Dinner at Mark's

On Tuesday evening I visited Mark's home for dinner.

The visit started at Shoreline Marine Diesel where Mark presented me with the replacement alternator provided at no charge under warranty to me by Volvo.  We brought up a photo of the original alternator before I removed it from the engine and we discussed the installation process.  We then discussed measurements to be taken at various rpm to assess the performance of the re pitched propeller, as well as the maintenance to be done at 50 hours of running time.  From this discussion Mark thought that carrying a spare head cover gasket would be a good idea and that was subsequently ordered.

I then followed Mark to his property which I think is between Port Hadlock and Port Ludlow.  It is on an acre of land, backing onto a handsome forest, and on a hill with glimpses of Puget Sound.

Growing Mushrooms

There was enough daylight remaining to allow a tour of the property and wow, are Mark and his wife Chris productive people.  There was a variety of over 30 fruit trees that they planted a few years ago, berry bushes, garden plots all over the place and several green houses for growing all sorts of vegetables.  Mark showed me how they grow mushrooms, storing the logs containing the spores, soaking them when they want to activate the growing process, then hanging the logs to prevent - the slugs, I think - from getting to the mushrooms.  He and Chris make a lot of cider from their produce.

Then I got a big surprise when we visited the large sauna that he designed and built several years ago.  We passed through the first section that contained a bench and shower to enter the sauna itself with its two tiers of benches and stove with rocks on top of it.  Mark told me that they have reached temperatures of 225 F but they prefer it 20 or 30 degrees lower.  (Eat you heart out, Ib!)

Then I got a tour of the house which like the sauna showed lots of thought and reflected Mark's love of wood and years of experience in the logging industry.  He seemed to know each piece of wood by species, quality, and where it came from.  He showed me how the end grain on one of the stair posts indicated what sort of life the tree had had.  I'll let the photographs (some provided by Mark) speak for themselves.  Note the loft that supports a double bed.  Note also the mortise and tenon joints.

Shower at Sauna Ante Room

Mark

Dinner was a treat and a real adventure for me.  I had eaten crab before but it was always crab meat without the crab.  I expected to see lots of teeny little crabs.  Instead there were three live crabs that to me looked huge.  They were boiled in a large pot then Mark, Chris, and son Torsten enjoyed a mini banquet that included big fleshy shrimp, along with a bottle of Australia red that I had brought.  Mark sat next to me and showed me how to use the tools for cracking the shells and digging out the flesh.

Mark is too smart to have a boat.  He says that his house is his boat.  And a worthy boat it is indeed.

Loft off Second Floor

Cool Swing Out Screen in Main BR

Another Cold

I'm having my second bad cold during this brief stay in the Northwest.  I've gone through 5 large boxes of tissues and have deployed another three in my bedroom, the den, and the car.  I've got another 4 boxes in reserve in the garage from that packet of 10 that I got at Costco.  Elisa could hear me coughing last night from her bedroom in the floor above.

I sailed around the bottom of Australia in the Southern Ocean and across the Tasman Sea to New Zealand during winter. Arnold will remember my penchant for bathing in the frigid winter waters of The Bight and Wilson's Promontory.   All without any health health problems.  Go figure.

This is a beautiful day with the sun melting the light snow on the hot tub deck.  I was not able to go with Sandra and Elisa to a Picasso exhibition in Seattle as I had planned.  This is a photo of Elisa all rugged up for her trip to Seattle.

Christmas Portrait

Here is the Christmas Day portrait of the Morales family.

In the front row, left to right, are Arnold, Daughter Elisa holding one of the cats (Icepick, I think), and Denver the Dog.  Standing at the rear are myself, Sandra holding the other cat, and son Andrew.

I could not resist including photos of Denver in Dog Heaven, surrounded by family and very happy with his present.

