Father's Day Weekend Outing

Clarice was pretty adamant that we were going to get away from our home marina for Father's Day Weekend.  In the end, she was right and we had a wonderful time.

Goal number 1 was to install and try out our new solar array. Salish Aire originally came to us with solar panels installed which were a really BIG selling point especially to Clarice as her dream has always been quiet anchorages with NO GENERATOR NOISE.  We knew when we bought the boat that the panels were likely at or near the end of their life but recognized that at least we had a solar infrastructure in place (controller, wiring, etc.).  With some repairs we have managed to get the old panels to limp along but when we met John (AKA "Solar Guru") at http://www.rainshadowsolar.com/ while visiting Orcas Island a couple of months ago he supported our belief that it was time to change out the panels.  He also indicated that whomever had installed the panels had put in an excellent ("way ahead of its time") solar controller that was well worth keeping. He recommended very high-end panels by Sunpower company ( https://us.sunpower.com/solar-panels-technology/x-series-solar-panels/ ) because of their higher watt density, tolerance for heat variation as we plan to travel from upper latitudes to lower latitudes in the future, ability to continue power production while partially shaded, and general durability.

New Sunpower Solar Panels (we mounted then 18" above deck  to allow for storage under them)

We were able to meet up with John and install the panels between Thursday and Friday so our plan was to find a nice anchorage and see what happened.

Our initial plan was to go to Ft. Flagler State Park ( http://parks.state.wa.us/508/Fort-Flagler ) but while we were underway Clarice did some research and asked if we should instead travel down Hood Canal (not really a canal but rather a natural fjord in the Puget Sound section of the Salish Sea) to Pleasant Harbor where the guidebook indicated we could anchor out and pay a fee to the marina ( http://pleasantharbormarina.com/ ) to use their pool and hot tub.  The guidebook turned out to be outdated in its information as the marina has not been able to address legal concerns related to making their hot tub and pool public.  They did offer that for a minimum $35 moorage fee (normal fee $1.50/ft = $69 for Salish Aire or the $35 minimum for our dingy) we could use the facilities.  One of the few things I have really missed after moving aboard is having a hot tub.  I have some minor neural damage in my spine that irritates my legs frequently and heat seems to be the best medicine.  With this in mind we decided our "Father's Day Splurge" would be to pay $35 for the dingy.  Clarice got to talking with the proprietor who asked if we were yacht club members.  In the end we were able to use our reciprocal moorage for $5/day and enjoyed their very nice facilities (including a live concert Saturday evening).

Hood Canal looking South with Bangor Naval Submarine Base on the west shore

 We had clouds for most of the weekend with some rain and thundershowers but despite the less than ideal solar conditions we were able to "make" 1.2 kw yesterday and to replace losses from our overnight power use!!  Woohoo, this gives us hope that we should be able to sit an anchor without using our generator for purposes other than watermaking and using the washer/dryer.

Solar Controller showing panels are actually making power

Our maintenance frustrations for the weekend were the Hurricane Furnace (which I thought had agreed to a truce of sorts) decided to have a flame-out issue that I haven't figured out yet and the wing engine still doesn't start perfectly each and every time I ask it to.  I think that both of these devices conspire together keep me humble about my mechanical troubleshooting ability.  It seems that every time I dare brag about my prowess in having conquered their idiosyncrasies they put me back in my place.  Oh well - it's a boat.

Clarice did make a lovely breakfast for Father's Day while we were underway. She discovered a waffle bar maker that makes waffles in a form where they can be dipped if one chooses to eat them that way.  She then added homemade strawberry jam and dark amber maple syrup that our daughter buys us direct from a farm near her home in Ontario.

Father's Day Breakfast (the string from the lantern keeps in from swinging under way, a chrome screw hides the hole in the table when the eye screw is removed)

We are now on our way home which took us back under the Hood Canal Floating Bridge (trivia:  Washington State is famous for having some of the world's longest and oldest floating bridges AND for having 2 of them sink in storms (which is a cleaver way to get Federal funding for replacing them!)).

Hood Canal Floating Bridge looking from the south (it had just closed after opening for a sailboat but we fit under the Eastern High-rise section so we don't require it to open much to the appreciation of the folks in cars)

Weekend at Hat Island

This past weekend our yacht club did a cruise to Hat Island off of Everett Washington (Gedney Island on the official charts).  I was excited to go since we have a long history with the island and hadn't been out for some time as we no longer own property and getting access as a visiting boat is a challenge.

