HF Radio Grounded to Keel

This morning I ambled over to the mob that sells solar panels, wind generators, inverters, and that sort of thing. There was uncertainty on what cabling to use to ground the Micom AT130 tuner to the keel bolts but fortunately a clued-up customer helped us out. I walked out with two 30-ft lengths of heavy guage bare wire. The proprietor soldered connectors for the tuner end but had no connectors large enough for the keel bolts.

It's just as well because it was difficult enough finding a route for the wires from the tuner at the transom to the keel bolts, and threading wires with large connectors at the end would have made the job impossible. It turned out to be an all-day job starting with moving gear out of the lazarette and quarter berth and putting it in the cockpit, deck, cabin, and wherever else I could find space. Most of the floor boards had to come up so that anything that fell would wind up in the oily bilge water. I had made enquiries about herioically removing the bilge water a bucket at a time but they wanted 50c for each gallon of bilge water that I dumped. Much as I like working with a clean and dry bilge I decided to proceed with things as they were. Anyway, by 6 PM the job was completedf and the AT 130 tuner was still grounded to the wind vane paddle via two 2" copper straps, and now also to two separate keel bolts by single-strand heavy guage wire. It occured to me that perhaps because the uninsulated ground wires run along much of the length of the bilge the salt water in the bilge will be a good medium for distributing the charge among the dozen or so keel bolts.

I have now settled into a routine. First thing in the morning I visit the toilet block and take my dirty dishes to wash in the laundry trough which has a good supply of hot water. I then work until early afternoon when I have a beer and a light lunch then lie down for 30 minutes or an hour. Then I work until about 6 PM and have a quiet beer or two contemplating the day's work and think about the next day's effort. Then I shower, put on clean clothes, and visit Safeway across the highway from one end of the boat yard with my laptop and backpack.

Safeway has a superb facility for WiFi users: purpose-built bench with plenty of power outlets. It is such a pleasant atmosphere that sometimes I think that I am in a quiet book store rather than a grocery store. After the internet session I'll venture into the store proper and do some grocery shopping. Tonight while setting up my laptop I looked up and noticed a corner of the shop that I had missed but had been needing. It's the section with all sorts of dishes cooked and ready to go - you know, a wide selection of meats, salads, etc that allow you to put together a meal. I cannot do any serious cooking on the boat because of the lack of water and those tarps that will collect any drain water from the sink. But it looks like with Safeway my eating as well as internet problems are over.

Tomorrow I'll put the shutoff valves in the thru-hull fittings in the transom. These openings are above the waterline when the boat is still and in calm water. However, I was advised in Esperance that every thru-hull fitting should have a shutoff valve. I had a good look in the transom while I was working on the grounding and noticed that I have already extended every hose but one to loop up to the top of the lazarette. It is unlikely that water would pass over that loop when the boat is underway. However, there was one thin (about half-inch) hose that did not have a high loop and could possibly set up some sort of siphon going in a following sea. I will see what this hose is about tomorrow and will definitely extend it.

Following that, later in the week, I will remove two of the four large batteries from under the cockpit so that I can slip in there and have a good look at the engine exhaust system. I need to make sure that there are no leaks from the hosing or the muffler itself. (I'm still trying to figure out how I'll move those monster batteries.)

I almost forgot to mention something. I received an email from Angelika, Dieter's wife. Dieter made it safely to Bamfield, south of Ucluelet on the west side of Vancouver Island, after a passage of 24 days. She said that "... he had some stormy weather, lost his engine about 10 days ago, possibly related to a knock-down. Had a tow from the Canadian Coast Guard into the harbor and government dock." It was a difficult crossing for him but 'All's Well That Ends Well'. Richard is at Ucluelet and I wrote to Angelika that I would sure like to be at Ucluelet too. It would be great if the three of us could meet and share our experiences on that crossing.

Getting Started With The Work

I started the day by visiting Port Townsend Rigging. I liked the atmosphere and established good rapport with the people I spoke with. They know what is required and will telephone me in a few days before they visit the boat.

