water and headed back to the moorage, I fired the Raymarine system up and after the five minutes it took me to figure out how to access the radar screen on the chartplotter, I got the radar turned on and it worked like a charm. There was a big transport at the pier of the Navy ammunition depot at the north end of Indian Island and it painted a huge return right where it should have. Additionally, I could see the Port Townsend Keystone ferry coming in, and a couple of the smaller sailboats cruising around on the bay. Next time we get caught out in the fog, we'll be ready.

The best possible time to get sick

Right now. And sure enough, we both are, something nasty with headaches, sore throats, and some congestion. But although Mandy is frustrated because she feels like she doesn't have time for it, I'm just glad it's this week and not next (my sister's wedding) or last (the haul-out). So, although I feel cruddy, there is a certain sense of triumph about it... we've outwitted fate and gotten sick exactly when we have the free time to do so!

I'm going back to bed.