Back in about 1991 we bought a lot on Hat Island.  In 1993 we build a cabin from the foundation up and then eventually sold it to help pay for our daughter's college education.

 The cabin was used a LOT by its new owner for a number of years and then tragedy struck his family and he walked away from the building for about 10 years.  We watched the bushes grow up around it and the moss cover the roof to a thickness of about 4 inches (literally with ferns growing in the moss).  It was hard to watch the first house that Clarice and I had build on our own fall into such disrepair and we kept wondering if it would survive until it was sold.  A couple of months ago we learned it had a new owner who is is planning to live in it full time. While we were on the island I went up and introduced myself and asked if the structure had held up.  He pointed to some minor sheet rock damage from a water leak around the skylight but other than that indicated the only issue was that the insulation under the floor had been torn up by critters. I was pretty pleased that we had built the place well.  As I was leaving he ran over and pulled out an old piece of driftwood he had found during his cleanup and presented it to me since it had our name carved into it as it was the original sign we had posted to mark our property back in the beginning.

One of our projects prior to going to the island was to check our forward battery bank and clean the vent from our washer/dryer.  Both of these projects require that I remove a wall panel from inside of the guest berth / tool-work room.  Its not hard to get the panel off, I just get tired of removing about 20 screws that hold it up and then working in the rather cramped space between the bed and the wall that is opened up.   The batteries checked out fine. The vent clearly needed to be cleaned as it is quite a long run and the lint was fairly built up in the pipe.  The first challenge was retrieving the brush I use which had come unscrewed from the 12' long fiberglass shaft someplace inside of the ducting.  It was eventually recovered and the whole thing put together including driving the 20 screws back into the panel.

While we are in our slip at the marina we connect directly to the shore spigot and pressurize our water system from the city system.  Once we reached Hat Island we needed to turn on our fresh water pump and draw from our on-board tanks.  The pump ran fine but it sounded like we were inside of a big bass drum every time the diaphragm pump caused a pulse in the piping (about 120 pulses a minute).  Thinking back I realized that I had moved the water supply lines to the washer / dryer about 1/2 inch to make it easier to clamp the dryer vent onto the machine. After removing the hated 20 screws again we were able to demonstrate that the noise was caused by the supply hose banging against the back of the washer / dryer machine and it was making a great drum head.  Some foam pipe insulation fixed the problem and then we once again screwed in the 20 (well really 16 but it seems like a lot more) evil screws.

I see that back in April I wrote about our frustration with getting a reverse view camera to work correctly.  I decided that part of my problem was likely that I was being too cheap in my choice of cameras so we bought a new one that specifically calls out being for marine use. We mounted it on the mast spreader and re-ran the wires down the mast and over the ceiling of the pilot house and plugged it in.  Initially it worked much better then our interference gremlin showed up again.  We finally traced at least the primary gremlin to his home in the forward (we have 2) power inverter  / charger and the found a way to manage the problem. Coming back from the trip was the first time I have been able to direct myself backing into our slip (usually Clarice drives by directing me on how to maneuver through a headset).  It is nice to have another option to see what is going on behind us rather than using radar or sticking our head out the door and to have another option for docking.

Another fine weekend outing

Perhaps its the improving weather, or a new position that gives me more open days to play - for whatever reason we are finding ourselves out on the water more.

This weekend we took a short run to Blake Island State Park off of Seattle.

Activities included riding around the perimeter of the island on our electric-assist bicycles with Jarvis running along side and kayaking across the north end of the island where we were able to approach within about 20 ft of an Eagle perched on a rock in the shallows.

Weekend with the yacht club

While our daughter is still getting snow several times a week (she really doesn't like snow by the way) in Welland Ontario we have been enjoying near record high temperatures here in the Seattle area.  The spring flowers are going strong including the tulips in the Skagit Valley.

This weekend we went on a "cruise" with our yacht club ( http://www.mukilteoyachtclub.com/ ) to Bell Street Marina along the Seattle water front. 