I then went on a quest for a grounding plate for the HF radio. One place sent me to another who sent me to another and I was amazed that what I required wasn't immediately at hand. In one business we were reduced to using Google searches to try to find what I wanted. Full of doubts I was pointed to the boat works co-op where eventually I spoke with their electrical specialist. I told him that I had considered having a grounding plate made of stainless steel but he said that s/s is not good for that sort of thing and they prefer to use bronze. I mentioned my lead keel. He asked if it was encased in fiberglass. When he learned that the lead keel is directly in the water he said that they have found that grounding to a keel bolt gives the best results. He said that there is enough mass and surface area in the keel to compensate for the antifouling on it. I asked if there would be resultant galvanic damage to the bolts or keel and he said No. I told him that he had just solved my problem, thanked him, and we shook hands. I plan to use a 2" copper strap to ground the tuner to the keel bolts.

I visited West Marine and asked what the point for each dollar that I spent really meant. He looked and my card and said that I would get a $5 discount for every $500 that I spent. (We both managed to keep a straight face.) There is another card which costs $19 but would give me a 4% discount. I learned that a headless (i.e. no display) Raymarine in-hull depth transducer costs only $120 (plus over 8% sales tax, thank you). The display would be to the C120 chart plotter. I know that a depth display inside the cabin is not nearly as useful as one in the cockpit but I intend this to be a backup in case the Navman depth sounder fails for some reason.

I was disappointed to learn that there is no refrigerator specialist in the precinct but was told that what I require isn't too exotic and a competent marine electrician can do the job. One person has been recommended by two separate parties and I left a message with him this morning but got no response. I will try again tomorrow.

I found a really good chandlery that focuses more on hardware and materials and less on electronics, books, clothing, and other "consumer" marine items. I got the fittings for the salt water galley pump intake. I was surprised that he supplies only bronze and not stainless steel through-hull fittings and valves. I prefer s/s but if bronze is good enough for the locals it should see Pachuca through a few more years of service.

There was good progress with the maintenance of the SABB diesel engine. I have engaged Shoreline Marine Diesel and they seem like a good mob. Unfortunately they can do the maintenance only when the boat is back in the water which I should have realized earlier. They asked for information on the fuel and oil filters required and soon I provided that. Then they asked for the engine model and soon I produced the SABB diesel owner's manual and parts manual. I had put the cooling water temperature sensor on the agenda and decided - wisely, as it turned out - to remove the part from the engine and take it to them. An hour later I learned that it is a European version of the VDO part and is not available in the USA. They left it to me to order the part from SABB. I have already sent them an email. Then there was the very bent bolt that controls the fan belt tension of the small alternator. I wound up and the hardware store across the road that has by far the widest collection of nuts and bolts that I have ever seen in a hardware store. They tried but they could not help me. I went back to Shoreline Marine and Mark put in a lot of time searching through his various boxes of bolts and he identified it as an 8mm metric bolt of standard thread. He has ordered a bit rod of this thread and will make the bolt.

So that was the first day: slow, patient, and methodical. If the past is any guide I'll steadily pick up the pace as I get more hands-on involvement.

Boats from Hawaii

Jeff on his beautiful Passport 40, Kailia.
















Richard's boat Fire Water.




















Paul's boat with his companion on deck.









Paul on the jetty.

Photos from Port Angeles

The top photo shows my shore visiting setup at Port Angeles. I would tie up the Zodiac at the totally unused public slips and walk ashore without getting my feet wet. In the background you can see Pachuca at anchor.










This photo shows how calm the waters were at times. I departed for Port Townsend in conditions similar to this.













This one gives an idea of what it's like to have a large cargo ship coming at you at over 19 knots and only a few minutes from collision. I was in relatively shallow water so I was confident that he would turn. The fact that I am here to tell the tale confirms that I was correct.













This one shows the use of the davit to raise and lower the outboard motor. It is an obvious technique which nevertheless took me years to try out.












The final photo shows the Arnold's grounding setup for the HF radio. It worked very well. I downloaded two messages from Friday Harbor at 3400 bytes per minute.

Port Townsend Day 2

I visited the marina office this morning and asked about WiFi services. They have no WiFi transmitter in the marina. Although there is commercial internet access available the lady recommended simply walking over to Safeway grocery store across the road and setting myself up at one of the tables of the Starbuck's Coffee section. I asked if it was an OK to do and she replied that yes, they provide that service hoping that internet users will buy things. So I am composing this blog update on the Toshiba laptop and hope that its internal battery lasts long enough for me to get the update out at Safeway.

