Off to Poulbo

Now that we know we will not be receiving documentation any time soon, there is no reason to sit by the mailbox. July 3rd we cast off the lines and motored out of Bainbridge Island, headed up to the Poulsbo 3rd of July Fireworks Extravaganza. We still had most of the hardware stripped off the decks, so we were compelled to motor the whole way. As fate would have it, the wind came up to about 20 knots or so directly on the nose.

 It ended up taking us about 4 hours to go the 16 miles, even though we were going 6 knots pretty much the whole way. The anchorage was filled with boats, aobut 7 or 8 hundred by my guesstimation. We went in, found a reaonable looking spot, and dropped the anchor. We realized that we take up a lot of space and were uncomfortably close to another boat. We got a hint from the other boat owner standing on the bow of his boat shrugging his shoulders at us. After a little discussion, we decided to look for a bigger opening in the crowd. The anchorage is huge and it was easy to find a spot with plenty of room. We settled in for the night and watched a huge fireworks display. It was absolutely freezing, I stood on the companionway ladder with just my head sticking up for most of it. When the display was over, the local boaters streammed past for hours heading home. The next day was more of the streaming out of boats that had come just for the nights fireworks. There were 20-40 boats streaming out of the anchorage all day long on the 4th. Next day we moved up near the town to practice the anchor drill and make access to town easier. The anchorage is beautiful, with Mt Ranier off to the SE, and seals on the breakwater. We hope to get a couple more projects finished here and move on to the San Juan Islands for a few weeks.

Sigh, still in BI, WA

Another interesting week.  We were only promised a month of dock space, so I guess it is time to move on.
The Coast Guard Vessel Documentation Service has now charged my credit card twice for their services, but I still hold no paper in my hands. I called them up and explained the situation, only to be told that they are way backlogged, and it is unlikely they have started ours yet. He suggested making an e-mail request of the webmaster to get something to that effect on paper and try to use that as an excuse for not being properly documented. We feel no warm fuzzy feelings about that. We still don't have the boat put all together, but it is in a state that we could move it. There are so many terrorists coming into the country by sailboat from Canada that we fear being mistaken for one of them and possibly being treated shabbily if we go out riding around in the boat. We were going to go up to Liberty Bay to Poulsbo for their July 3rd celebration, but don't want to risk any complications. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day, as there will be 2 million boats out running about, but alas, that's usually a good time for crackdowns, too.
Day to day life is about the usual. I found some trampoline material that we like, but it is up in Bellingham, about 3 hours from here. Went out to the car on Tues. and the battery was dead. Had no way to jump it, but decided to try a battery from the boat. Surprise, surprise, they all have the terminals on the wrong side to put in the car. Called around an found a new battery aobut 2 miles away, but I have no inclination to try and carry one that far. Decided to go rent a bicycle by the ferry docks and ride up there. As I was strolling over, I came upon  a scooter rental sign and asked a guy in the parking lot about renting a scooter. He started to tell me what a grand way that would be to take in the island, but when I explained, that I just needed to get a battery, he offered me his car keys. The kindness of strangers can be both heart warming and handy at times.
Went up to get the nets the next day, and stopped by in Port Townsend to pick up some led lights for the boat and drop off a winch for a pattern to have new winch mounts made in aluminum. On the way out of the dock area, the maintenance guy informed me that I need to move my car by Thurs. So I now have another project, to find a spot to park the car while we are gone, if we should ever leave. We no longer have dock priveledges at the private docks, sigh, no hot showers, free laundry, free parking. It appears that our dockage provider is no longer affiliated with the dock and we are kind of on our own.So, the week is rapidly dwindling, and not a whole lot of progress to report. We did receive the remaining packages we were expecting, so now we just need to plug it all in and go.
One of the other reasons for not going out in the boat is that the head has no pump out facility, and the coast guard likes to give courtesy inspections along with citations for $250 if your head open to the water. I can't tell if there is a valve under there or not, so maybe they won't be able to figure it out either. The new head is a self contained bunny hugger certified composting toilet, which will allow us to remove a bunch of stinky plumbing, and a metal holding tank and macerator pump. No issues with through hulls if you have none. This will free up enough space and water connections to install our water maker.

