01-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Ali and my mom drove back down to Puerto Vallarta this morning to have Ali’s blood tests done. I always get a bit nervous when Ali drives off somewhere without me. Less so when Ouest isn’t with her, but nervous still. I suppose the fact that it is such an uncommon experience has something to do with it. I always breathe a sigh of relief when she walks back through the door. If this is how I feel about Ali going somewhere without me I hate to think how I’ll feel when Ouest comes home late at age sixteen.

A couple of days before Christmas Ali said to me, “Um, just to let you know, I’m late.” Ali’s doesn’t waver from schedules, so we both knew at that moment we were no longer going to be raising an only child. Almost immediately I felt this sense of guilt. I felt, and still feel, despite knowing that it is ludicrous, that I’m sort of betraying Ouest by having another baby. Like I’m saying that she somehow wasn’t enough for me. I know it’s silly, and that she’s not going to feel that way, but I just can’t shake it. I also have this unnerving feeling that I love Ouest so much that another baby is not going to get enough from me. Like there isn’t enough love to go around. Ali says she doesn’t feel these things at all and that I shouldn’t either, but for some reason I do. I’m more nervous about having number two than I ever was about having Ouest.

We were all a bit knackered today. All this lounging around in the sun has drained us and left us lazy. We dragged ourselves into town, played on the beach for a bit, and wandered over to Burrito Revolution for what have to be some of the greatest burritos in all the world. Even mom loved them, and she’s more of a club sandwich kind of gal.

02-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Ouest is enjoying this pregnancy because it means almost nonstop sharing of juice and fruit smoothies with Ali.

03-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Sayulita life.

04-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
One of the recurring themes in our e-mail inbox lately has been, “Congrats. Now be prepared to stop taking pictures of the second child. Everybody does.” Maybe we will, who knows. But I have to say that having Ouest has been a boon to our photography so far. I love having a subject to frame pictures around. Ever try taking candid photos of adults? Impossible. They always want to look at the camera and give a goofy smile, or say something as you hit the shutter, or play with their hair. Yes, Ali, that was directed right at you.

For lunner today we stopped in at a tent restaurant set up next to the washed out bridge. We noticed quite a few people eating there yesterday and know that any restaurant with plastic tables packed with people must be doing something right. And were they ever. Top notch in almost every way. The only negative I’d give this place is the lack of a serious hot sauce. I emptied the dishes they gave me and could only then begin to feel the burn. On an environmental note I suppose they’d get another mark down for wrapping their plates in plastic bags. This is something so distinctly Latin American. I’ve never seen it anywhere else. It’s great for the restaurant since they don’t have to do dishes, but man, they must toss out a few hundred plastic bags each day just for that convenience.

05-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
We are back in San Francisco. We dropped my mom off at the Puerto Vallarta airport this afternoon and then, with about three hours to kill before our flight, went and did a little running around. Stopped by the mall, had some lunch, shopped for some pregnancy related items, and then finally went to return the rental car.

While I was standing at the desk signing the paperwork Ali suddenly looked at the clock on the wall, which said 4:30, and asked, “Is that the right time?”

Turns out that there was a time change on Sunday that we had no idea about and our flight was now in about thirty minutes instead of ninety.

Obviously we made it home, so I won’t relive that thirty minutes now, but suffice it to say Mexico is the greatest place on earth. Where else could we have taken the shuttle to the airport, had our bags searched, got our boarding passes, passed through security, and still have arrived at our gate with ten minutes to spare?

And I should also mention once again that Ouest is the greatest plane passenger ever. Three and a half hours basically sitting in our lap and we didn’t have one single breakdown. She makes her parents proud I tell you.

08-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
A while ago we bought a new fisheye camera lens. I’m still experimenting with it, but so far I’m finding it to be pretty ideal for showing life on a boat.

08-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
I’m not sure what’s happened but after not being sick for years I’ve been laid up helpless twice in the past three weeks now. This has left Ali to deal with Ouest more or less on her own and has put a complete halt to any boat work. We’ve accomplished zilch in the past few days.

Ouest did receive a package which included packing bubbles. It didn’t take her long to get the hang of those things.

09-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
Some boat projects just take a long damn time to bring to a final conclusion. The netting started a couple of weeks ago, continued today, and is sure to continue for another week or so before it is done. Today I took apart the running rigging to run through the net instead of cutting around it. Seems like a simple enough job, and it is, but it is also incredibly time consuming.