Last night's effort to get the blog update out via the HF radio using the jury rig grounding worked OK, though it took over 10 minutes to get the message out. Arnold phoned this morning and he is on the way with a steel spike and a sledge hammer. He spoke of also grounding the boat's battery system.

Yesterday afternoon's laundry effort went well. It is a pretty good facility of 2 washers and 2 driers and fortunately there was nobody else using the facilities. The showers required a bit of learning. I know now that for a quarter you get 1.5 minutes of water and you can stack in up to 10 quarters ahead of time. So I'll either time myself or most likely shower with 2 quarters and when the water stops I'll put in a 3rd quarter for the rinse.

I also visited a the kind of used boating equipment shop that yachties dream about. You know, the kind where you can spend hours examining all sorts of fascinating equipment, big and small. I walked out with a cruising guide to the south coast of British Columbia ($12), an AA-powered waterproof strobe light ($10) and a chart of San Francisco Bay ($5), all in near-new condition. The couple who run the shop are experienced cruisers and I told them to expect to see me quite a bit over the next 2 or 3 weeks. ... The strobe light leaves the more expensive filament-bulb "strobe" in my life jacket for dead, so I've done a replacement. I plan to buy 2 more of the strobe lights. I can see deploying them on the bow and stern in a difficult anchorage.

Arnold arrived around midday and pretty soon he had two steel spikes driven in with a sledge hammer. We then clamped the same ground wire that I had trailed in the water behind the boat to help with the grounding of the HF radio. I then tested it and got two messages via Friday Harbor at 3400 bytes per minute which is pretty good for the middle of the day. Arnold also brought an aluminum fold-out ladder that is the perfect height for the boat and will certainly make access to the boat much safer. We then visited the second hand boat equipment shop then had a bite to eat at McDonald's. After that off he went back home and I walked the short distance to the boat.

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Trip to Hard Stand

Pachuca's lift and hard stand transition went well, as Robert has noted. It was the first time I'd seen a boat hauled out of the water, and the lift crew made it all seem easy.

The following photos and short clip show essential parts of the trip.

Photo 1: On the Travelift.
Photo 2: Robert pressure-washing the hull.
Photo 3: Pachuca on hard stand.
Photo 4: Exit strategy.
Video Clip: Pachuca moving to it's pressure-washing station.

On The Hard Stand

I woke up at 4.30 AM to the feint metallic sound of the Monitor wind steering. I could feel the boat floating so I knew that Ihad not run aground and besides the anchor alarm had not gone off. Nevertheless I got up to have a look and found Pachuca just in front of a cabin cruiser, close enough for the Monitor paddle to be coming in contact with his anchor rope. The boat had anchored during the afternoon while I was away visiting Arnold. When I motored to Pachuca I went past the cabin cruiser which seemed to be a good distance from Pachuca. Both boats were hanging to the east off a west wind.

In the morning both boats were hanging to the west off an east wind and we were too damned close. While I tried to figure out what had happened the skipper from the cabin cruiser came on deck. He asked if I had dragged and I replied that I would be surprised if I had because the anchor had stood up to gusts of over 25 kt and the wind was now light. I told him that I had 15 meters of chain and 70 meters of rope and he said that he had 100 feet of chain and 70 feet of rope. I pulled away from him by pulling in 10 meters of my anchor rope and boat held fine.

I went down below and starting with my initial anchor position to 3 decimal places of seconds and a very accurate ruler facility with the chart plotter I could see that I was 426 freet from my initial location but I had rotated almost 180 degrees on the anchor. 456 ft implied a diameter of my turning circle of 139 meters which was within the turning of 170 meters allowed by the amount of rode I had out. The best theory that I could come up with was that in the light winds his chain was still set to the east while his rope was set to the west.

Arnold telephoned me that he and Sandra had arrived to help me get the boat lifted so I started up the engine and brought up the anchor. That anchor was so embedded in the mud that had difficulty breaking it out. On the way into the marina I called out to the cabin cruiser that my anchor had been firmly bedded down.

I would like to avoid these extremely long anchor scopes in the future and I might replace my 38 meters of chain with 50 or 60 meters of chain and accept the added weight forward. It would spare me the inconvenience of managing the rope-chain combination.

