Sail Trim

I've heard that you can steer a boat with just the sails. But I don't know too many sailors who take their boat out without a rudder.

Sails can be used in two ways. Either like a kite or a wing. When the wind is behind a boat, the sails catch the wind and the boat is pushed downwind. As a boat turns into the wind, the sails change from kites to wings. The wind produces lift which propels the boat. Sailboats can even sail towards the wind. Although catamarans in general, and mine in particular, don't do this very well.

The sails, as I was trying to use them today, were like a kite. I wanted them to catch the wind and pull me. Unfortunately, with the amount of wind and waves today, I was having a tough time keeping on that point of sail. The boat kept turning into the wind, and when it did, my sails were converted from kites to wings.

A few times, the wings caught the wind and turned the boat all the way into the wind. This is called being in irons. The sails are then no longer a wing. They are more like a wind vane. They luff, keeping the boat pointed into the wind and making no forward progress.

The problem was that I had the mainsail in tighter than I should have. I had it in relatively tight because I live in fear of the accidental jibe. A jibe is when the wind catches the back of the mainsail and swings the boom across the boat. An unplanned jibe can be quite violent, and has been known to dismast a boat or two.

I let the sails further out and no longer had as much of a steering problem. If the sails turned into wings, they did so for a shorter period of time, and produced less lift. I was now able to turn the boat back on course, and no longer went into irons.

I got a lesson in sail trim today, courtesy of the sea. Did a lot of distance, just not really in one particular direction.

Strong Personality

News story from home about grounding.

Red Right Return

You want to keep buoy six far to your right as you enter Ossabaw Sound.

Square Waves

I can count on one hand the number of days I've been out sailing on the ocean. My biggest adventure was years ago helping a buddy move his sailboat from Baltimore to the Connecticut River. We spent a few days off the New Jersey coast, mostly motoring. So yesterday, when I left the Hilton Head area and headed out into the ocean, I was very excited. Especially since I still haven't fixed my rudders, and had the boatcam going.

To be honest, my first day on the ocean wasn't much fun. The swells were quite large and reminded me of the day I broke the rudder on the Chesapeake. At times, I felt I had as much control over the boat as someone watching at home. As the boat and I surfed the waves at speeds up to 7 mph, the boat just did what it wanted, which was usually to turn into the wave. During the short period before the next wave picked us up, I was able to steer the boat back. But it was at times a white knuckle experience.

Today was a whole other experience. The wind was gentle and seas placid as we sailed out of the sound at about 2 mph. I put both sails up and turned off the engine. (Yesterday I had only the jib up and the motor running at all times.) We had southwestern headwinds and tacked out to the sea buoy three miles out, and then back in to the next sound.

It was a blast.

There were some swells on the way out, but once we got out to the sea buoy and depths dropped from the teens to the 20s and 30s, the swells dissipated. I'm thinking that the waves I've experienced on the Chesapeake and in shallow coastal areas are what people refer to as square waves. As in, "Beware of the Square Waves". I had no idea what they were referring to. I suppose that's because they are the only waves I've ever experienced in the shallow waters of the Chesapeake.

Maybe I'll do a whole treatise on the physics of waves after I have more experience with coastal cruising and the difference in wave action in deep and shallow water. Right now I'm just a neophyte, not so much the Old Salty Dawg.

Pic above is a dolphin this morning. They were everywhere as I left the sound. I took it as a good omen. Shadowy figure in the pic below is another dolphin, F-ing with my remaining rudder, or maybe just giving me a push. They were all very curious about the boat.

Come Sail Away with Me

Successfully left the dock today after a month at Shelter Cove marina in Hilton Head. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. The first step is usually the hardest. The boat and I did a few miles while getting our sea legs back. The engine did give me a little trouble starting up, after being trouble free when tested yesterday.

Tomorrow we're going out into the Atlantic ocean. We'll be just off the coast. The weather is supposed to be perfect. Warm and Sunny with Northerly winds. I'll raise the jib and maybe the mainsail. I'll probably have to keep the engine running for steering. Offshore is a much more direct and less complicated route than the ICW in Georgia. The ICW is twisty and turny with fast tides to deal with. It's supposedly really pretty though, with very little development.

