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 .

First part of our first big trip

We are still out on our 3 week adventure to the West Coast of Vancouver Island.  A travelog is at http://ncgregory.larper.com/Chapter-Pages/First%20Big%20Trip.pdf .

Ground Transportation

When we moved to Salish Aire we kept two means of ground transportation, our Volkswagen TDI diesel Sportwagen (up to 45 mpg!) and my 400 cc scooter.  The scooter spent the winter in our storage locker and I knew it needed a going through which would likely require about $1500 in parts and a garage to work in.  It seemed like maybe it was time to let it go after 7 years and about 25000 miles.

That left us with one vehicle.  This system works well about 95% of the time as Clarice works from home most days.  On the days she is off work and wants to do errands or needs to make a run in to her real office it can be a bit of a hassle.

We have had nice full size bicycles on the boat but our marina doesn't let us store them on the dock next to the boat and I didn't feel comfortable leaving them in the bike racks near the very busy parking lot which meant that they had to be lifted with the crane up to/from the top deck every time we wanted to use them.  Seeing how I a) work up at the top of a very steep hill from the marina, and b) don't include much time in the morning for things like getting a bike off of the roof, I just wasn't riding.

We finally broke down and bought electric assist folding bicycles.  They are the first ones we have found that are sturdy enough that my large size is stable on them.  So far we are finding them a lot of fun and I can get to work in the same door to door time as with the car (I can park the bike in my office rather than a block away as I had to with the car).  The electric assist makes it fun to ride and I don't smell like I came from the gym when I get to work and yet requires enough effort from me that I am getting significant exercise.

The only problem so far occurred a couple of days ago when I had Jarvis in a basket on the front of the bike.  He does really well there IF he is tired.  In this case I hadn't run him enough and he decided to exit the basket while we were in motion going down a hill.  Long story short is that I had my first experience going directly over the handlebars and my chin ended up with road rash.  Outcome: Bike - bell handle broken and minor scratches, dog - "gee that was fun Dad, can we do it again!", me - very sore hand and bloody chin. 

Happy Anniversary!!

I just checked; We moved aboard Salish Aire on June 21, 2014 and today is June 23, 2015.  Happy First Anniversary as Live-Aboards!!!

As we get ready to take Salish Aire on our first long trip (well 3 weeks!) it might be a good time to look back to all we have done to bring her up to her current stage of readiness.   (When we bought the boat she was truly seaworthy but at 18 she was ready to have a good makeover.)

• new LED lighting throughout the boat 
• new stove/oven
• new bilge pump
• new carpet
• new forward battery bank
• aft battery bank moved to make more room in lazarette
• main, wing, and generator engines oil and filters changed
• all diesel filters changed
• engine room floors changed out and painted
• sea water screens cleaned, changed and new hoses as needed
• black water tanks cleaned (yuck!)
• engine room exhaust fans replaced and re-ducted
• engine room blower fan rebuilt
• main engine harmonic balancer replaced
• main and wing engine coolant replaced
• bottom painted
• keel cooler cleaned and re-o ringed
• seals replaced in hydraulic stabilizers
• diesel furnace rebuild/repaired
• hull polished and waxed
• solar cells rewired where corroded
• navigation systems reworked
• pilot house roof painted
• dingy motor replaced
• dingy oar blades replaced
• dock lines made from 3 strand nylon that came with the boat
• air conditioning system controls replaced
• washer/dryer replaced
• head sink sump pump replaced (probably over powered but I was tired of cleaning the little original style pump every couple of weeks)
• AIS installed
• anchor chain cleaned, remarked and swapped end for end
• Name added on stern and sides
• hot water circulation for heating systems coolant replaced
• leaking heater replaced (old unit repaired and put in stand by inventory)
• gang plank added
• plastic windows added around cockpit
• mast winch / boom system reworked in preparation for using paravanes
• adjusted valves on main engine

 And finally the systems we still have not touched:

• Wing engine needs a good going over
• need to go through generator engine
• haven't even tried to start up water make yet (maybe on our upcoming trip)
• haven't tried to deploy paravanes yet (again, maybe on our upcoming trip)
• refinish brightwork that needs it

All I can say is that the year has gone quickly and brought us one year closer to retirement and the dream of weighing anchor for good.

First Haul Out

I plan to write up a full description but suffice it to say that we survived our first haul out experience (remember that all of our previous boats were on trailers).  Salish Aire weighed in at 60,000 lbs.  The guy we had contracted to do the bottom was caught a bit off guard by our underwater profile and ran out to get an additional gallon of paint as he kept muttering, "that's a really big boat!" . We took the keel cooler off ourselves and took it apart at C's parents where we had access to a wire brush wheel and were able to use their tractor bucket as a basin for a mild acid wash (the factory suggested dilute muriatic acid which worked wonders on the thick coat of calcium deposits for years of marine growth.  It went together with a new set of seals, new zincs, and some new bolts and looks great back in place.  The only problem was that when the stabilizer fin seals were removed the port side had what looked like 90 wt oil rather than grease behind it suggesting water intrusion.  The repair guy recommended about $5000 worth of parts and labor and only agreed to reassemble them with only new seals after I made it clear that I am mechanically inclined enough to understand the implications (worst case is probably seized bearings - I would not expect significant leakage).  We believe that since we plan primarily inland water use of the boat for the next couple of years that the stress on the bearings will be minimal while we take time to plan ahead for a proper repair.

We tried to be extra thrifty by 1) hauling during the off season which ended the week after we re-launched, 2) doing some of the work ourselves after work each day, and 3) staying in Clarice's parents' camper van in my employer's parking lot at night rather than paying for a hotel.

In any case we were very, very happy to get back in the water and sleeping in our own bed (the marina initially told us that we could not stay aboard while in the yard - later they changed their tune a bit but we were settled in the van by then).  Jarvis was also clearly ready to get back home after living in the van (he loves camping but this just didn't make him happy).

Prior to being hauled we had started changing our batter banks around - that in itself is another story.  Oh- and be sure to read the story titled "the drip" - a classic tale of a "simple" repair job on a boat.

Helm Chair Installed

Our new helm chair is installed (and the old Captain's Plank removed).  This link will take you to the full story (Helm Chair ).