I motored into the marina in 5.5 m of water. Arnold and Sandra were waiting at the jetty in front of the boat lifter and Arnold took my lines. I threw him the bow line which had come out of the bow cleat so he wound up with the entire rope in his hands. We sorted that out then he reminded me that I had not deployed the fenders. All four fenders were on deck ready to go but I had simply forgotten to flip them over the side. We tied the boat up and eventually Sean came and I handed over the paper work that I filled in the night before and showed him a plan of Pachuca's profile to help him decide where to put the lifter straps.

The lift went quite well with Arnold and I on board. The boat was moved to a wash-down area and I was given access to a pressure gun and took my time to clean the hull very, very well - so well that I don't think that I will have to sand it. The hull was in amazingly good shape considering that it had been antifouled 18 months and probably 8000 nm previously. After I finished with the pressure washing one of the lift workers quipped that the boat was ready to go back into the water - she looked that good. Soon Pachuca was on the hard stand.

They do things differently here than in Fremantle. For EPA reasons the boat must be on a vinyl sheet that must be swept every day. The idea is to capture all of the nasties before they reach the ground. They provide electricity but no water, again for EPA reasons. They do not provide ladders for liability reasons but I was invited to use whatever rickety and totally unsafe ladders of wooden scaffolds that I could find. I understand the motivation but the outcome is absurd. Instead of the boat yard providing safe ladders they leave it up to the customer to use unsafe means to get on his boat but that is OK because the boat yard is not responsible. Sean could see that too but he has to work to policy.

Afterwards Arnold, Sandra, and I went to the Blue Moose Cafe here in the boat yard and had what I thought was a great lunch. Arnold sneakily picked up the tab while I thought that he was going to the loo.

Back at the boat I passed down to Arnold his spear gun and a bottle of Australian red wind from the Friends of the Western Ground Parrots and off they went on what I hoped would be an enjoyable drive home in clear and sunny weather.

I did some settling-in things like doing my laundry, setting up electric power to the boat, and visiting Safeways for a few grocery items. Tomorrow, Sunday, would be a hopefully a slow-paced day of tidying up the boat, walking around the marina, and planning the tasks that start on Monday morning. My MO is to front-load the professional contacts for rigging, refrigeration, diesel, etc. Once they are scheduled and on the way I'll attend to the things that I can do personally such as the antifouling and the new thru-hull fittings.

Unfortunately I have not been able to find a WiFi network within boat range, though I will make some enquires at the office because one of their brochures state "WiFi". Also, there is the issue of grounding for the HF radio. Arnold agrees that we must ground the HF radio literally into the ground using some sort of a spike, or to a water pipe of we can find one. The point is that my access to Sailmail and communications with Richard are in jeopardy until we can solve this problem. Arnold says that he can bring a spike that we can hammer into the ground. As a stopgap I've connected the trailing wire that I used to augment the Monitor paddle grounding to one of the 6" spikes used to hold down the tarp under the Boat. I actually managed to get a connection the Friday Harbor. If this entry is in the blog it means that there was just enough propagation to enable transmission of the message, no doubt with many retries and a degraded speed.

Arnold and Sandra took many photos and some movies of the lifting operation and Arnold will post those from his home.

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Day 1 at Port Townsend

Fortunately the wind settled down and the anchor held last night and I had a good night of rest.

Arnold and I had agreed to meet at 11 AM so at 10.30 I took the Zodiac into the harbor and did a did a reconnaissance of the area by water, visiting both boat lift facilities. I visited the marina office and got some useful information then met Arnold. We then visited the boatyard office and I learned more about the rules and procedures and picked up some forms to fill out.

Arnold and I were both impressed with this boating facility. It is Opua on a bigger scale. By this I mean that in the one precinct within easy walking distance is just about every boating skill that one could want. There are also some eating places and a watering hole. Across the street there is a big Safeway grocery store and various restaurants. Arnold and I had a long cup of coffee at a local cafe then headed to his home where I visited for the afternoon. It was good to see Sandra, Denver the Dog, and the house. Sandra prepared a fine Salmon dinner and Arnold drove me back to Port Townsend well before dark (which is about 9 PM).

In the cockpit I found a note from Ryan. He, Danny, and Bob had arrived in Sonrisa from Honolulu the previous day, as I had, but did not see me when they arrived no doubt because I arrived pretty late in the day. Anyway, they were moving on because they have jobs go get back to and must have noticed Pachuca on the way out and motored over to leave the note. I'll be in the area until September and we have each other's contact details so our paths may cross soon.

