Yesterday’s spinnaker run lasted only a couple of hours. Rather than building through the day, the wind slowly, inexorably diminished to nothing.
As the spinnaker took hold and we moved in near silence, Jennifer went below and to sleep. Hilary sat across from me alternating between closing her eyes and traveling to some other place, or asking about going for a walk and going home.
Having Hilary on board may yield a more tidy boat, as Hilary has a need to clean up. The intensity of the need varies, but when in full force all lines in the cockpit are made into yard balls, stopper knots are removed and anything left below is bundled in rolls, if they’re cloth and those items which are not cloth are packed in the center of the rolls. Our camera is most likely in the center of a roll we haven’r discovered yet.
It is Labor Day weekend. Tribune bay is a wide open space capable of holding many dozen boats. When we arrived there were 15 sailboat and five power boats. The beach was crowded and the yelling and laughter of a volleyball game reached us.
On the way in we could see a wedding party having pictures taken and figured we were probably in the background of some of the shots.
We’re back in civilization, and we understand why people in faraway corners stay there.
Traveling down I could recognize landmarks. We’ve been here before. There is a disappointment in that. The thrill of someplace new each day is addictive, empty anchorages more so.
During the night I got up to check the anchor. There was wind blowing. Around us where the other anchored boats. Sailboats use masthead lights, which is the fashion, for anchor lights. At dusk, sailboats with lights at the top of their masts is attractive and picturesque.
In the dead of dark with no moon, they are misleading and useless. Unless you know how high the mast is there is now way in the two-dimensional world of points of light to tell how far away the boat is.
In this picture, the highest light is not a star or the moon, it is a mast head light. On more than one occasion while weighing anchor in the dark to catch a favorable current, we haven’t seen a sailboat until we were very close because we hadn’t seen their mast head light against the stars.
The tradition is an anchor light at the bow or stern of the vessel. The important part to me is that it be low enough that it is not lost in the stars and I can tell how faraway the vessel is.
A bunch of years ago standard, non-apple USB cords went through a number of standards among the names were mini USB and Micro USB, there are other now including micro USB C.
The predominant standard that is on most devices is the micro. I have one cord that came with a Jawbone headset more than seven years ago which works perfectly. The average cord lasts on a boat only few weeks before the the micro plug no longer works.
These connectors, like all of the USB connectors, are surface connectors. The conductors are exposed on the surface of the connector; the matching connector lies atop and the connections is made. This is as opposed to the pin-type connectors that preceded these.
On all of the surface connectors there is metal that acts as a spring to hold the surfaces together. On cheap connectors, the springs lose their tension, which is why bending the cable over or under the device makes the connectors work.
So far price hasn’t been a determinate in the robustness of the connectors. Does anyone have a source for good cables? When we return I will see if Jawbone’s cables are available whit buying a device.
The afternoon we will be in Nanaimo.