The water in Eagle Harbor here at Bainbridge Island is certified foul in many ways and not a good spot to use a watermaker. The harbor used to have a creosote plant which built boats and treated timber and is a designated superfund cleanup site. The city has a hundred year old sewer system, which is bing replaced now, but swimming, shell fish taking, crabbing, and taking of bottom fish is forbidden, along with a few more delightful cautions. Did I mention the algae bloom( see pic)? Kinda dims my enthusiasm for going kayaking around here.

Just got a reply from the coast guard about the status of my application. They are now reviewing cases from april 27, so it may be a while. We can't go to Canada without documentation, so that is off the list of featured activities. Think I'll go for a swim now.

More Island Life

Having sent in our registration documents to the coast guard, everyday centers around mailtime, which could be anytime, since that particular mail will come from Fed-Ex courrier.

Been re-running rigging on deck and deciding what we really need. Our prior boat had a boom vang, which is a system of pulleys to allow you to choose the position of the boom by pulling it down versus the wind in the sail pulling it up. We needed it on Rosa because there was not really a good way to control it due to the main sheet being mounted at a single point. Hot Sauce has a track across the entire boat for the main sheet to be attached to at any angle you like. A little car with a line to a winch controls the side to side positioning on the track, while the main sheet controls the tension up and down on the sail. The vang is attached to the boom about 4 feet from the mast while the sail is attached at a single point at aobut 18 feet from the mast. There is a 6:1 block setup led to a winch to apply enough force to honk that puppy down(blue line and blocks in pic). Looks like a good setup for destroying some hardware to me.

On our other boat Rosa, the boom vang ripped free from the boom in rough seas about a week and a half into our initial cruise, and after being more securely attached, broke the boom in half in Venezuela, necessitating some complicated repairs in the city of Valencia. Good sightseeing, and cultural exchange, but depending on the kindness of strangers to help with such stuff may not always be the best plan. It will save some weight, clear some space and maybe bring a few coins if we can sell it.

We have scheduled a local craftsman to build us a dodger for the boat on the 1st of August(sort of like the one in this pic). A dodger is a stainless bow/canvas rig with clear windows which goes accross the aft end of the cabin house over the companionway and provides shelter for most of the cockpit in rough weather. High on our list if we are to go down the west coast as it is cold and windy out there. We can remove the front windows in warm weather allowing the breeze to come through, but still have shelter from the sun.
The dodger folks tell me we have too much junk on our decks for this to work well, and we concur.
There are currently 7 winches on the deck by the companionway, some of which have no apparrent function. This is likely an evolutionary process like we are going through, with all the prior stuff still in place. To put a dodger on the boat, we need to rearrange, and eliminate some of this clutter, so there will be a way to attach the dodger to the deck and still use the necessary hardware.

All of this leads up to some decisions about everything on the deck. We are going to replace the winches with new self tailing winches(the shiny chrome beauty in the pic). The old style only work if you keep tension on the loose end of the line to help it grip the surface of the winch while you turn the winch with a winch handle. Most of the time if it is loaded up, it is a two person job to crank in a sheet or raise a sail. Shorthanded, we just don't have the luxury of a large crew to help with such stuff, not to mention the room and board that would go with such help. The self tailing winches use a clamping mechanism to hold the tail and strip it off the drum as you crank merrily along. These were not available when the boat was built and my not be considered necessary by a racing crew. Shorthanded, they can make a big diference in a lot of tasks.
So we bought two larger self tailing winches for the genoa sheets, and a nice electric one to be used for the main sheet and the raising of the sails.We are having some brackets made to mount the primaries(genoa)  on the outer edge of the cockpit, clearing up deck space and making room for the dodger. When we raised the sail on our sea trial one guy cranked the winch, one tailed the line and another helped by pulling the halyard down at the mast. Now it will be done by one person sitting in the cockpit pushing a button.