Arnold will make the hour-long drive back to Port Townsend tomorrow morning and help me tie the boat at the jetty in front of the lifter. It won't be a straight forward task because there is a big steel column every 40 ft for the floating jetty and I've got to tuck the boat between two of them.

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At Anchor in Port Townsend

I am safely anchored at Port Townsend in a howling wind.

I weighed anchor Port Angeles at 12.15 am. The flood tide was due almost 3 hours later than when I was at Neah Bay so I waited until more than an hour after low tide accepting the probability that I would arrive at Port Townsend in the dark. The sea was flat calm even though there was supposed to be 10-15 kt of west wind in that part of the strait but I had no choice. I was hoping that the 15-20 kt NW winds predicted for later in the day would come to pass, otherwise I would motor the whole way.

I motored for 2 hours, the last 30 minutes of that with the assistance of the full jib with wind on the port quarter. I eventually had enough wind to warrant hoisting the mainsail and soon we were doing a modest 4.5 kt down wind. The wind got stronger and I suspect the current started to work my way because our speed over the ground kept steadily increasing. I remembered that I would be anchoring in 16 or 17 meters of water so I went forward to swap the 38 meters of chain for the 15 meters of chain and 80 meters of white rope. That was pretty exhilarating, actually. I had to lay flat on my stomach and reach to the anchor to pass a rope through it so that I would not suffer the embarrassment of losing my anchor when I removed its chain rode. It's kinda cool lying on your stomach at the very front of the boat while in cuts through a calm sea at 5.5 kt.

When I finished swapping anchor rodes I looked up and saw that the wind had shifted and was headed toward the NE. I gybed and was very happy to see that I could pretty well lay Port Townsend. Soon I was watching the speed in the range 8.2-8.5 kt. There seemed to be magic at work because the boat didn't seem to be moving that fast. I realized that I had a good chance of making Port Townsend before dark. Soon we were running downwind with an apparent wind of about 15 kt and the jib was being blanketed. I then dropped the mainsail because I was terrified of an accidental Gybe which with the full mainsail up and a wind of 13 kt could have devastating effects on the rig. There was no noticeable drop in speed as Pachuca traveled safely at 6.5 kt in a falling wind. The wind kept dying and near the outer red buoy of Port Townsend I decided roll in the jib and motor the last 4 or so miles. I glanced over and saw what looked like a river of waves heading for Pachuca. I quickly rolled in the jib before the waves arrived. It was amazing. Here I had been sailing in relatively calm waters and now there was a boundary of waves of 3, maybe 4 feet in height headed for Pachuca. I thought that it must have something to do with the tidal current which was strange because we were in the middle of the tide cycle. The roiled water got to the boat and soon we were rocking and rolling. I rounded the outer buoy for the run into Port Townsend and the wind started to hit us big-time. Next time I see a wall of waves coming my way I'll get ready for some serious wind.

I motored in with the wind on the starboard beam at over 20 kt and gusting to over 25 kt. It was a real howler. I worked my way past a yacht and a fishing boat at anchor, wheeled into the wind about 400 meters from the breakwater of the Port Townsend Boat Haven, and dropped anchor in 17 meters of water at 6.15 PM. One thing that I really like about boating in the Northwest is that the holding ground seems great everywhere. I payed out the 15 meters of chain and 40 meters of rope, snubbed it off, and thonk! the anchor grabbed and Pachuca was holding steady against the wind. A few minutes later I payed out more rope for a total of 70 meters of rope and the 15 meters of chain. I then put a towel with a glove between the roller and the anchor rode to prevent chafing on the rope.

Then I zipped up the mainsail in its cover in the howling wind which seems like a dumb thing to do but I figured that it would reduce windage. For emergency the mainsail is too cumbersome to get up quickly and I would rely on fast deployment of the jib. Then I treated myself to a cockpit bath, hoping that the anchor would not drag at the most inopportune moment.

So at the time of this writing, 8 PM Thursday 25 June, Pachuca seemed securely at anchor in the howling wind, I was clean and had a fresh set of clothes on, and I was sipping an Australian Jacobs Creek Shiraz Cabernet.

Life could be worse.