I also completed the installation of the new freezer thermometer.

09-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Some mornings end up looking like this.

I was feeling a bit better this afternoon and decided to give some boat work a try while Ali took Ouest out shopping. Shopping at Ikea to be exact. OMG! When she returned it was like she had been transformed by some sort of cult. We’ve never been to an Ikea before, and even though I still haven’t personally stepped inside the store, I feel like I now know more about Ikea than I ever needed to. But hey, they had a great time there together, so that’s what matters.

10-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
Today’s project was tackling a leaky window on the pilothouse. I now understand why so much less wood is used on boats built today. This should be a simple project. Remove screws, pry frame away while slicing caulk with knife, clean surfaces, apply caulk, screw in frame. But the frame is wood. Thirty year-old wood at that. And whoever did this job last used some serious caulk. Removing this frame without busting up the wood was a slow chore. In the end I had one chunk crack off cleanly enough that I should be able to fix it okay. It took me two hours just to get this frame off. And another hour to dig out enough caulk that tomorrow I should be able to pop out the window. Damn boats. Originally I’d planned to do all the windows, now I’m starting to see this more as a repair-as-needed project.

10-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
The many faces of Ouest. Over the past couple of weeks Ouest has been becoming more expressive. She now has this funny crinkled up face that she does a lot in place of a normal smile. It’s funny to us, but I imagine strangers think our child has a disability of some sort.

She is also becoming much more vocal. In both good and bad ways. She is talking a lot, to herself, to us, to the wall. Most of it still doesn’t sound like real words, but she is banging out Mama and Papa on a much more consistent basis. It used to be simply, “Aaaa,” for both of us.

11-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Block tower building. A morning ritual.

12-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
Day three of a single window resealing project. I’ve got about eight hours into this one window now, after sanding the wood, fixing two cracks in the wood, and then finally caulking and reinstalling it. If this thing leaks I’m going to put my fist through it.

I’ve also come to the realization that there is no way I’m going to be able to install the autopilot myself in any sort of timely fashion. So today I began making the calls to find a Raymarine authorized installer. First call went well. I got wholesale price and a commitment to have it done by May 1st. And the labor isn’t terrible either.

12-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Ouest has been battling a cold on and off for a couple of weeks now and it has really been messing with her sleeping. I’d say the past couple of nights have been as bad as they’ve ever been as far as us having to spend hours with her trying to calm her down and get her to sleep. And then just as we think she is back to dreamland she’ll sit bolt upright and start all over again. It’s like reliving her at five months. We’re really hoping that once the sniffling passes she’ll get back to normal and we can all get a full night of sleep again. I can’t believe we are going to go through all of this a second time soon.

And by the way. If kids were born knowing how to blow their nose instead of how to cry they would be way, way, cooler

13-Apr-2011 ouest lill. sixteen months.

Ouesterly,

A month of ups and downs this one. First the downs. You got sick. For the first time in your little life you were sick. Puking and boogers sick. And not once, but twice. Of course once you got it, your mama got it, and then me. Then since we’re a houseful of food sharers all of the sudden (something neither your mama or I ever would have thought possible before you came along) you got sick again, then Mama, and then me. It’s a vicious circle.

But on the upside we all went to Mexico! There you got to meet Dr. Laura and, for the first time, your brother or sister. Alright, truthfully, you still don’t have a clue that there is a baby in your mama’s belly. And I suspect you won’t understand it until that baby goes to bed in your house and wakes up there again in the morning. Then you’ll be all, “What the fff-razzle is going on here?”

You’ve gained a couple of words. Mama and Papa are pretty coherent these days. And there are a whole mess of things that you’ve got noises for that only we could possibly understand the meaning of. But you are putting a lot more effort into it now and I suspect it won’t be much longer before the flood gates open. You haven’t really become frustrated with the whole thing yet, which is nice.

You’re obsessed with garbage. You call it, “Kuuuuuuk.” Or more accurately, you make a throat clearing noise. You pick up garbage everywhere we go and we must then find a garbage can for you to throw it in. With that completed you yell, “Yeah!” and clap your hands. You’re a good environmentalist.

You crash head first into something on a daily basis and have spent the entire month with one scratch or another on your face. I like that you are rushing headlong into life but your mama would love it if you would at least put your hands out in front of you now and then.

So here is to another great month little girl. Thank you for all the fun.