Tracking Nereida

For over a month I've been following the blog (http://synereida.livejournal.com/) of Jeanne Socrates (http://www.svnereida.com/) as she attempts to sail solo and non stop from Victoria, B.C., round the Horn, and up to UK.  I am particularly interested because she is heading for the Horn at about the same time that I expect to next year, though she is taking the far offshore route rather than the coastal-hopping one that I am contemplating.  You can see her track at http://www.pangolin.co.nz/yotreps/tracker.php?ident=KC2IOV

Her experiences so far demonstrate the advantages of the "direct" offshore route: good weather and winds (so far), good progress (well over 100 nm a day), and in general hassle-free sailing.

In Jeanne's entry of Sunday 19 December she reported that her laptop died, but fortunately it was her older secondary machine and her primary machine is still functioning.   That validated my decision to set out with three laptops on board.

It's a Dog's Life

Here is Denver the Dog doing it tough in a Northwest winter.

Propeller

Total Yacht Works in Mazatlan has completed the work of repitching Pachuca's propeller.  They reduced the propeller's diameter from 17" to 16.5" in order to remove a nick at the end of one of the blades, and set the pitch to 14.0".

Mark here in Port Townsend ran the numbers through his calculator and agrees with the 14.0" pitch, which represents a desired slight under pitching from the 14.6" theoretical ideal.

Ib has the propeller in the hold of Aeolus and he and Yadranka plan to set sail for La Paz this weekend.

Port Hadlock Marina

A few days ago I visited the Port Hadlock Marina (http://marinas.com/view/marina/11555_Port_Hadlock_Yacht_Club_WA) to have a look after the storm damage of 22 November.  (http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2010311309992).  

The 160-slip marina is at the southern end of Port Townsend Bay, which makes it susceptible to winds from the north.  It has a metal breakwater fixed to sturdy posts, and I understand that the metal barriers do not reach the bottom.   Although the marina took a hammering and made life uncomfortable for its inhabitants, the 5 (one report stated 6) boats that were sunk had all been on moorings outside of the marina.

Electronic Goodies For Mexico

Cruisers traveling between Mexico and the USA resemble a line of ants carrying loads back and forth.  Those headed for the USA usually take outgoing mail, to be consigned to the safety of the US postal system.  Those returning to Mexico bring back all sorts of commodities, with replacement parts at the head of the list.  One man returned to Mexico from Oregon with a complete brand new engine for a friend of his.

My load will be more modest.  Most of the items above are 12V power supplies for computers.  They enable us to run our computers from the boat's 12V battery bank, something indispensable when at anchor or out at sea.  The charger at the far left is one that Bob found on the net for his Acer laptop.  The second one from the left is one that I purchased for the Acer netbook that I ordered (but did not get).  Both are dedicated to Acers: 19 volt output and one connector specific to that model of computer.

After my netbook purchase fell through (It was rejected because I had a foreign Visa card, which gave me time to reconsider the issue.) and I purchased the Toshiba, I went out on the Net looking for a 12V power supply for the new machine and found a real gem: the Merax power supply at the right.  We have confirmed using the cigarette lighter socket in Arnold's van that it does indeed support my new Toshiba (19V); but it is much more versatile than that, with its choices of 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24 volts as well as a set of 14 different connectors.  But wait, there's more!   The unit has a USB connection for supplying 5V power to electronic devices, such as the 340 Gb external hard drive I have on in the boat.  The photo shows two Merax's.  The offer was one Merax for $26 or two for $40 (no tax or shippiing charge), and I can't resist a bargain - besides, I like redundancy in my life.

I've got two inverters in the boat - a 240V and a 110V.  They could be used for powering computers using their normal wall plug battery supplies.  However, it seems extremely inefficient to me to take 12 V power from the boat and invert it to AC, so that the computer's power supply pack can take the AC, rectify it back to DC, then transform it to the computer's voltage.  

The blue-black box contains a GPS antenna for Ib.  These are great little devices that receive GPS satellite signals from inside the cabin and put out NMEA data to a computer via a USB port.  I have found this useful for my computer-based C-Map chart plotter system as well as the modules of the Sailmail system that require knowledge of the boat's position.

At the far right is a 16 GB flash drive that I bought yesterday for about $30.

I've got one low tech item to find for a friend: a jar of  "Johnny's Seasoning Salt".