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Departing Port Angeles Tomorrow

I've just checked the weather report and it looks like tomorrow (Thursday 25 June) will be a good time for making a run for Port Townsend. It is true that there will be showers not due to clear up until Friday but there is good prospect of wind for the sail. The boat is to be lifted out of the water at 10 AM Saturday morning and I would rather arrive at Port Townsend on Thursday night rather than Friday night.

When I returned to the boat this afternoon the rain had disappeared and it was once again a warm and sunny day, with practically no wind. I took the opportunity to try to get the foot switch to the anchor windlass to work again. The voltage to the switch was low. I removed the wires with great difficulty because of all of the gunk that had been put around the connections in an attempt to protect them from the salt water. One connector broke off by itself so I peeled back some wire, cleaned it with sand paper, and crimped on another connection. I then sand papered the posts as best as I could and put it back together again. It still didn't work. The voltage was still too low. In a way I was glad because I could see that a patch-up job would last only a few months. For some reason thin ordinary copper wire was used for the switch and when I peeled back 10 mm of insulation in order to crimp the new terminal I could see that it was corroded inside of the insulation. I am going to rewire the switch with heavier gauge tinned wire. If there was ever a place requiring tinned wire the bow of the boat in the anchor well is that place. That means that I will have to run wire from the anchor winch switch in the cockpit along the length of boat to the anchor well. That's the way the cookie crumbles. It may give me the opportunity to remove more redundant wiring along the way. I'll try to solder rather than crimp the connectors this time and maybe try heat shrink protection at the joint. The foot switch, by the way, was replaced in New Zealand and appears to be in top condition. Of course I will remove it and test it with a good power source.

That's it folks. The sailing will be over for a while. For the next few weeks it will be Pachuca Payback Time. (She is relentless in her demands but on the other hand she brought me the 2200 miles from Hawaii with no problems.)

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Port Townsend Boat Haven

I've been in the warm and comfortable internet cafe ("The Veela Cafe" on First Sreet) doing some research on Port Townsend.

Previously I had planned to ride at anchor and motor ashore to get the lay of the land and make the necessary arrangements for a slip. However, the directions at
http://www.portofpt.com/boat_haven.htm are clear enough for me to motor right up the reception jetty and make my arrangements.

I'll go there with some reluctance because I can sense more weeks of expensive and exhausting boat work ahead of me. Once I move into the slip the money clock will start at about $32 USD per day for the slip and the costs for the haul out and hard standing which are difficult to figure out because they seem to itemize things more than what I am accustomed to in Fremantle. But they do allow liveabords in the hardstand area (for a fee of $185 per month, of course).
See http://www.portofpt.com/shipyard_rates.htm for the charges.

But I cannot complain. The consistent word I get is that Port Townsend is the place to go for yacht work. A list of the trade skills is at http://www.portofpt.com/businesses_by_trade.htm
Let's see ... looking at the list I will need ... Engines Diesel, Marine Equipment & Supplies Retail and Used, Refrigeration, Rigging, Shafts Struts and Rudders. I'll do the thru-hull fittings for the galley salt water pump and the grounding plate for the radio myself. I will also do the routine antifouling and anode replacement work. I regard the engine as too important to risk with my inexperienced hands, so I will have it professionally checked out and fully maintained. The engine water temperature sender will also have to be replaced. I will probably have the rudder post checked out, particularly from the point of view of potential leaks. I'll probably replace the refrigerator. I may install a second (Raymarine) depth sounder. They are not too expensive and if the Navman on the boat were to fail I would be severely handicapped. And of course I'll have the cap shrouds and chain plates checked out. ... And who knows what else we'll find. Never mind. Every time I start to waver I think of that lonely sail down wind-swept Patagonia and rounding the Horn.

I motored ashore this morning in a slight drizzle. A city worker told me that the next two days will be rainy but the weekend would be beautiful. I do not relish the prospect of motoring the 35 miles or so to Port Townsend in the rain. In fact, I don't want to motor at all. I'll most likely stay in Port Angeles for a few more days and see how the wind is blowing in the weekend.

OOPS, LATE DEVELOPMENT. Soon after publishing this update I telephoned the boat yard and found out that there is one opening on Thursday, I think, and two on Saturday. After that I would have to wait another week. So I've booked the boat for lifting this Saturday at 10 AM. That means that I will transit to Port Townsend tomorrow or the next day. (Good thing I phoned, huh?)