Love, Papa

14-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
We went to the Strictly Sail boat show today. We’d never been to a boat show before, and really didn’t know what to expect. All I knew was that people seem to travel great distances to attend these things and that they buy a lot of stuff. It was only five minutes away for us, so we grabbed our shopping list and went.

Never again. What a load of crap. A bunch of vendors selling the next great thing, the essential cruising gear. Crap, crap, and more crap. An entire booth set up for these special fender line holders. Some sort of quick release gismo that allows you to hang a fender line really quick like. Because it would save you, like, about three seconds per fender. Sunglasses that see through water. Anchors that set up to 5% faster than their counterparts. Sailing magazine subscriptions twenty percent off. All a bunch of nonsense that only people that have never been untied from the dock think they need. We went with a list and bought nothing. The whole thing reminded me of the glossy sailing magazines and how much I hate them now, but how much I liked to look through them before we ever went cruising.

And don’t even get me started on the cruising “seminars” that go on all day long at this thing. Titles like, “Cruising for Couples,” and, “Galley Essentials.” Give me a break. Seriously, if you need this sort of thing to get you out cruising then you need to find a different pursuit. Okay, that’s harsh. Let’s just say I hate all this hand holding nonsense.

I’m not even going to talk about the “giant” catamaran we went on. I’m just not going to do it. Ostentatious. Okay, that’s all I’m going to say. Great for cruising the U.S. and the B.V.I.s, but nowhere else. Okay, no more.

I would have been completely ticked off that we wasted twenty bucks on this except for one thing. A couple of days ago I called around about getting our autopilot installed. We decided on a place but then forgot to call him back yesterday. Well they had a big booth at the boat show so we just went up and talked to him, and lo and behold, because we bought the autopilot at the boat show Raymarine is going to give us a $250 rebate. So after parking we’re unexpectedly up about $225. Not bad I guess.

Quote. I hate the boat show. End quote.

Back at home it was laundry day. And really, that about sums up our sixteen waking hours.

16-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
Put the finishing touches on the window today. It cleaned up nice and shouldn’t leak any more either. I believe that was about seven hours of work, start to finish. There are five more of those windows that could be done. But they won’t be.

I started working on the front bedroom hatch today. I was only installing some latch hardware, but before I knew it I had the window completely taken apart and was sanding off the old caulk and varnish. I had to go buy a couple of big clamps from Home Depot tonight, but tomorrow I should be able to fix this window up good as new as well. One by one we’ll get them ticked off.

16-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
We went out this morning to a nautical flea market. The flyers made it sound as if it would be a huge show. It wasn’t. There turned out to be about twenty booths. Mostly just old guys selling antique sailboat hardware or crusty twenty year-old halyards. We didn’t buy anything except a couple of chocolate donuts.

17-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
I spent a couple of hours sanding down that window. Got all four sides cleaned up nice, slapped on some wood glue, and clamped it all back together. Tomorrow the plexiglass gets caulked back on, and hopefully we’ll be able to count one more window leak free.

17-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
We went out with a Bum friend for lunner today. Zachary’s pizza once again. You could be an animal sacrificing satanist with a swastika tattooed on your face, but if you offered to take us out for a pizza and beer, we’d go here with you. Or at least I would.

Sometimes it seems all we do, or I should say, all Ali does, is make Ouest food. On a day like today she makes a lunch and then we all go out to eat. We hang out for a little while and by the time we get back to the boat she has to make Ouest a dinner. This is why Ali and I could never get onboard with that whole three meal a day thing. People must spend their whole lives in the kitchen. Tonight Ouest had spaghetti and meatballs with a side of black olives. She loves black olives. Would eat an entire plate full of them if we’d let her. She gets that one from me.

18-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
The completed front hatch.

19-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
We had a friend over this morning to help pull me up the mast. This is usually accomplished by Ali, but in her present pregnant state it seemed best to pass the job along.

I installed the wireless wind indicator. Simple enough. I even seem to have gotten it pointed fairly straight. While at the top I did a little clean up as well. I got rid of the little wire brush looking thing that I thought was to keep pigeons off the mast, but had a sticker on it claiming some sort of lightning deterrent. That seemed like a dubious claim to me. I also took off an antenna which I assume to have been for the old VHF. However I also took off another antenna at the spreader which seemed to be for a VHF also. I really don’t know, but since I’ve got no electronics on the boat any longer it seemed silly to me to leave up thirty year-old antennas.

Also getting kicked off the mast today was the radar dome. I tossed out the radar itself a while back and today completed the project. That thing was ridiculously large and I’m happy to have it off the mast and out of the way of the jib.

