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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