I don't know if the webcam will work, or how exciting it will be. Because there isn't much development and I'll be offshore, my internet connection may not be too great. Also, unlike the ICW, there isn't much to see on the ocean. The shoreline, bridges and boats on the ICW are much more visually interesting.

There's a shuttle launch in Florida scheduled for Feb 7. It would be really cool to get down there to see that. One of my earliest memories, which I don't really have now, but remember remembering is seeing one of the Apollo launches. I was really young. Maybe a year old. You're probably doubting that I could have a memory of something from that age. It wasn't a complete memory, more of an impression of bright light and loud noise. (Side note. Grampa, maybe you want to think about doing a guest blog about Cocoa Beach and the Voyager launches.) If I make it to Cocoa Beach in time, you can watch the launch with me on the boatcam!

Pic is webcam wearing sunglasses, as mentioned in the comments of the last post.

Day -1

I apologize for the infrequent blog posts. I've been busy playing with the boatcam and stocking up before I leave the marina tomorrow. One of the last items I need to get is a spatula. I've been flipping my morning egg with a spoon. I'm getting quite good at it, but I'd prefer to use a spatula.

I'm convinced that one of my boat guests this month coveted it, and absconded with it. Of course, I'll probably regret the accusation when I find it in some crevice a month from now. You'd think it would be hard to lose things in such a confined space, but earlier in the trip one of my tennis shoes went missing for several weeks before it turned up under a bunch of crap in one of the lockers.

Probably won't go very far tomorrow. I'm sure something will break, or I'll have forgotten to pick something up from the store. I'll try to start up the engine today. Haven't ran it for nearly a month.

Boatcam

I bought a webcam. It uploads a new image to the web every 30 seconds. At this point you have to hit your browser refresh/reload button to get the new image. I'm working on writing a flash program that will make viewing the boatcam more user friendly. Maybe I'll have it ready by Saturday when I leave the marina. Then you can really come sailing with me! Until then, the picture will be a pretty boring and static picture of the marina from the bow of my boat.

The boatcam will not be operable at night (Nothing to see then), or in the case of inclement weather (I need to build an enclosure for it). In those cases, the last available picture will be displayed.

Update: boatcam in sidebar is now a flash program which automatically loads a new image every 30 seconds or so.

Oops, I did it Again

Chip, my next door neighbor, and I tried to bend my anchor back. He's been working on replacing some of the hardware on the floating docks. Among his many tools he has a torch. We heated the anchor with the torch, but the anchor ended up breaking, instead of bending.

Trivial Pursuit

The boat is getting in such good shape that while I await news of my rudders, I am occupying my time with trivial pursuits such as repairing my autopilot. The model I have is an Autohelm 3000. The controller is broken, but the motor works. I also discovered that the manual override on the controller works. The manual override is a switch that you turn to make the motor turn (counter-)clockwise.

As you can see in the first picture, I attached a servo to the top of the autopilot and connected it to the override switch. A servo is just a motor that instead of spinning continuously in one direction, can be controlled to move only a certain number of degrees in either direction. In this application, it is acting as my finger on the switch, pushing the switch either right or left.

The second picture is of the micro-controller which contains the basic circuitry and programming to control the servo. The white rectangle at the top of the board is called a breadboard. You plug wires, resistors, LEDS and other electronic components into it to form circuits. On the board is also a microprocessor that you program to control the circuits on the breadboard. The whole board is then connected to my laptop by the white serial cable that you can see coming out of the left of the board.

On my laptop is a program I've written so that I can push a key to send a message to the the micro-controller to tell the servo to turn left or right. It's pretty cool to be sitting at my laptop watching my remaining rudder turn while I type at the keyboard. I have some more programming to do in order to create the logic so that the boat will stay on a certain heading. When I get the time, I'll write logic into the program so that I can plot a course in the morning and the autopilot will follow it throughout the day. I'll have a robot boat! I can just take a nap while the boat drives itself. I hope HAL doesn't decide that I'm superfluous and try to off me.

In other news, Muffy's gone - For what is likely to be at least two months. When I lived in Baltimore, we'd see each other about every two weeks. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and two weeks went by in the blink of an eye.

When she rolled out of the parking lot this morning, I really felt like I was saying goodbye for a while. Two months is a long time.