I’d still like to get back up the mast one more time to do some cleaning up, and to get the spreader lights working, but today was plenty productive.

19-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Ouest was in a great mood today. Some days you get a cranky girl, some days are just average, and then every so often you get the perfect smiling attitude from start to finish. I really love how independent and sure of herself she is becoming. She’s fearless and fun and crazy and goofy. She’s really getting a wacky sense of humor too. These are good times.

20-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Busy day today. We started the morning off meeting some new Bum friends for breakfast. A couple our age, pregnant, and thinking about chucking it all for the cruising lifestyle. I always wonder if our words will have an impact. And if they do, will it be a positive impact, or are we sending people down a path of total life destruction? I mean this obviously isn’t a life for everyone. We may make it look easy, but it’s definitely not. It takes some serious dedication from everyone involved and you really have to be willing to give up a lot of one thing in order to gain a lot of another.

In our case this second time around with a boat is solely because of Ouest. When we were down in Mexico, seven or eight months pregnant, we really started to think about what sort of life we wanted her to have. And what it came down to for us was that we wanted her to live an exciting and stimulating life filled with fresh air, water, and sand. What we didn’t want was to have a young girl watching television, bombarded by advertising, playing video games, and being surrounded by friends who were exactly the same as her.

Cruising, or even at the moment just living on a boat, allows us to be in control of all of that. It allows us to give her only what we want to give her and separates us from the things that we don’t feel should be part of a baby girl’s life. So far it has worked out wonderfully. We’re happy, Ouest is happy, and we’re raising her the way we said we would before she was even born. Will it always be this way? Who knows. But we’re damn excited to get down to Mexico and find out.

In the afternoon the autopilot guy came by to have a look at the boat and determine where things would go and what would be needed. He told me where to run wires and gave me a couple of other things to do so that next week we can roll on this thing.

And then my cousin David showed up, down from Seattle on business. We went out to eat, then stopped in at Trader Vic’s for some very strong, but very fruity, Mai-Tais. I’m not really sure why we needed to drink a frilly drink instead of a beer, but this restaurant makes it almost feel mandatory. And at twelve bucks a pop I can see why they do. It was great hanging out with him and fun to show the boat off for the first time to an actual family member. Yeah, nobody else has even seen this beast yet.

20-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
A shot of the nav station. You can see it doesn’t contain much of anything. With this boat I’ve gone about as simple as possible in this day and age. We’ve got no radar, no mounted VHF, no AIS, no chartplotter, no SSB, etc. What we do have is a laptop. This is connected to a handheld GPS which is mounted up on the steering station. On it we’ve got our electonic charts, and soon we’ll have our autopilot wired into it. Beyond that we’re about done.

Lately I’ve been sanding pieces of the boat sort of willy-nilly. A piece here, a piece there. Generally I pull off the easiest pieces. The ones that the sun has just about fried all the varnish off of already.

21-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
I’m only just now taking a good look and figuring out what all these lines and winches are for. A rigger friend was out to the boat last week and has given the boat the okay. One shroud needs to be shortened. It’s loose and is tightened about as far as it can go. We’ve got the type of fittings that actually allows me to do this myself with nothing but a crescent wrench and a hacksaw. So that’s on the list. Aside from that I’m replacing the main halyard and the mainsheet. Everything else is good to go. For your information, our last boat had two very small winches. This boat has nine, mostly very large winches. All of which need to be serviced. Added to the list.

21-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Laid back day. I took Ouest out for a bit this morning while Ali did some work around the boat. And in the afternoon she took her to the park for a couple of hours so I could get a bit of work done. That’s our routine these days. Late afternoon is reserved for lounging around on deck when the sun is out.

22-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Tomorrow I am doing one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I’m dropping Ali and Ouest off at the airport. In thirteen years of marriage Ali and I have spent, I believe, two nights apart. And I think once I spent eight hours away from Ouest. Now we’re splitting up for a full week. Divide and conquer is what we’re shooting for.

The autopilot install is a twenty hour job. The vast majority of which is going to be spent in Ouest’s bedroom. That’s three days of missed naps, and three days of rushing to clean up before bed. Not to mention Ali simply does not deal well with having others on her boat making a mess, not taking their shoes off, setting tools down on bare wood, etc. Now I’m not saying Ali is anal about these things, but I will note that this morning she was folding the dirty laundry before bringing it up to the machines. Enough said.