The new cushions were scheduled to arrive Tuesday, we called to be sure and they told Joan it would be at least a week longer before they were ready. Not the right answer. After some discussion we were told that the bottoms were done and they would expedite the arrival of the seat backs by weeks end. We were tired of sitting and sleeping on the worn out cushions, so off to Seattle to shop, talk to a boat yard about building us a new daggerboard, and pick up the cushions. The first few items went according to plan, and we stopped at an Indian restaurant a couple of blocks from the cushion place for a delcious indian meal. Next stop the cushions, as per the usual the seamstress hadn't planned on bringing them over until the end of the day. GRRR, oh well back to the ferry for another cruise to the island. The ferries are really cool the first time you ride them, but as general transportation, they kinda suck. You have a schedule, but you also have traffic and other interruptions, so if you are a few minutes late, its's a 50 minute wait for the next 50 minute ride. If we take the ferrry to the city, it always turns into an all day affair. That and the $14-$18 each way to take your car along.

Been rowing back and forth to the dock since the motor quit working last week, it's been tedious. I took the carburetor apart and identified a nickel sized diaphram which was cracked, causing the engine to run roulgh, not idle and sometimes be hard to start. Local dealer wanted $52 for one, so I ordered one from Al for $40 and decided rowing would be good exercise. Ran out of water in the tanks, and had to run 7 gal. jerry jug full rowing in and out 1 at a time to replenish supply. In the midst of all the struggle with the motor, Joan realized that the 10 hp on our dinghy is pretty hard for someone her size to crank. Well, thanks to the wonders of the internet and craigslist, I found a pretty cool little hard dink with a pretty new 5hp motor on it just up the road at Kingston. Another day down the tubes as we went to check it out and eventually buy it.

It weighs about half what the rubber ducky weighs and still holds as much or more stuff. The part for the big boy came in on Friday, so I will get it going and try Craigslist to move it off the dock.

Lots of new toys have arrived this week. We had an interesting time trying to track the packages when one set warned us of a weather event in Minot, ND impacting our delivery schedule. Why exactly would you send our stuff there? These questions beg answers, as we waited two days to find out when to go pick the stuff up and then Fri. morning it was magically on the truck for morning delivery. We took off early to go up to port townsend to try and get mounting brackets made for the two new priamry winches, buy some high tech LED lighting for the boat and talk to the guys who make daggerboards in Port Townsend, couldn't nail down the board or winch mounts, but it is in the works for next week. Then we grabbed lunch in Kinston, and took a ferry over to Edmonds, just north of Seattle. Traffic was awful, but we made our way down to the cushion place, where everyone in the store personally apologized for the delay and gave us a whopping $47 off of our $2100 order for the inconvenience. More bumper cars on the freeway to arrive 5 minutes late for the ferry. Sigh, the car is kind of un comfortable stuffed full of cushions which are about half a foot to long to stay behind the seats. Back to BI and the Chandlery to pick up the goodies and back to the town dock with the dinghy because we can unload the car on a ramp next to the boat and not carry it down 1/4 mile of docks to the usual spot. Did I mention that it has rained most of the last two days. Still quite a relief to get everything out to the boat and haul the old cushions off to the dumpster.

 Long last day of a long week. Oh, nevermind that, you don't get days off if you don't have a job....

Going Solar

To make the boat liveable without shore power, I just set the batteries in the companionway below and laid the solar panels on deck. The next step was to wire a controller between the panels and the batteries and connect the fridge. Yes we could live without the fridge, but its the principle of having toys and living the lifestyle we want to become accustomed to.

Simple enough, except the wires are too small, the panels are loose on the deck, the rig shadows the panels in the morning lessening the output, and the wires and batteries are scattered all over the boat.
Designed my own system to mount them off the stern, such that they can be articulated to keep the shadows off and not take up any deck space. The can also be pulled in over the deck and lashed down in severe weather.

 Had to go buy larger wire and wait for a dry day to drill holes, remove foam core from around them, filll with epoxy and let it set up. Too cold when I epoxied, it took a day for the epoxy to set up at 50 degrees as opposed to 30 minutes at 80 degrees in FL. Rained the next day so wait some more. Ran the new wires and mounted it all up next sunny day(Tues). So now this is what it all looks like.

Still have to move the batteries, but have got the system online with proper sized wires to minimize transmission loss and get all the sun has to offer. Sadly, you can see from the picture how much this is  on most days. We get enough to run the fridge on clowdy days, but not much else. This is actally very encouraging, because we have no intention of hanging our anywhere gloomy after this, and this seems to inidicate we will have plenty of power when we get some sun.