On a brighter note, she's stopping to look at a house to buy in Virginia. I am ambivalent about the house. On the internet, it looks just about perfect: 5+ acres, old farmhouse that doesn't look to be in too bad shape, reasonably priced. But if it really is so great, it's going to be a real pain in the ass to go through the house buying process while I'm trying to have a sailing adventure.

The other good news is I can stop shaving again!

No Male Space

I've been meaning to write something about this marina (as a follow up to my previous marina culture post), but we've been keeping pretty busy. Now we're coming up on a couple rainy days, so this might be a good time.

Let me start by saying that pretty much everything I wrote about the previous marina has not been true here. I guess that's what I get from generalizing from a sample size of one. This marina is not at all what I'd call a "male space." People here speak to me and Scott equally, and there's been no avoidance of eye contact or ignoring my presence. Women walk around here - there's even a boat that seems to be occupied by only a woman.

Notably, this also feels a good deal more posh than Scott's Baltimore marina. The boats are big, bright and new looking; they actually gleam in the morning light. We don't actually see people working on their boats here. For one, I'm not sure there's much that needs fixing on their boats. Also, it seems as though many of the owners hire people to do the upkeep. It took a few days for Scott to realize that it was the same guys working on different boats here, and not a lot of owners out working on their boats every day.

The Balto marina felt a little more like a trailer park, with guys always out peering under the hoods of each other's cars. Guys were always popping by to check on Scott's latest repair project, to add their two cents or lend a hand. This marina is really more of a resort where people happen to live on boats, but the boat itself doesn't seem that important, or a central topic of conversation. I think Scott misses his old fart friends from Balto.

There are nice people in both places, and I'm definitely enjoying my stay, but it's been a very different experience. I was hoping that this posh marina would have some posh facilities for us. I do love a good hot shower. The facilities are nicer here, with indoor bathrooms and showers instead of a port-a-potty and shower trailer. On the down side, since most of the boats have nice facilities of their own, the marina has only seen fit to set up one set of full bathrooms (with showers) and it is all the way on the other side of the marina from our dock (about a half mile). There are also some bathrooms with toilets about a quarter mile away. I've taken to biking to the bathrooms so I don't spend so much time going to and from...

I'm thinking that at this point, we've hit close to the two opposite ends of the marina continuum. I am still curious about the marinas that have fitness centers and swimming pools for their residents. I think we need a place where the other boats are nice, but not so nice that good bathrooms are considered superfluous.

Fore!

As promised (threatened?) while in Hilton Head, today's post is about golf. Muffy is leaving this weekend, and I had hoped to take her out for a night at anchor. I wanted to show her the dolphins and do some fishing. But it's been windy the past couple days and it's supposed to be rainy the rest of the week. Bummer. Today we played golf and ate lunch at a Chinese and Sushi buffet. We also picked up another propane tank so that I will have a backup when one runs out. These are the ubiquitous tanks that you see in front of every home depot/walmart. Amazingly, I'm still on the tank I left Baltimore with. Muffy jokes that there are little elves filling the tank at night while I sleep. The tank has to run out soon now that I am running my heater for hours at a time.

Muffy and I were introduced to golf a couple summers ago at Jones Beach on Long Island. There's a little "par 3" or "pitch and putt" course there. Par 3 courses are a lot of fun. There's none of the stuffiness of a regular golf course. There are people of all skill levels on the course. And it's affordable. Each hole is 50-100 yards long. You generally get one good whack at the ball, and then some putting on a green.

The last time we played was in the summer, so it took us a while to get in the swing of things today. I didn't get a nice straight drive until about hole eight (we only played nine holes). I did get par on one hole. But I think our overall scores were about double par. Oh well. We did have fun, and it was the nicest course we've played on. The greens were divot free, and we didn't have to dodge goose crap like we do on LI.

Pic is Muffs driving the ball off the tee. You can see the ball leaving the frame on the right.

Thanks Grampa!

I'm writing this post while the fan from my new Dickinson Newport propane heater purrs in the background. I've spent many a cold morning bundled up under my sleeping bag at the salon table. Mornings are the only time I regularly feel cold on the boat. It's a tough way to start the day. Well no more, now that the heater Grampa got me for xmas is installed.