We’ve still got a long list of things to accomplish on the boat and our self imposed timeline is down to about two weeks. Obviously something had to give. So Ali is going back to Minnesota to visit the family, take Ouest in for her check-up and some shots, and hang out with friends. I am going to buckle down once and for all and work one hundred hours on the boat. I think I can really have this thing shipshape and ready to roll in that amount of time. An amount of hours that would normally take us two months to accomplish if we were all on here together. However, the idea of a week without my girls is making me sick to my stomach.

22-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
Expanding a bit on our nav station conversation. I mentioned that we are going pretty ridiculously simple this time around, and it brings me back to my last trip to West Marine. I was with a friend who was picking up a few things, and as we walked the aisles I couldn’t find one thing that I needed. Not that I haven’t bought a bunch of stuff already, but still, last time we were outfitting a practically brand new boat and I was like a kid in a candy store every single time we went there. I’m sure I didn’t really have to have half of the stuff I bought, but it is just so tempting. Half the fun for most of us is just spending the money. This time around I really don’t feel that draw at all. I’m much more apt to just make do with whatever we’ve got. It’s a much different attitude this second time around.

23-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
I dropped Ali and Ouest off at the airport this morning. That was hard. Saying goodbye to my little girl, who was completely oblivious to what was going on. She’s so young I wonder what she thinks, if she will miss me, or if her memory is so short term that she won’t give me a thought. Man, I’m writing this late at night on our first day apart and am getting choked up already. It’s going to be a tough week. I talked to them on Skype and got to watch her play with her Aunt Katy and Grandma though, so that was nice.

Ali says she traveled great. She always does. She can’t stand a five minute drive down the road, but somehow she manages to pull off four hours on an airplane confined to about a five square foot area.

As for me, it was a big day on the boat. Lifeline netting is just about finished, chain locker is emptied and three hundred feet of chain has been ordered to fill it up, windlass foot pedals are just about installed, engine oil is changed, all the old autopilot wiring is gutted, a couple of new fans are installed, the non-working tachometer has been investigated with no immediate conclusion, a shroud was shortened so it could be tightened, a light was installed in the autopilot compartment, and I’m sure there is more that I’m forgetting at the moment.

24-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
I bought an epirb yesterday. For those that don’t know it is a signaling device that you set off in an emergency to alert rescuers where you’re at. If it were just Ali and I still I don’t think I would have gotten one this time around. My feelings now are that you should be willing to face the consequences of what happens out at sea if you are willing to take the risk to go. This is different from the way I used to feel about the issue and I think reflects more on my life and the life I’ve lived in the past eight years. I guess I feel now that I’ve lived a good life, loved a good woman, and seen what I wanted to see, so the prospect of being lost at sea, or of battling the elements in a life or death situation by ourselves, doesn’t worry me any longer.

However, having a child, or two children for that matter, changes that. They are too young to have a say in the matter, and for that reason they should be given the best chance they can get. Obviously. I should mention too that Ali may or may not agree with my risk assessment and might have wanted the epirb even if it were still just the two of us. In this case we didn’t even have the discussion since we’ve got kids and it was just assumed from day one that we’d carry an epirb onboard.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Somalian pirates, and people are always asking us about the situation. So here’s my take. From my soapbox half a world away of course. In our situation, as a family of soon to be four, and a couple who has already sailed the area once, I probably would not sail through the Red Sea right now. I’d sail the southerly route to South Africa. It’s much longer, but it’s an area that we’ve always wanted to see anyway, so that’s the way we would go. This route isn’t one hundred percent pirate free, but it is significantly less pirate prone.

A big group of people just shipped their boats from the Maldives to the Mediterranean in order to avoid the pirates. I’m sure they’ve been questioned over and over about the decision. Frankly, it seems insane to me. I don’t know the hard numbers but there has been plenty of speculation that it cost something like $30,000 to ship a boat like this. Again, here is my feeling, everybody has there own levels of acceptable risk.

If I’d never sailed around the world, and it were just the two of us, I would have taken my chances and sailed through the pirates. Plenty of people still do so without any issues. Certainly if I were of a more retirement age I would go for it as well. I’ve lived a good life and would feel no qualms about rolling the dice with it. But then again, if I were of that age maybe money isn’t an issue, and in that case it’s easy to make the argument, “why not ship it and avoid the “hassle” of Somalian pirates?” Now with kids, and having already done the other route, like I said, I’d take the South Africa sail. Anyway, it’s a personal choice, and everybody has a different level of risk they are willing to take. Either way though I would sail it. I can’t imagine sailing for years around most of the world and then getting home and not being able to say, “We sailed around the world.” That alone would be reason enough for me to keep going.

