Maxi 95 and Our Adventures
Decatur GA, 21-OCT-2018 – A friend from Oregon told us that the only real shakedown for 3000 mile cruise is a 3000 mile cruise.* Our trip in 2016 proved his point; the list of things that broke ran three pages and almost everything on the list was my own fault.
Two years and 6000 miles later we came home from this year’s trip with no serious issues to report.
Khutze Inlet, 27-AUG-2018 – While Jennifer sleeps, I research and fret over what to do about he junk that has accumulated in the bowl of our Racor fuel filter.
Kutze Inlet is a beautiful, big place, surrounded by mountains, with snow-cover peaks glimpsed around closer mounts. The water is flat and two water falls provide a constant aural accompaniment to the sights. Continue reading “Racor”
Bag Harbour, Haida Gwaii, 6-JUN-2018 – It’s been raining in Haida Gwaii. As far as I can tell that’s all it does. The wind is variable: it might be good sailing wind, or 40-50 knots, which sends us and every other boat to find a safe harbor and hunker down. While in the safe harbor we use the dinghy when there are breaks in the wind.
When we first bought Caro Babbo I hadn’t considered a water maker. All the books and long-distance sailors I’d read talked about two things: a mister for rinsing after washing in salt water (everyone washed in their cockpits after stripping off their shorts or bathing suits – they don’t sail the waters we sail in*), and collecting rain water.
20-May-2018 – Technology runs a sailboat and always has. In our age, technology has become synonymous with electronics. On a sailboat, electronics is just one of many.
Let’s start with Caro Babbo’s most troubling technology, cooking:
Taylor’s Stove
2016, on the advice of most pump jockeys, we used Jet A as a fuel. Jet A burns significantly hotter than kerosene. The hotter fuel caused the fuel in the bottom of the burner and the fuel line to turn into hardened carbon: coke. Continue reading “Technology Summary”
The prawn boat docking did not go quite as smooth as one might hope. The crew seemed new.
The crewman on the starboard forward deck, dock line in hand, watched the dock as it got closer and as he prepared to loop a line around a cleat, the aft most deckhand called forward, “get a bumper.” The forward crewman replied out loud, “oh yeah,” and dangled a faded orange ball of a fender between the dock and the boat.
The front of the boat pressed against the dock as its stern rotated to starboard pressing against another orange faded ball-shaped fender. I went back to work. When I looked down again the crew had finished docking and were preparing to leave the boat.
On the stern was written Nordic Star. Continue reading “Part 2: Threads reweave, one ends”
Port Hardy, BC Canada, 6-MAY-2018 – I spent a good part of Friday at the top of our mast reinstalling our antenna and the cable that leads from it through the mast through the engine compartment through the bilge and into the basement where the cable connects to a signal splitter.
I spent enough time at the top of the mast that another boat owner spoke with Jennifer and offered to pay me to go to the top of his mast. I was flattered, but not tempted.
In Friday Harbor, we had bought and installed an 8 foot whip antenna as a temporary solution for our failed masthead antenna. We started showing up again on AIS. The harbor master in Port Hardy, where I sat atop the mast like a Christmas Angel, spoke to us through our VHF. Continue reading “Threads reweave, one ends”
28-MAR-2018, SEATAC Airport – …and other views from up high.
The items highest in my mind are three:
I’m at a loss.
Water leaks into the starboard locker in the aft cabin. I can’t find the leak and it is making me insane.
There are two parts to finding the leak: how the water gets into the locker, and how the water gets into the boat.
This is a fresh water leak: the locker only gets water when it rains.
The locker is under the starboard sleeping area in the aft cabin.
This is what I know: Continue reading “The fresh water leak that won’t stop”
I wonder whether this annual buying spree will ever end.
In the last few days bunch of things have arrived. Today, a waterproof tablet arrived and graphics for the dinghy and for CaroBabbo.
I knew there was some sort of screwup at boat US when my contact there called to make sure that I had not placed my order twice, intentionally. Apparently, the double order wasn’t caught until after the graphics were cut: Ron didn’t charge me for the double order, and he was nice enough to send me everything. Continue reading “Back on Caro Babbo; Purchases start arriving”
Lee’s Landing Marina, Lake Union, Seattle, WA USA, 22-FEB-2018 – One of the faults I’m least proud of is falling out of touch with friends. I stay in touch with friends generally by writing to them. In this world of instant written communications, a phone call has become too intrusive, and by corollary Skype, Whatsapp, and Facebook messenger. So writing is the method through I use to keep in touch with friends.
Keeping in touch with friends is important. When I am overdue to communicate with friends, whether to initiate a written exchange, or respond to a message, I put myself into a spiral: it has been a while since I have written, therefore I can’t write something small. I need to write something that has taken some effort to make up for the amount of time that has passed. But, the amount of time to be put aside never appears, and the amount of effort that should be put into the correspondence grows, and along with it the amount of time necessary to expend that effort.
Recently, this blog is fallen into this trap, only more convoluted. Because, excessively long blog posts are not good either.
So please accept my apologies for the amount of time since the last post and either the large number of things that I leave out of this blog, or its excessive length because of the number of things that I do include.
Continue reading “The Less I write, the More I must write”