Hello, Blog

It's been 5 days since my last blog entry.  That's unusual from a guy who has made as many as 3 entries in one day.

I will pass off some of the responsibility for this blog gap to the Deity, who has once again blessed the Northwest of the USA with wonderful winter weather which renders this visitor from sunny La Paz less likely to venture outdoors with his camera.

However, my social and home life is booming.  I enjoy daily life at the Morales hacienda in the company of Arnold, Sandra, Denver the Dog, along with the cable TV and great internet access.  Life is about contrasts and I am enjoying it while I can because I know that back on Pachuca there will be no cable TV and usually no other people, furry pets, or internet.

Last Wednesday I drove to Port Townsend to Sue Hoover's house for dinner with her and Dan '&' Lisa who had helped me so much at Port Townsend Rigging.  It was great to be with them again and for me there was the bonus of getting a lot of new information on my rig and how to manage it.  (Some lessons: I reef the sails way, way to late; an inner forestay does not maketh a cutter rig; the reason why I've had trouble with my staysail and been reluctant to use it is that it does not have dedicated block tracks in the proper position on the cabin.)

Last night Arnold, Sandra, and I drove to Jean Davie's place at Kala  Point just out of Port Townsend for dinner with friends and relatives.  It was great to see again Francis Brophy, a sharp and talented free spirited Irishman from Brooklyn whose experience ranges from computer communications high tech (He tried to enroll into a college course and was asked instead to teach it.) to currently playing and instructing Jazz piano.  We then had the pleasure of meeting Jean's brother-in-law and neighbor, Bill, and his wife Marlene.  It was a great evening over a veritable banquet table which reflected Jean's terrific sense of taste and style.   ... But it wasn't all convivial indulgence: Arnold, Bill, and I "sang for our supper" by replacing Jean's bulky VGA computer monitor with a sleek flat screen that had been in the box for about a year.  Jean was very pleased with this.

Last week Arnold and I did a little tour to look at the boats at Keyport and the Brownsville marina.  This involved a drive from Kingston to a few miles south of Poulsbo.

Keyport looked very old, very quaint, and very picturesque, with views across the water to Poulsbo and the mountains to the west.

The Brownsville marina was of medium size - maybe 200 boats - with most of the boats in the 25-35 ft range.  However, there were a few larger boats, one of which had just returned from the Vashon race with no mast, because it had sheared off at the deck and had to be cut away.   Unfortunately there were many neglected boats which in this part of the world means mold inside and out.  I have included the last photo, of the floating toilets at the Brownesville marina, because of the name that you can see on the side of the building: "Waterloo".

US Passport Renewed

Yesterday I realized one of the important side benefits to this trip to the USA: the renewal of my US passport.  The old passport was due to expire in March 2011, which became a problem when my return to Australia was delayed by one year due to my engine problems.  I did not feel comfortable with the prospect of having the passport renewed in Mexico City because for all of the wonderful things that Mexico has going for it, the mail system is definitely not one of them, ranging from non-existent to execrable.  I still had my Australian passport and could have gone with that if forced to, but I wanted to avoid any difficulties that might arise from my entering Mexico and establishing an FM3 residency with a US passport then departing with an Australian passport.

The renewal process was convenient and efficient, involving principally the internet and mail system.  I paid an extra $60 for "expedited" processing and got results in about two weeks. 

The new passport expires on 1 December 2020 at which time my age will be ... Oh, I don't want to think about it.

Visit to Port Townsend

Yesterday Arnold and I made a great visit to Port Townsend.

A month ago Jak Mang had sent me information on a presentation at the Northwest Maritime Center on the cruise by Mark Roye and Nancy Krill aboard their Swedish built steel hulled ketch Tamara tracing the traditional route of the pioneering sealers and whalers from Newfoundland, across to the Azores and other east Atlantic islands, over to South America, down to Antarctica, up the Patagonian Archipelago, Galapagos, Mexico, Hawaii, the Aleutians and Alaska. (http://nwmaritime.org/uploads/pdfs/Krill-Roye%20PROMOTIONAL%20RELEASE%20%282%29.pdf)  Jean Davies was planning to go too so I asked her if she wanted to be escorted by two book ends named Robert and Arnold.