When we were sailing through the area the risk was less than one percent that a sailing boat would be boarded by pirates. And back then all they did was rob the boat and leave. These days, and these are just my best guesses based on the number of sailing boats that used to make the transit yearly, the chances are probably closer to four percent. That’s still acceptable to me, but wouldn’t be for everyone. And really, the fact that there is a four percent risk of being hijacked by pirates is pretty unacceptable on a whole different level. In this day and age it seems really unbelievable that there is even a conversation going on about pirates at all. I mean, pirates? With the kind of money being thrown at these guys I guarantee that it won’t be long before it’s no longer just Somalians. Can’t you just picture the day when a group of rogue US Army and British Forces guys decide to go into the pirating business? Anyway, we all need to sail halfway around the world for this to even be an issue in our lives. If you’ve sailed that far you don’t really care what anybody else has to say on the matter.

24-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
It was raining this morning so I stayed inside and tackled the hot water heater replacement. It’s not an overly complicated project, but the location slowed me down. It appears that this was the first thing they installed in the boat. After that they installed gas tanks, fuel lines, and all wiring for the boat. Everything had to be removed, shifted, or completely rearranged, just to get the rusty old unit out. Once I got it out on deck and dumped out the last couple of gallons I got a good look at the filthy brown water. I was replacing it because it was constantly blowing a fuse if anything else was running on the boat, and I figured that it was just too old to bother troubleshooting that. After seeing that water I’m glad I did. The new one went in much easier, worked first time without any leaks, and was steaming hot in twenty minutes.

On our catamaran we never had hot water, this is a luxury we decided we had to have this time around. We had a hot water heater on the boat, but the water got so hot it melted the plastic lines that ran to it. There was no way to remove the lines and run new ones, so we just made do without. Seems crazy now, but we were in the tropics and it was easy enough not to worry about it.

Finished up the windlass foot pedals today. Now we won’t have to run an extension cord from the bedroom to the deck in order to lower and raise the anchor.

Lots of other little projects completed or started. New thermostat is on the fridge and hopefully working properly. It’d be nice if the fridge would shut off once it reaches the right temperature. Having to remember to turn it off and on isn’t working so well for me. Finally figured out an electrical issue I’ve been having with the inverter. It always feels good to solve an electrical gremlin.

25-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
The rigging on this boat was a surprise. The standing rigging is heavy duty and according to our rigger friends is in good shape. The running rigging is also in surprisingly good shape. Most of it was removed and stored inside and what was outside was mostly hidden under the sailbag, thus avoiding the serious UV degradation. In the end the only lines that needed replacement were the main halyard and the mainsheet.

The only standing rigging that needed attention was one of the lower shrouds. It was adjusted about as far out as it could go but was still a little too loose. Fortunately we’ve got SwageLok fittings so this was a job that could be done without removing the shroud. I went in to see the riggers this morning and was not only given the fitting I needed for free, but was also given a tutorial on how to do the job. The best trick I learned was to use a piece of cardboard to twist the cable open, something that would have never occurred to me, but that saved my fingers and a considerable amount of time. Just press the cardboard to the bottom of the cable and twist. The outer layer opens up nicely and the inner cables stay tightly wound. Slick as can be. This was a job I really had no idea that I could do myself right on the boat, but was happy that I was told I could.

I opened up the box to what amounts to our outside nav station. It’s where the depth finder is installed along with a compass and is where I’ll be mounting our auto pilot control and other instruments. What I found was the detritus of mice, perhaps birds, and hundreds of hornets. I also found a pair of prescription glasses. I thought that was funny. I can just picture the guy feeling the pockets on his plaid shirt, screwdriver in hand, saying, “Now where did I put my glasses? Honey, have you seen my glasses anywhere?”

The new dinghy hardware is installed and I’ve got the dinghy up and hanging how I wanted. It’s easy to hook up and lift. Now the only remaining question on this project is how best to secure it from swinging around, both fore and aft, and side to side. It’s a much trickier question with this canoe stern than it would be with most other boats.