The certificate of deletion from canada came in this afternoons mail. We have to go over everything carefully and confirm with the coastguard that we have alll our ducks in a row, and we will send it all off. You can submit it electronically, but if there is a problem, they send out a letter of deficiency to notify you. Opened a fedex acct. so that they overnight it if that is the outcome, or send us our certificate of documentation. If you mess up the application, you must submit it again along with the $141 filing fee. Kinda makes you wonder if they get scored on the number of rejections and re-submissions.

Pulled the daggerboard up today to look over the process of making it easier to handle. It already has a block in the trunk to pull it down, and I intend to put plastic slickness(HMDE or similar) on the side of it so that there will be room to use a block to pull it up from the cockpit. This will also make it fit the case much more closely and not rattle around as much when motoring.

The daggerboard is pretty rough, poorly shaped with some cracks and obvious water damage. Without a shop, it will be very dificult to re-fair it and it is too heavy to move about by hand. I would guess it weighs more than 300# based on my ability to only lift one end with great effort. Perhaps a new one is in the offing if it is to be managed by our short handed crew. The daggerboard foil it the primary point of lateral resistance in this type of boat and a poorly shaped one is as bad as a really ratty sail when it comes to sailing performance. 

Settling in Aboard

The next few days were spent just trying to get spaces sorted out for sitting and sleeping, and working out a storage plan. The dock we are on has no electricity or running water and is not connected to land. It is a tug boat dock that has been here roughly forever. The condos that were built along the shore built a dock that come out to about 10 feet from this one, but it is private and they really would have liked a bigger dock, but those darn tugs are in the way. There are 3 tugs on one side and four sailboats on the other. We have to ferry everything back and forth to shore in the dinghy. Fortunately the dinghy dock is private and has a nice shower and laundry facility which we share with about 4 other people. We haul water by the jerry jug from the dock and there are some dumpsters for the trash available there.

Morning honk fest on the tug next door. They sit and honk at each other until someone goes out and yells "beat it". Only had a couple of these events so far, but it gets light around 5 a.m. and can be kind of annoying.


There was a small apartment style refridgerator on the boat, in good shape, but 120v and not really very efficient. We had brought a nice marine 12v with us, so the other one went in the back of the car, and I worked on getting the new one installed and hooked up. We have no power at our dock, so the next drill was to wire the batteries and solar panels up and get some systems online. I tried for a few days to sell the fridge, but decided I would feel much better about just giving it to Habitat for Humanity than messing with meeting people and discussing it. The Trailer however wa another story. I bought it in Fl for $300, so listed it on craigs list. Next morning there were 4 replies all needing it. Cash is king, so at aobut 4 p.m. while the other wnnabe triler buyers were still at work, a guy showed up and gave me the cash without even looking it over. Popular item.

The boat came with a Magic Chef RV stove which had a good deal of corosion and was perhaps not the safest thing on board. I cooked coffee on it, but upon closer inspection, decided Joan was right about the stove having to go. That's why she is the Admiral and I am a lowly schwabbie.  Pulled it out and just threw it in the dumpster by the dock.

Off to Seattle to a big chandlery to look at stoves and shop for cushions. We have done enough cushions to know what we want and not need a "marine" upholsterer to come rob us at pen point. We found a foam store online and went to the showroom to try out the foam and see what they had for us. They showed us there wares, and suggested that we might want to buy fabric elsewhere and bring it in for thier seemstress, as the chain stores buyy in much greater bulk and have better prices. We went to one of the nearby franchises and found a nice re velour upholstery fabric for abuut 35% of the cost at the foam store. Of course they didn't have enough on hand, but offered to transfer some in from another store within the next couple ofr weeks. Off we went to Everett to the other store. About a 30 minute drive by car, so we got the new stuff, went back to the foam store completed our order and are eagerly awaiting our new delux cushions. You have to sit on worn out foam with a wooden base to really appreciate how uncomfortable it gets after about 5 or 10 minutes. Busy day, are we done yet?

Oh yeah, the stove. We went to the chandlery with the stoves and looked at them, and the catalogues. I really just came to look them over, but the one I liked was not on diplay, but they had some in the warehoiuse downstairs. So when it became obvious they were closing the store webought a stove and went for a ferry ride back to BI. brought the new one out to the boat. Next morning I hooked up the new stove and made some breakfast on it,,,nice.