We picked up Jean at her home in Kala Point then drove to the Maritime Center, which is a superb facility on the waterfront completed only one year ago.  Inside the venue we saw Jak who introduced us to his friend Dennis who has been reading parts of my blog.  Later I met Jak's wife Corinne whom I had not seen since San Francisco.  I'm hoping that we can get together soon for a good chat.

When the speaker Mark was introduced I leaned over to the man next to me and commented that Mark looked very familiar to me.  I figured that I had seen him at the 2009 Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Show where maybe he had been a speaker.

After the presentation I approached Mark to ask him a question and he put out his hand and said that it was good to see me again.  I replied that he looked familiar but I couldn't place him.  We had met at the Ala Wai Boat Harbor in Honolulu in the spring of 2009.  Mark gave me his card and I recognized it because I've got another one on Pachuca.  After I got back to the house I visited Mark and Nancy's blog at http://krillroye.blogspot.com and learned that they had set off way back in June 2005 and our paths crossed in May 2009, in the closing months of their odyssey and just before I set off for Neah Bay. 

But there was more to come.  During the presentation I had been looking around for Simeon Baldwin with no success.  Brenda and I had Simeon during the 2009 Pt Townsend Wooden Boat Festival aboard the tug boat Elmore where he was acting as a volunteer guide.  (Sadly, Elmore took some serious damage to her bow during the recent bad weather, as the photograph shows.)

Fortunately we lingered after the presentation long enough to see him when he appeared. Simeon had been doing things at the Wooden Boat Foundation in the next building and after a short chat we were treated to a private tour of the excellent WBF facility and the building of SCAMP sail boats (http://backyardboatbuilding.org.uk/forums/archive/index.php/t-474.htm), (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=52&start=10).  On the floor was a nearly completed SCAMP that has to be one of the cutest little boats that I've ever seen.  It looked like a real fun boat but it was no toy.  They have a reputation of being tough, stable, and sea kindly.  Out of the cockpit popped the head of Dan, who had spent many hours that day sanding and must have enjoyed it because he had that happy and calm demeanor typical of people work with wooden boats.  Soon I saw saw Simeon walking over carrying the mast with one hand and I commented that either he was Superman or the mast was very light. That wooden mast weighed only 15 lb.  The plans of the boat have been digitized and the plywood sections are cut by a numerically controlled machine, driving the price down to amazing affordability.  (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=45)  Better yet, one can build his own SCAMP under the tutelage of the Wooden Boat Foundation.  (http://smallcraftadvisor.com/message-board2/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17)

The first photo is of Arnold, Jean, and Simeon in deep interest.

New Backup Computer

It was in Hawaii  during the spring of 2009 that I upgraded Pachuca's communications with a Pactor III modem and  Micom M700Pro HF radio.  A part of that upgrade was the procurement of a small Acer netbook computer.  That Acer netbook, with its small footprint and full functionality XP Home operating system, has been an outstanding success on the navigation table. 

A working computer is an indispensable part of the communication system - no computer means no Sailmail, weather faxes, etc.   My backup computer has been a full-sized Toshiba laptop running XP that I brought from Fremantle.  However, that model seems to have a problem and I refuse to replace its dead batteries again.  That means that it will run only when plugged into boat power, and the slightest interruption of that power will result in immediate shutdown.  I thought it prudent to purchase another netbook computer, preferably running XP, during this visit to the USA.

After a two-week quest with the help of Sandra, who passed along the many glossy advertisements that came to the house, I arrived at two conclusions about netbooks in late 2010:

1. They have lost much of their cost advantage over laptops
2. They usually come with Windows 7 Starter operating system which sucks!  (An upgrade to Windows 7 Home can be made, but that drives up the price by another $70 or so.)