Let’s see, what else? A bilge hose was hooked up, an extension was added to a water hose to get it secured and out of the way in the engine compartment, discovered the source of a leak and began sealing it up, prepared all the areas needed for the autopilot install, and continued the tedious work of the lifeline netting. Due to a certain someone’s attention to detail and eye for perfection, this small project has been especially difficult. It does look good however, and considering it’s prominence on the boat I suppose it is best to make the extra effort. Though I will be eternally grateful, and so will my sore finger tips, when it is done.

25-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
I’m missing my girls terribly. We video talk each day on Skype, but it’s no substitution for the real thing. This lonely bachelor life is not for me. I’d go crazy not having somebody to talk to and share life’s mundane things with. Ouest is doing great though, sleeping through the night, and running wild from one end of grandma’s house to the other. She’s even big enough now to navigate the long staircase by herself, opening up all sorts of adventuring opportunities to her. Today she went to the doctor for a checkup and a couple of immunization shots. Ali says while they were waiting in the room Ouest stood at the door looking back over her shoulder at her and indicated that they should open the door and get out of there while they still could. It didn’t work though, and she got the shots. Anyway, our plan to divide and conquer appears to be working out, and it’s only four more nights, so I guess I should just tough it out. Ouest 16 month: 26.5 pounds (88th percentile) and 33 inches (96th percentile).

26-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
My friend Nick came over again this morning to haul me up the mast again. Before I went up we pulled the Yankee jib up the furler. There was a bit of wind so we tied a sheet off and let her fill up. The boat sailed beautifully about twelve inches before the dock lines stopped her.

Up top I hooked the sail onto the furler and sent the halyard back down. The Spin-Tec furlers on this boat are different than any other furler I’ve seen, in that they don’t use the halyard on a swivel at the top. They are a solid furler bar from top to bottom. I wasn’t sure what to think of this sort of strange set-up until Nick furled the sail and I saw how smoothly it operated and how perfectly the top of the sail rolled up. On our catamaran we very often ran into problems with the furler when the bottom half of the sail would roll up tight but the top of the sail would not roll and would flail wildly until we dropped the whole thing on deck. With this rig that can’t happen. Anyway, sitting at the dock I really like it.

Just about the rest of the day was taken up with trying to figure out how to run the rigging. Looking around the deck it was clear that while the boat may have roller furling, it was never actually used. Digging around inside the boat confirmed this. There were at least a dozen stanchion furling leads and other miscellaneous rigging gear necessary to set the boat up, and all of them were still in their original packaging.

Two things would have made the rigging process considerably easier. One, if there was no lifeline netting. The netting necessitated running each line on one side or the other. The second thing that would have eased the workload would have been if I’d ever sailed a monohull before. As it is I just sort of had to envision what it would be like when the sails were flying. In the end I think I got the whole thing rigged up pretty well. There are a couple of items on the shopping list that should finish it off, but I won’t know for sure until I test it out. Preferably in five knots of wind while tied to the dock for starters.

26-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
Pictures from Minnesota the past few days. I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face when Ali sent me these. Memories of Punky Brewster filled my head. I really can’t stand being away from these two. Three!

27-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
I installed the wind indicator at the top of the mast last week. Before doing so I tested it to make sure it was working. It was. But after installing it, I got back down and found that was no longer the case. Instead of going right back up I decided to troubleshoot it first. These are the TackTick wireless instruments and I figured there must be some sort of reset or something. Plus, the other instrument, the depth/speed indicator, hadn’t been wired in yet, so I thought maybe the whole system needed to be set up properly first.

Anyway, so this morning I hooked everything up, read the manual for the fifth time, and still hadn’t come up with anything other than the fact that the wind display was not getting a signal from the windex at the top of the mast. Then I thought, “Well it’d be interesting to see if I raised the display up the mast if it would receive the signal at some point.” I could check this by looking at the other display down on the boat. So I quickly put the display in a bucket, snapped on the main halyard, and raised it up. It reached the first spreader before my stupidity dawned on me. The bucket wasn’t heavy enough to come back down and I hadn’t tied on a guide line. So there it hung, halfway up the mast with no way to retrieve it. And still no signal.

An hour later I spotted Chris, a guy that works at the marina, walking down the dock. He got a good laugh out of my idiocy, and said he’d raise me up. Well since we were going up we figured we might as well go all the way and look at the windex. Everything looked fine so I just removed it and brought it back down with me. It sat on the deck, not working, while we talked. And then suddenly I looked down at it again and it was showing a wind speed of three knots. Working perfectly.