Our initial reason for joining a yacht club was to save money on moorage especially during the winter months when we prefer to stay at a dock rather than use the dingy to get to shore in the rain. We pay about $175/year for the yacht club dues and save an average of $50 every time we tie up at a reciprocal club's dock.  In the long run we have found the group to be the type folks we enjoy hanging around with and so we have gotten into the social functions as well.

While talking to another couple in the group we learned that they have been in our private "fan club" for a number of years.  It seems that back in 2000 when we took our MacGregor 26X sailboat up the inside passage they also owned a MacGregor 26X and followed us the whole time on the blog we wrote as we headed north. They told us that there was quite a discussion going with the naysayers back home letting everyone know that there was no way we would make it to Skagway (we did - you can read the old blog if you click the link on the port side of this blog included in the Our Boating History section).  Later they attended a session where we spoke about the trip and were pleased to see us in "real life".

My other excitement of the past month has been getting my technician followed shortly by my general amateur radio (AKA: ham) license (KI7CKD).  There is not a lot of chatter up in this part of the world on the marine SSB frequencies and I wanted to get comfortable with the high frequency (HF) radio that I had installed and make sure it was functioning correctly, by getting the ham license I can legally talk to other amateur operators.  So far my most distant contact has been in southern California.

On the flip side my electronic frustration has been with backup cameras.  I installed a camera on the mast and the boat came with one in the cockpit.  My hope is that we can monitor traffic behind us visually as well as on radar without walking outside or to the back of the boat. So far my pictures range from good to flickery to frequently cutting out. Hmmmmmmmm, back connections? Too cheap of cameras for the environment???  I'll keep working on it but it is so typical of boat projects where nothing works the first time and if it does it makes me highly suspicious.

On a similar note, I think I have finally gotten the final gremlin out of the wing (auxiliary) engine.  After doing a fair amount of work on it a few months back we have gotten it to run smoothly once it gets past periodic hard starting and surging at startup.  I have been convinced for some time that the issue was air in the fuel line just before it entered the engine but haven't been able to find the source.  In my experience with gasoline engines when a diaphragm type fuel pump fails it is pretty much an all or none scenario. I think in this case that a tiny leak through the diaphragm was allowing air to enter the line (and diesel to drain into the oil sump) while the engine sat.  In any case, after going to a new diesel lift pump the engine started yesterday on the first turn over and "purred like a kitten".  Yay!! (I hope)

Updates and History

Life has been a bit wild since the first of 2016.  For her Christmas present, I gave Clarice tickets to go see our daughter and grandchildren in Ontario.  I had planned to enjoy New Years with our yacht club here at home while she was gone but the weather was incredible and so I talked a friend into joining me for a run to Seattle on New Years Eve.  Jarvis and I ended up getting a rare open slip in the Bell Street Marina right on the Seattle waterfront.  I had a great view of the fireworks shot from the Space Needle before going to bed.  New Years Morning was perfect for being on the water and so I decided to try single handing the boat for my first time and took her to Tacoma.  Shortly before I arrived I heard that my father looked worse and since he was in a nursing home in Tacoma at the time, I caught a ride up to check on him.  It was good that my home had moved to Tacoma as I needed to call the family together and be at his side until he died on January 4th.  My father had been ailing for several years so in a way his passing was a blessing but I do miss him.  The church where we had the memorial service was overflowing as my father was a very quiet person but always passed a sense of caring and love to everyone who knew him.

Once funerals were past, my immune system let down its guard and I ended up with a respiratory ailment that knocked me over for more than a week.  Having mild asthma does not mix well with inflamed lungs and I had a good look at what COPD patients must feel like.

Recently we saw an interview with the Goldbergs posted on the Nordhaven Dreamers listserve.  As the Goldbergs were the second owners of our boat when she was known as Duet we read the interview with great personal interest.  The interview included a lot of history and photos of "The 46" as they often refer to Salish Aire now that they live on "The 50" also named Duet.  Here is a link to the interview: http://www.pendanablog.com/guest-interviews/2016/02/28/Ron-and-Nancy-Goldberg--MV-Duet-N50 .  We continue to be insanely jealous of their travels but hang in there with the belief that our day is coming!