The installation was incredibly smooth and straightforward. The refrigerator removed, the heater popped right into its place. The propane and electrical lines from the fridge were perfectly placed to connect to the heater. I was going to remove the shelf above the heater, but it turned out to be structural. It is fiberglass and is part of the hull. I drilled a hole through it for the chimney. The hole saw cut though it like butter. I was able to use an existing hole in the ceiling to vent the chimney to the outside. The ceiling hole had held a non-working solar fan which was easily removed. The heater installed, I was able to use some of the old fridge framing to form some rudimentary cabinetry around the heater. The placement of the heater and cabinetry are temporary. I'm looking forward to building some permanent cabinets around the heater when I get back to Baltimore. Maybe the cabinets will hold a place for the playstation game console and flat screen tv I dream of for the boat.

Pic is of Muffy dipping a celery stick into blue cheese dressing while we watched the playoffs and ate chicken wings. The boat is getting very comfortable. Muffy says she can imagine spending a couple weeks on it at a time. And I'm starting to have fantasies of living on it next fall while we look for a house in Virginia.

Bring Out Your Dead

I don't like to throw things away when they break. I prefer to fix them. Even if I can't fix the thing, it's interesting to take it apart and see how it works. My biggest success last year was fixing Muffy's air conditioner. It turned out that the problem was simply a loose wiring harness. Unfortunately, by the time I got to NYC and fixed it, most of the summer was over.

I fired up the fridge on the boat a couple days ago. It runs off 110 volt ac current or propane. It's a little counter intuitive that burning propane would cool a refrigerator. Don't ask me how it works. After a few minutes of the fridge running, there was an overpowering ammonia odor. It turns out that the fridge uses an ammonia based refrigerant instead of freon. There was a leak in the system and ammonia was escaping.

I was planning on trying to fix the fridge, but that turned out not to be practical. First, I decided that the fridge was occupying the ideal space for my new heater. Second, the fridge was too large to move anywhere else on the boat. It barely fit out the door when we removed it. Truly, I think the fridge was too large for the boat. It was certainly too large for my needs. Also, it was taking up prime real estate on the boat, just inside the salon door. Now that it is removed, the salon feels a lot more open. I don't know why the manufacturer installed the fridge in the salon, instead of the galley. Not very feng shui. When I get around to it, I'll install a smaller twelve volt fridge in the galley.

Pic is of me hauling the fridge to a dumpster. It wasn't all that heavy, unlike a household refrigerator. Muffy and I were able to get rid of it without much trouble. I would have taken it to the dump, but I wasn't able to find one. I don't know where garbage on Hilton Head goes. I do know that the rich don't recycle. I haven't seen a hint of recycling since I've been here.

Heater is installed and running! I'll post about that tomorrow.

Savannah

Hef

I'm sitting in a king sized bed watching the Today show on a large flat screen tv. We're in a fancy boutique hotel on River Street. Last night, the hotel had a cocktail and appetizer reception for the guests. Very civilized. Afterwards, we went out for a fancy dinner. Muffy took tons of pictures yesterday while we strolled about town. I'm expecting a photo essay post from her.

When we get back to the boat, I'll start on installation of the heater. I think I have it all planned out. Unfortunately, it won't go in the spot I originally planned for it, where there was already a hole for the chimney. The manufacturer recommends at least a two foot chimney. The chimney in that location would be closer to a foot long. I'll have to cut a hole in the ceiling in the new location. It's a scary prospect to cut a hole in my boat. I've solicited advice online, and I think I have a good idea of the procedure, so that I won't make a mess of the job.

The guy in the boat next to me is going to help me bend my anchor back into shape. He's doing some dock work for the marina and has some torches. Also tried to fire up the fridge, but was soon overwhelmed by the odor of ammonia. Apparently, my fridge uses ammonia instead of freon as a coolant. Somewhere, there must be a leak in the system.

Pic added now that we're back on the boat. Muffy took over a hundred pictures. Savanah photo essay will be tomorrow's post. Muffy calls this "The Hef" pic.

I Like to Ride my Bicycle

I've got a new bike! Well, at least it's new to me. My old bicycle was a Giant Iguana. I got it in the early 90s when I lived in DC and had little use for my car.