The metal gismo on the wall to the left of the stove is our propane furnace which heats the boat nicely. We have only use it a couple of times when the temps dropped into the 40s.
Next morning when I went to the dock the maintenane guy asked me if I knew anything abnout the stove sitting by the dumpster. Sigh,,, island life requires that you take such stuff to a recycling station where the recycle $25 from you pocket into the local economy. I sold a station wagon full of metal junk at home to the recycler for $85, so I guess they haven't figured out how to handle recycling in FL yet.

The whole time we have been here we have been trying to get started registering the boat with the coastguard. Sounds like a pretty straightforward process until you try to do it. I was told that since the boat was documented in Canada. I would have to get a certificate of deletion from the canada transportation folks to prove that it was now availble for US documentation. After hours of helpful, polite bureaucrats telling me to call someone else, I realized that it was a big circle jerk and I was getting referred to people I had already spoken with. So I left a detailed message with teh next buck passer and he callled me back to let me know that the prior owner would have to provide him with a copy of the bill of sale and a written requedt for deletion along with $50. He advised me that the mail was about to go on strike and it might be a long time before mail could be relied on again.
I gave all this info to the oprior woner who happened to work in Vancouver where their office was located, and he was kind enough to go there and obtain the needed document. He mailed it on Tues. and I go check the mail every day. I hate waiting.....

Bainbridge Island, WA

We decided to meet the owner at the docks on Monday, when he arrived from Vancouver with the boat. Talked to the broker a couple of times and he had no knowledge of their whereabouts, other than them being en route. At about 4 p.m. he drove up to the north end of the island and reported that there was no Hot Sauce in site. We went to bed wondering when we would get our new toy. In the morning the broker let us know that he had gotten a text at night from Adey that they had stopped in Port Townsend to wait out a foul tide and would be down the next day. We settled in at a nearby bed and breakfast for a 3 day stay to give us time to clear the old and load the new on the boat. About mid day I decided to drive up to the north end of the Island to have a look. I got a couple of blocks down the road  and received a msg that they were at the dock. I gathered Joan up and went to the dock which was piled high from the gear and such required for the 4 or 5 folks who had crewed the boat down from Canada. They shuffled transportation, and we went to sign papers and have a beer. Moved the boat to the new home and here we are. Spent the next couple of rainy days shuttling our gear back and forth by dinghy and by Friday we were ready to move aboard. Boat owners on Tues. the 24th and liveaboard cruisers on the 27th. Life is good.

La Strada

The trip to Washington was long and tough. We had a lot of gear we wanted on the new boat and could'nt really ship, so we bought a stationwagon, added a trailer hitch, bought a trailer and loaded it all up. The trip accross country from Florida is about 3400 miles and took us 9 days. The first few were uneventful, we drove up to North Louisiana and visited some family, then headed out across the great plains. The trip through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska was uneventful,  not much out there. We stopped in Lexington, Ne. for a night and the rain and cold set in.. The next day was a slog though Western Nebraska and Wyoming in cold rainy weather. We made it to Casper, Wy and spent the night. Next morning we awoke to a steady snowfall, no tetons/yellowstone for us. The forcast was for 1-2 feet of snow in the mountains. We brought camping gear so that when we got to cooler weather we could sleep on the ground and commune with nature. Not this trip. We left Casper in a steady snow with about an inch of it piled on top of the car. Shortly after we crossed into Montana, the car just stopped in the high plains. We managed to get in touch with a towing company, and get towed to a shop who alledgedly knew how to fix Subarus. We dropped the car off and went to a nearby dump of a motel for the night. Next day the car was repaired by about 10:30 with a new fuel pump and filter at a cost of $250. We felt very fortunate that we go away with this and continued on, only a couple of hours behind the loose schedule we had in mind. The rain finally stopped and we had a most beautiful  drive accross Montana. The high plains and then the mountains were really spectacular. We stayed in Billings in a great place called the C'mon Inn( nice rooms, comfy beds, 5 hot tubs and real hot breakfast). The road fairy smilled upon us. Next day to Coeur D'alene Id. for another pleasant night and then on to Bainbridge Island. We planned another day in ID, but it was raining again and we had about had it with the road. Found a motel in BI and settled in.