Category: Repairs and Upgrading

Status, statistics, and did anything not break?

1-OCT-2016 – It’s easiest to answer the last item first. Yes, a number of things did not break. None of the standing rigging had any sort of failure (the standing rigging is what holds up the mast). After that it becomes a little more difficult to think of something, None of us, personally, were injured or became ill, nor did any of our guests, so the human factor held up well. Continue reading “Status, statistics, and did anything not break?”

Conversation Part 3: Picking up the Parts

On Monday morning, the day the Canadian people celebrate Queen Victoria’s birthday, shortly after 6 am, Jennifer helped me climb into the dinghy. I’d left the two five gallon cans of gasoline in the dinghy and added the remaining two-cycle oil and a mostly empty five-quart container of crankcase oil. Continue reading “Conversation Part 3: Picking up the Parts”

Conversation Part 2: Kitasoo Watchmen and a Float Plane

I’m not sure when pictures will get added. The drive that held all my pictures crashed and has not yet been restored from a back up.

‘‘Why do they always want to tie up on the port side?’’ Cara asked, not the world at large, not God, but Joe.

Joe looked at Cara, made eye contact but didn’t even bother to shrug.

The aluminum boat Kitasoo Watchmen backed away from port the side, then came along the starboard side a distance away from the Nordic Spirit, but before the boat could tie up the floatplane appeared, touched down on the water and stopped about 250 feet to starboard.

Joe looked at me. We climbed over the side into the dinghy. The engine started with a single pull.

Continue reading “Conversation Part 2: Kitasoo Watchmen and a Float Plane”

Status: More air-freighted engine parts, more new friends.

Friday June 3rd – It’s 46°F in Ketchikan; Hilary wakes up and comments occasionally; Jennifer arrived in Providence five hours ago; 18 hours ago I ordered more engine parts, this time from Seattle. Caro Babbo strains on her dock lines against the 25kn winds that blast through the harbor. Continue reading “Status: More air-freighted engine parts, more new friends.”

Conversation with a prawn fisherman or, can the world get any smaller; and the bleed screw shears, I make friends with the Canadian Coast Guard

I apologize in advance… this is not edited and does not have graphics, but I only have a few minutes here in Klemtu before the float plane arrives, and then I will race back to Caro Babbo in Quigley Cover ahead of weather.

Cruising is defined as breaking down in exotic places. It is also meeting the most wonderful people and in my case seeing a thread through my life that I would never have thought would show up.

Nordic Spirit came into view as I rounded a dogleg in the channel between islands.

She was at anchor in the channel in a marked anchorage with no lights, sitting dormant, not answering any radio calls from the Coast Guard. I wondered if the crew had left the vessel. I turned down the outboard when I saw a man’s silhouette in the wheelhouse. Continue reading “Conversation with a prawn fisherman or, can the world get any smaller; and the bleed screw shears, I make friends with the Canadian Coast Guard”

Trincomali Channel to Vancouver

On Wednesday night, we anchored behind Secret Island in a very well protected small cove. Secret Island was said to have been a secret gift from one of Marilyn Monroe’s lovers to her right before she moved onto Joe Dimaggio. The island is full of small homes with long stairs that lead to private docks. Continue reading “Trincomali Channel to Vancouver”

Statistics Predict for the Group, Not the Individual

Any that can go wrong, will go wrong — Murphy’s law

If two things can go wrong, the thing that will cost the most will go wrong — First Corollary to Murphy’s (paraphrase)

Continue reading “Statistics Predict for the Group, Not the Individual”

A penny for your fuse box, and much ado about nothing, with a very large downside

Very busy, full productive days, and yet at the end of each, there is always the question, ‘‘what got done today?’’

Electrical has been the main item of effort.

I’ve had the fuse box open while I sorted out an intermittent connection. As these things often go, the main feed touched a ground: a sparking sound, a burst of light and then a blown fuse. Continue reading “A penny for your fuse box, and much ado about nothing, with a very large downside”