Direct Blog Updates

To date I have emailed my blog updates to Stephen in Fremantle who as been posting them on the blog.

Stephen has done some more technical ferreting and has provided me with a method of updating the blog directly from Pachuca via Sailmail. The updates from sea will still be restricted to text as they were on the passage from Hawaii.

This is my first direct blog update from Pachuca.

A tip for long-distance sailors: have someone ashore to provide technical support. I suspect that most modern cruising boats could use a Stephen.

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Port Angeles

Port Angeles is a picturesque working port. The harbor is quite large and there is a long bluff with a pedestrian path along the shore and houses at the top with the mountains in the background. I took the top photo shortly after dawn.

Departing Neah Bay. The top photo is of the entrance to the bay. The bottom photo shows the steep following sea in the strait. The first chart plotter screen shows the tide situation at the time. The vertical red line shows that we were at the very bottom of the tide cycle. The second screen shows information on the tidal currents which I learned about too late. Note the whopping 2.8 kt current set to the west.

(Don't forget that you can enlarge these photos with one click of the left mouse button.)

Neah Bay

Scenes of the Neah Bay harbor and the town mortuary, which I thought had a clever inscription.

There were actually very few sail boats in the marina. What I thought were masts were folded-up outriggers on fishing boats.

Makah Marina

You can see my outdoor setup at the Makah Marina at Neah Bay for charging the mobile telephone and accessing the internet with their WiFi which was free and fast. I thought that the garbage bin was a nice touch. The bottom photo is of Pachuca riding at anchor in Neah Bay.

It is just as well that Pachuca is riding at anchor. The charge for a slip at the marina is 85 cents per foot which sounded cheap until I multiplied by 40 in my head and got $34.00 per night. The total charge for anchoring was much easier to compute: $0.00.


Note that 10 fresh entries follows this and you may not be able to see them all by scrolling down. In that case click on the rest of them.

Hawaii Departure Day

The top photo is of Lenny relaxing at the back of the Fuel Dock on my day of departure. (Guys, quit looking at the girl!)

The other photo is of Pachuca proudly flying her USA and State of Hawaii courtesy flags on her starboard side, and the Fremantle Sailing Club burgie on her port side. (The Australian flag at the stern is out of view.)

Goodbye Hawaii

There is a self-taken photo of me wearing the lei that Bill gave to me. I then cast it on the water as Pachuca sailed slowly away. And there is my good bye photo of Honolulu and Diamond Head.

Visitors From Space

These are photos of my avian visitors during the passage. There are the two freeloading boobies that spent the night on the pulpit and the storm petrel who spent almost 24 hours on Pachuca for some R&R. The petrel was weak and trembling when I picked him up from the cockpit sole. The next day he was alert and steady with body language that said "I'm Outta Here, Pal."

Fouled Propeller

This is the tangle of ropes that fouled my propeller early in the passage. I was very fortunate in being able to remove it without having to go for a dive.

Getfax Program Crashes

This photo of my Acer laptop screen was the result of a desparate effort to capture the error message from one of the weather fax program crashes. I had about 3 seconds in which to get the shot. (The problem was eventually resolved.)

Hmm. Fresh Bread.

Baking Day on Pachuca.

Running Downwind

Pachuca was under minimum sail doing 5.5 knots as she approached on Cape Flattery, with a rough sea at her stern. (I regret not going faster while I had the chance. It was a mistake that cost me at least 3 hours of motoring the next day.)

Ships

I woke up in the morning of my approach to Cape Flattery surrounded by 5 ships. You can see in the second display frame at the top of the C120 that I was 27.90 nautical miles from the cross hairs on Cape Flattery. At one point later I could see 13 ships in the area. The other photo is of a tug heading south towing a barge. (That's right: never EVER sail behind a tug at night.)

Cape Flattery

Various views of Cape Flattery. Note the calm sea and the lighthouse on its own island. Note too the interesting pillar-like structure in the background between the island and the cape. The black dot at the shore line just to the left of center on the lower photo is the buoy that I had to find and leave to starboard when entering the strait.

Photos of Neah Bay

Photos of Neah Bay from Pachuca, only about 100 meters from the entrance to the Marina.

A Plotted Course........

It's a little rough round the edges but here is Pachuca's plotted course since leaving Honolulu.


Please Click on the Picture to MAke Bigger.......


T H A N K S Stephen.