Back then my car sat in Grampa's driveway until I drove it to Arizona to give to my sister, and then tried to hitchhike back. That didn't work out so well, and I ended up on a four day Greyhound bus journey home. But that's a whole other story. My truck is now sitting in sitting in Grampa's driveway, and I was back to riding my Giant Iguana. At least when I was on land.

This morning while riding my bike to the showers I got a flat tire. I have a repair kit and fixed it. My neighbors had a tire pump. The pump had a pressure gauge. The tire sidewall recommended a pressure of 40-65 psi. Previously, without a gauge, I had just pumped the tire until it looked full. This time I pumped it up to about 60 psi. Then I pumped up the other to about 60 psi. Maybe 30 seconds later there was a loud bang. Sounded like a gun going off. Maybe a minute later, another loud bang when the other tire exploded. Well, it is an old bike, and the tires had a little dry rot.

Amy was going to drive me to the Walmart to get new tires and inner tubes, and what the hell, brakes. (Everything on the bike is old and tired.) But my neighbors suggested that the bike rental store where we rented Amy's bike yesterday also had old bikes for sale. They did. The bike cost 40 bucks. Just ten dollars more than it cost to rent Amy's bike for two weeks. It doesn't look quite as nice as hers, but it's pretty sweet. It's got a nice fat seat, one easy gear, and is driven in a comfortable upright stance, unlike my old mountain bike. I'm pretty excited.

I parked my old bike at a bike rack nearby without a lock. Hopefully someone will take it. I feel bad about just throwing it away. It's served me well over the years and even provided my income during a brief stint as a bicycle currier in my younger days.

The Dynamic Duo

Amy has suggested that we are like a pair of super-heroes down here in Hilton Head. Captain Gladiator and Fussy Muffy. At odd moments, she'll come up with pieces of back story and character development for our alter egos. I don't know about our super-hero status, but we've been very productive today. I'll let Muffy go first with her version of the day's events which she wrote earlier while I was still down in one of the lockers cleaning. I've just finished washing the dishes after a spaghetti dinner which Muffy cooked. Right now she's on deck oiling the teak. Our biggest accomplishment of the day was getting the engine starter working again, even though it wasn't what we set out to do. It was just a happy byproduct of a day of cleaning and organizing.

Muffy's version: We had a really nice morning at the beach, and I rented a bike, which will improve my quality of life immensely (in another blog post, I'll talk about the 1/4 mile to the bathrooms, or the 1/2 mile to the showers). We came back to the boat mid-morning and got to work.

Scott opened up the seats in the cockpit and lowered himself into a smelly pit (the rear of one hull, I think). For a while, he handed me wet stinky things that had been ripening down there for a decade or so. I started a pile of these things, some of which will supposedly be useful on the boat. There was even a snow shovel in there that I snagged and put in my car. Scott used a pumpy thing to get the water out of the compartment, and then he drained some really nasty water out of an ancient water heater. Once he did that, he started cleaning out the compartment more and said he found some grounded thingy. He seemed excited about this. I cleaned out the sun shower, and accidentally dropped a (not critical) part of it overboard. I rinsed off a bunch of other things and put them out on the foredeck to dry. I learned the term "foredeck." Now I'm going to make us some spaghetti with meat sauce.

Cap'n Scott here again. That's pretty much an accurate recounting of the cleaning of the aft port hull locker. It's a large locker which in newer Geminis is a berth. The locker space isn't used very efficiently in this boat. It contains the batteries, holding tank, water heater and a bunch of wires, plumbing and sewage lines. It's a deep locker and on top of those things, which don't take up much room, was a bunch of crap which had been tossed in the locker. Rope lines, water hoses, life preservers and a lot of junk, including a snow shovel which will be useful to Muffy in NYC, but not so much on the boat in Hilton Head.

After removing all the junk, there was a layer of filth and scum in the locker. Some of it was sewage which had spilt over the years. (We're slowly ridding the boat of offensive odors.) We added to the scum when we drained the full hot water heater. In the very rear of the hull is another deeper area. That area was full of fairly clean water. We pumped out something like ten gallons of water from there. The water drained, I found what is likely an electrical ground for the boat. I'd been searching for this for awhile. I was concerned that there was none. The bad news is that I think that the water leaked in through the ground plate bolts and I'll have to seal the leak somehow.