A big change for me will be a new position in 2 days.  Clarice and I are both Registered Nurses.  For nearly a decade I have worked in Patient Safety and Risk Management.  While the work is rewarding and very interesting in its own way, it does get depressing always knowing who is mad at my employer, who is trying to take my employer to court, and when we have injured a patient.  Since the company is opening a brand-new, very lovely, inpatient Hospice unit in the same building where I now work, I decided to apply with the idea that I became a nurse to care for people.  I am looking forward to getting back to the bedside which has always been my first love.

I also gained a title this morning, I am now an Armature Radio Operator (AKA: "Ham") at the Technician level (currently waiting for my call sign to be posted).  I periodically try to understand our High Frequency (HF) radio and have discovered that it is NOT a plug and play piece of equipment but rather requires a fair amount of understanding to get the most out of it.  Since it can function both as a Marine SSB radio and a Ham radio (with advantages to both modes), I decided to go ahead and get the Ham license so I could experiment with its full capabilities.  Anyway, currently radio parts are spread around the pilot house (AKA: "Clarice's office") while I try to understand how to get it to function as it is designed to.

Our other update project that was recently finished was adding 3/8 inch acrylic storm windows to both sides of the saloon.  We have heard that having them up, even though we are not currently at sea, will help keep the boat warmer and they do seem to help.  The biggest challenge was making a second set of stainless mounting pucks.  The boat came with a set for one side (commonly the boats only have the storm windows on the less protected port side) but we wanted to do both sides.  In the end I had a neighbor cut the blanks with a water jet NC machine and then I further finished them with proper sized holes and threads.

For those who ask for Jarvis updates:  He is currently in one of his usual spots at the top of the pilot house stairs watching my every move hoping that I will sit back on the settee so he can jump up and rest his head on my legs.

Christmas Eve

I'm embarrassed to see that I haven't posted anything since July when we returned from Canada.  We are alive and all is well.  We are currently in the middle of the Pacific Northwest Winter as it is Christmas Eve and even though the solstice has passed we still have pretty short days with about 8 1/2 hours of daylight. We have continued to work on long term maintenance items and upgrades on the boat.  I finally finished getting hoses, belts, pump impellers and so forth done on all of the diesel engines when I completed work on the generator last week.  The wing engine has gone from being somewhat hard starting with lots of vibration to easy starting and smooth running now that I've cleaned its injectors and reset the valve gaps.  Jarvis continues to be a happy boat dog as long as we don't turn the boat around - we have a gang plank on the starboard side that makes it easier for him to get aboard and he is used to it.  When we had the boat turned around so that the port side was next to the dock (we do this when we need to work on that side) he misjudged the gap at least twice and ended up in the water.  We have procrastinated all summer about sanding and varnishing the teak on the bow (the rest of the boat looks good).  We finally did the job late fall and it really went quickly and was not a big deal.  The only issue was that our dry weather window closed and our final layer of varnish on one side got rained on before it had set.  Clarice has read up and learned that it should provide protection for the wood over the winter and then in the spring we should just need to do a light sanding and redo one layer of varnish.  My latest project was to put a real defrost system in for the pilot house windows.  It uses heat from the hot water circulation system and should be a real asset on moist mornings.  Our fun for the season was winning the Port of Everett decoration contest by turning Salish Aire into Rudolf the Red Nosed Nordhavn.   Clarice again decorated the inside of the boat by putting a lighted garland around the salon and hanging our ornament collection from it.  I talked her into letting me purchase a very nautical oil lamp to go over the table to finish our old fashioned boat look.  We have weathered a couple of significant wind storms already this year in our slip and have been hit by rain storm after rain storm so that the Snohomish River where our marina is located has been running near or over flood stage for several weeks (we are more affected by the tide than the river flow where we are moored).   In an interesting turn of events - our very close friends of many years, John and Laurie, returned from 9 months doing the American Great Loop in a Ranger 29 only to return to their house and realize that they didn't need all of that room.  They have sold the Ranger 29 and moved onto a Kady Krogen 39 and are moored directly off our bow across the fairway from us. Tonight we (I) am hoping for the chance of snow to turn into a very very rare Puget Sound lowlands White Christmas.

Back home

We have been back home in Everett for a week now and are trying to settle back into our work routines. The last half of our trip to the West Coast of Vancouver Island is now posted at http://ncgregory.larper.com/Chapter-Pages/First%20Big%20Trip%20part%202.pdf .