Now I’m happy it’s working, but this is not the sort of start you like to have when testing out what is essentially a new technology. By failing right off the bat I’ll forever have that moment when I turn it on where I have to wonder if it is going to work this time. In the end I sent off an e-mail to the company, so we’ll see what they have to say about it.

One of the things I really like about these units is that they can be moved wherever you like. So when we’re on a passage and it’s wet outside, I can just move the wind unit right down into the indoor helm station. No having to step back outside to see if the wind shifted and the sails need to be adjusted.

Our autopilot install started today. I had run all the wiring, so that today the installer was able to just hook up the course computer and the compass. Tomorrow he’ll hook up the hydraulic ram and we should be done. At least that’s what he said today. I can’t believe it’s going to go this smoothly. Nothing on a boat ever does. The final step will be to sea trial the unit.

28-Apr-2011 bumfuzzle.
More evidence emerged today showing that this boat never left it’s slip. With the running rigging in place I flew the yankee sail. The furling line zinged out and around the furling barrel. But before the sail was all the way out the furling line was gone from the back of the boat and by the time the sail was completely filled the end of the furling line was halfway up the boat. It was a full twenty-five feet too short to reach the winch. I then went to the other side of the boat and repeated the process for the jib. Same story. Two furling lines, both too short. That’s something you can’t miss the first time you fly a sail.

Our three hundred feet of chain arrived today. Exciting stuff. Previously on the boat there were only two thirty foot sections with a couple hundred feet of rode attached. It’s nice that because the stuff has never been in the water the rode is still in perfect condition. It’s not so nice that it was attached to thirty feet of chain. Personally I can’t imagine sleeping very well at night anchored with that setup. I’ve just never liked the idea of anchoring on rode. We like our all chain anchoring.

So I rolled the barrel of chain to the edge of the dock underneath the bowsprit, ran the end up to the windlass and began cranking. Within seconds the chain began flying out of the barrel and straight down into the muddy water beneath faster than the windlass could keep up. When that chain did come up it was caked with mud. My simple project turned into a chain cleaning marathon.

The autopilot install was completed today. It’s fantastic. The install looks nice, clean, and sturdy. And best of all it took a few hours less than had been anticipated. I think everything just went far more smoothly than they are used to. So the sea trial calibration is all that is left. I also need to run some wiring attaching the unit to the computer. You’d think that by now they would be installing USB ports on these things, but actually nothing has changed since our first boat. I still need to hardwire in a 9-pin serial cable to the autopilot computer, then plug a 9-pin to USB cable into that to plug into our computer. Seems antiquated. But once that’s done the two will talk to each other and the autopilot will steer the course we’ve entered into the computer charting program. Which is like the most awesome thing ever.

29-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
My girls come home tomorrow. I’m so ready to see them. The bachelor life isn’t for me, this much I know. I’ve got nobody to talk to, I eat even worse than normal, and personal hygiene goes right out the window. I’d be on a street corner mumbling to myself while trying to get the knots out of my beard within just a couple of months. And that odor? That would be the pizza grease oozing out of my pores.

30-Apr-2011 our life. daily.
They’re back, and I could not be happier. Now I can stop taking pictures of the boat and get back to the business of photographing my baby. I have to admit I got a little teary when I finally saw them walking down the concourse. I’m sure it was my imagination but I swear Ouest grew and got cuter in the week she was away. And actually the same goes for Ali. The baby bump is full on and she looks great.

Their timing couldn’t have been better. The north wind finally calmed down this afternoon and we were able to laze happily in the sun on deck. Ouest went right to work driving her car, pouring tea, and trying to eat a lemon. She doesn’t laze as well as Ali and I, but she plays quite well.

The lifeline netting is finally completed, meaning it is tied up nice and tightly. Ouest took a couple exploratory peaks through the holes and then left it alone. People kind of wonder about the netting, wondering if it is meant as a life saver, but really all we consider it’s purpose to be is to allow us to not hover over her quite so much while we are sitting here in the marina. Before, if she were to lean against the lifelines it would have been all to easy for her little body to lose balance and do a little somersault right over it. Now she can go up to them without that worry. Meaning we don’t have to be an arm’s length away all the time and she can play a bit more freely.

So overall I consider the past week a rousing success. As far as I’m concerned the boat is ready to head to sea. There are still lots of things we’d like to do, but as for things that needed to be done before going anywhere, I’d say they’re done. We could set sail tomorrow and be all right. It’s time to start watching the weather!

I’m posting eighteen pictures from today. No, I didn’t miss my girls at all. I can hardly stand having them around.