I also found a cord and plug connected to the battery charger. I hadn't noticed it among all the other junk in the locker. I have a Black and Decker battery charger, but it's not marine grade like this one. If it works I'll have two chargers aboard! You know I'm a fiend for backups. I also found a terminal wire disconnected from a battery. This turned out to be one of the starter wires. I must have neglected to connect it after cleaning the terminals one day. Now that I have a clean and organized locker, I doubt that it will get lost again.

Having a partner in crime today has made me a lot more productive. Even though Muffy isn't an expert boater and sometimes calls stuff thingys, instead of by their proper names, she's made me a lot more productive. Just little things like having someone to hand stuff to while in the locker takes away a lot of the chore of having to get into and out of that cramped space.

And she's quite pleasant company to boot.

Muffy Here

Muffy here. Scott has asked me to take over some blogging responsibility while here. Considering some of the other tasks that need doing around here (like cleaning out the sewage line), I'm happy to contribute in this most undisgusting task.

I promise (especially to Grampa) that there will be discusison of boating and the marina, but for this post, I think I just need to pay tribute to Cap'n Scott's skill at having the good life on a boat. Once, when I was living in a small apartment in Amherst, a friend told me that she had much more respect for my cooking skills once she saw my teeny tiny kitchen. Same goes here for Cap'n Scott. This boat is pretty small, but in the last twenty-four hours, he's proved that one can be a good host in cramped quarters.

I have been comfortable, warm and well-fed. Dinner last night was grilled chicken, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and gravy. All made using a propane grill and a two-burner propane stove, and only using one at any time (since they use the same propane tank). He also did the dishes. All this in a space not much larger than a closet, and without running water.

Scott fixed the water lines today, so there is now running (cold) water. There is electricity too, but both of these feel a little superfluous, since he's managed to survive most of his trip without them. Although it is nice to be able to watch the NFL playoffs together.

This picture is of Scott wearing two of his Christmas presents from me. He will post about his Christmas present from Grampa when he installs it, but it is wicked cool.

Fussy Muffy

The admiral arrived on board yesterday after a two day drive down from NYC. We promptly took the boat out to anchor in order to get reacquainted without disturbing the neighbors on the dock. Last night was 12th night. We had a night of revelry after a two month separation. We cooked a nice meal on the grill, opened a couple presents (We did save a few for today), and watched the football playoffs. Condolences to Grampa and Brianna on the Steeler loss.

Muffy insists that I point out that she has not been fussy. Even though I've had a week to clean and organize, there are still plenty of issues with the boat. She's been a good sport and complained not a bit. She's looking forward to pitching in on the repairs. We'll balance the work with play and exploring the island now that we have a car.

Having Muffy aboard when sailing makes things a lot easier on me. A task like weighing anchor is a lot less complex. My usual routine often requires running between the bow and cockpit to reel in the anchor and steer the boat. I can get quite out of breath if the anchor has really dug in or there is a lot of wind or current during the procedure. Having a mate at the wheel makes it all a lot easier.

It does help that both Muffy and I know that I've done all this by myself for the past two months. We know that her presence is a luxury, and if need be I can take care of any task myself. Before we do something like weigh anchor, I try to explain to her what I'm going to do and what I want her to do. I try to keep the task I give her relatively simple. In the case of weighing anchor, it's mainly operation of the throttle. You hear horror stories about couples, yelling and first mates getting turned off by the experience and abandoning ship. So far I think the experience on the boat has been a positive one for Muffs (excepting some seasickness while running on some swells in the Chesapeake).

Pic is of Muffy watching football in the cockpit.

Twas the Night Before...

As you know, I had a not very festive Christmas. But Santa is in her sleigh driving down from NYC. It's been hinted that the sleigh is packed with toys for a good little boy in SC. I was hoping that Santa would arrive on January 6. That's the Epiphany or Three Kings Day, which in some cultures is the traditional day for giving presents. It's the day when the wise men are supposed to have shown up with gifts for little baby Jesus. I don't know that I have the self control to wait an extra day to open my presents, so we'll either be celebrating Three Kings Day a day early or Christmas 11 days late, depending on how you look at it.

