Saturday, July 03, 2004

 

First day of voluntary unemployment.  Made a vow to not think about boat stuff for at least 48 hours but managed to get a couple of things done.  Hade a great final wingman cruise with Adam and Maricris yesterday afternoon.  Installed new solar panel (charging nicely – I love cheap clean power).  Heading to ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ tonight.  Spent $3.25 at West Marine.

 

Sunday, July 04, 2004

 

Didn’t really get much done today except a lot of dishes and some cooking (potato salad and a couple of pies).  Had a minus four tide which created some cool tidal pools just off Meadow Point.  Alisa and Ian held their annual party and watched the big show from their comfortable bedroom.

 

Monday, July 05, 2004

 

Met an interesting character while doing laundry today.  I was already fuming about having to take two hours out of the day to perform the ‘every two weeks’ ritual.  On top of this, rather than tossing out the previous customer’s laundry I waited at least fifteen minutes until finally the door to the laundry mat flung open.  He was barrel chested and at least 6’ 5’’ and immediately informed me that I was much too patient and that he’d have thrown everything on the floor by now.

 

This lead to meeting Mike and getting a good cautionary tale in the process.  In 2000, just before the tech bubble finally burst he was flying high at a startup that was bought by one of the major software powerhouses.  He picked up his dream boat but in the process also took on a loan for about $120k.  He had dreams of going cruising around the world starting this year but after the crash has decided to put things on hold, sell the boat for the remaining $98k loan price and start putting equity into a new $300k house.

 

Friday, July 09, 2004

 

Completed install of LED running lights.  During the last phase of the install I dropped a crucial part over the side.  Diver Frank quickly had the part back on board…

 

Ordered upper and lower gasket kits for the engine for the nice folks at Stewart’s marine (also picked up more spare parts and was quoted prices for salt water and fresh water pumps).  Installed new v-belt.  Solved mystery of ‘oil bath’ air filter (it isn’t one).  Our engine is serial number 108U120746.

 

Still need to complete the nasty job of cleaning out bilges and rewiring floats and pumps.

 

Making preparations for trip to Port Townesend starting Sunday.  Had final pumpout (33 gallons!).

 

This first week went by incredibly fast – still lots to do.  I can’t believe that we’re actually leaving in about three weeks.

 

Saturday, July 10, 2004

 

Spent the better part of the morning with my head in the aft bilges (the really nasty ones) cleaning and checking out the existing pump systems.  I’ll say this for the previous owners – they were pretty thorough when they put the previous systems in.  Currently there are two electrics pumps (800 gph and 1200 gph), one manual pump and a cool system for routing the bilge water through the engines raw water pump (when you need to do this you’re in trouble but it’s still a great idea).  The float for the big pump works but is not attached to anything and just bangs around and occasionally goes off on bumpy trips.  The little float appeared to be shot (removed it today) but was attached.  After nearly three hours and huge bundle of oil diapers I cleaned out the bilge nearly 80%.  More scrubbing will eventually be need.  I have a new float for the small pump but I think I’ll just unbundle all the existing cxns next time and rewire everything.  I was surprised to find out that none of the existing elec pumps appear to be directly connected to the house bank – will probably change this soon as well.

 

Gave the engine a much need scrub yesterday – needs some painting in some strategic areas.

 

We’re taking off for a week in PT to visit Brion Toss, upgrade our rigging and probably spent about a year’s kitty in the process.

 

Thursday, July 15, 2004

 


Wow, what a week!  This trip is turning out to be the ‘build a brand new boat’ endeavor.  OK, too much to go into massive detail right now but here’s a list of what’s going on: massive rigging update, all sails checked (a new main is on the horizon unfortunately), tons of mast work. 

 


 

 

 


We made our daily pilgrimage to the south part of PT today to find an Internet café – I’m replacing all lights at the top of the mast with a single tri-color/mast head LED from Orca Marine (same company I used to replace all the running lights too).



 

I’m excited about everything that’s been happening and everyone has been great to work with but we are massively hemorrhaging the kitty at this point (oh well).