Pic is of Sasha the dog who lives on a Beneteau sailboat on the dock. My neighbors feed her treats, so she's often hanging out on the finger pier between my boat and theirs.

Frigid Mermaid

It's cold here, just like a lot of other places.

I'm just futzing about the boat, cleaning. I just feel better about life when my surroundings are clean and orderly. Also installing the cleaned head. The wooden base which it was attached to had rotted. I was fortunate to find a piece of replacement plywood about the right size on the boat. I don't have my sawz-all on the boat to cut a piece to size. There are a bunch of tools at home which I wish I had on the boat. Oh well.

I added a google news feed to the blog. It displays google news items about sailboats. So far most of the items seem to be about sailboats sinking. I guess sailboats only make the news if there is some sort of disaster. I'll remove the news feed if it gets too depressing.

Pan-Pan

I was bored and surfing the web when somehow the idea to google pan-pan popped into my head. I've heard this call a few times on my journey south, mostly from Coast Guard stations. I didn't know what it meant. There were a few times when I should have used this call. And I've seen, or heard some other vessels on the radio that should have used it. I like it. I think it should be in wider use.

It looks like it's just a warning call and a call for assistance if convenient. Let me know if I'm misguided about this.

Another Sh*ty Post

The head on this boat is a Raritan toilet. This boat has a lot more systems (electrical, plumbing, refrigeration) than I've ever had on a boat. On my old boat the head was a five gallon bucket. When I was a kid, I think we just jumped in the bay to take care of business.

Having renovated a house with three apartments, I'm familiar with all these systems. But on a boat, they are slightly different, a little more complicated and much more expensive. Anything attached to a boat is several times more expensive than it's counterpart on land.

I decided that before my girl arrives on the boat next week, I should clean and repair the head. We'll probably go out on the hook overnight, and you know how fussy Muffy can be.

The head has taken quite a beating on this trip, and it wasn't in all that great a condition to start off. It looked like it hadn't seen a thorough cleaning in the 25 years since it was first installed on the boat. If it weren't for how expensive a new one is, I would have just thrown it out. That's what I would have done with a toilet on land in it's condition.

As I discovered when I needed to replace the fuel bowl gasket, I have a gasket kit for the toilet, so the plan was to completely disassemble the toilet and replace all the gaskets, excepting the one that I used on the fuel bowl.

The task was completely nauseating. Particularly so, because I had to remove the sewage line and S poured out. It brought me back to the last disgusting task I had to perform, which was cleaning the mouse feces and urine in an oven, after a tenant moved out. I had to completely disassemble the stove to get at all the nooks and crannies filled with tirds. Then I baked the oven all day to get the urine smell out. I was afraid that even after all that, an almost brand new and completely functional oven would be totaled by mouse feces. And before you start castigating me for being a slumlord, friends and family can tell you that I keep the house in fairly good condition. It's just that it's over a hundred years old, and it's nearly impossible to plug every crack that a mouse can squeeze through. If the tenants had asked me to set traps, I would have been happy to. But they never did.

Pic is of the toilet after I had disassembled and cleaned it. Probably should have gotten a before picture too, but didn't. Sorry.

Happy New Year!

New Year's Eve was a lot more festive than Christmas. The couple in the slip next to me have been here a few years, and they invited a bunch of the other folks at the marina over for a potluck. Festivities began around 6pm and lasted until around 10pm. Just about all the attendees were couples. The median age was somewhere in the 50s. I'd only met about a half dozen people here until last night. Now I've met a lot more. Not that I remember their names or the details of our conversations. I'm not very good with names to start off with. And trying to remember a bunch of new ones all at once while half lit doesn't usually work out well.

Before I bought this boat, I almost never socialized with powerboat people. If I passed a sailboat on the dock and the owner was there, I'd often say hi and ask about the boat. But I didn't feel I had much in common with the powerboat folks. Now that barrier seems to be dissolved by our common cruiser/live-aboard status.

In Baltimore, my boat fit in with all the others, and the guys at the marina weren't all that different from me. It was an eclectic group. It does feel a bit strange to be part of this group in Hilton Head where the guy or gal I'm talking to usually lives on a a large yacht and often has a home elsewhere. But everyone was very friendly last night and curious about my adventures. They certainly didn't treat me like an outsider.