Six days ago I ordered a full-size Toshiba Satellite laptop (http://us.toshiba.com/computers/laptops/satellite/C650/C655-S5082) for $299.99, which turned into $342.07 after taxes and shipping.  That's not much more than the cost of a new netbook but delivers a more powerful CPU (Celeron 900), twice the memory (2GB), more disc (250 GB), a very good DVD optical drive (vs none for netbooks),  and the full monte Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit OS.  But in the quest to minimize the cost the laptop was supplied no built in web camera, no mouse or pad, and only 2 USB ports (vs 3 for the netbooks).

The laptop was delivered to our door two days ago and yesterday I did the bulk of the setup, which included the production of recovery and repair DVD's and the installation of:

- 35 updates to the OS
- Airmail3 V 3.4.062
- C-Map (93)
- Open Office 3.2.1
- TeamViewer V 6.0.9895
- CCleaner V 3.0
- Skype /V 5.0
- Panda antivirus (free version)

The installation of C-Map was particularly satisfying.  Arnold loaned me his GlobalSat BU-353 USB GPS receiver and soon I head had our position displayed on the chart of the Kingston area.

Airmail3 is required for my Sailmail communication via the Pactor modem and HF radio.

So I hope to depart Mexico for  the wilds of Drake Passage with 3 interchangeable computers, each running Airmail3 and the C-Map backups to the Raymarine chart plotter.

Welcome to modern cruising.

Volvo Parts from Mark and visit to Jak's

I drove the RX7 to Port Townsend and visited Mark.

The first person I saw when I walked into the office was Zee, the mechanical wizard who had worked on my Sabb engine in 2009.  It was good to see him again and we had a short conversation about the demise of the Sabb on Pachuca.  Soon Seth the office manager walked and although I had not seen him since 2009 I had spoken with him several times by telephone during the repowering saga.

Mark pointed to the alternator on the floor and told me that it was still warm from the bench testing that he had just completed.  The results were not clear cut but Mark described the alternator as "lazy" and not performing to the standard that he expected, even though he managed to get it to produced the full 115 amps of output at one point.  If I understood correctly, I will get a new alternator and Mark will be discussing with Volvo the threshold setting of the alternator.  None of us thinks that the system should produce a failure alarm simply because the alternator is dealing with a battery bank at low voltage ("low" being 13.1 V).

Seth produced my new Volvo single-lever throttle and gear control as well as the replacement buzzer alarm harness to replace the incorrect one that I had just handed in.

I remarked that all of these parts dealings were so easy in Port Townsend and were so, so difficult in La Paz.

---

I don't know whether to blame the effects of the flight from La Paz or the woolly head that I've got from this persistent cold for an omission that I've just noticed in reviewing my recent blogs.

I arrived in Kingston in the wee hours of Friday 19 November and that evening Jak Mang had us over for dinner at his home in Port Townsend.  John an Priscilla had delayed their drive back to San Diego by one day so that we could all get together, and I greatly appreciated that because who knows when we will be able to see each other again.  Unfortunately Jak's wife Corinne was away but we got to meet Jak's interesting next door neighbor who built one of her three small boats on her property, as well as the shipwright who had done work on John and Priscilla's Sparkman and Stephens 43 Rebecca and his wife. We were all the beneficiaries of Jak's love of cooking.

Rebecca is still in Port Townsend where she was purchased last year, and John and Priscilla are making plans to get her to their home waters in San Diego.  To the right is a very familiar photo of Rebecca, since it is the background on my computer display.

Finally, I recently received a message from Bob in La Paz informing me that the "northers" had made a big-time appearance, with winds of 55-60 knots in the Sea of Cortez and 35 knots at the Mogote anchorage.  These are the same winds that flipped our Zodiac over when we were anchored at San Evaristo.  The Port of La Paz was closed, hopefully for not too long.

Thanksgiving, Thawing Out and Drying Up

We had a quiet and pleasant Thanksgiving Day at the Morales household. 

Sandra presented us with the healthiest TD dinner that I've ever enjoyed: nicely baked turkey, cranberry sauce, light stuffing, sweet potato, the greenest green beans that I've ever seen, accompanied by white wine .  Even after my two helpings I was able to avoid that oh why did I eat so much glutton's remorse.

The snow in this area has melted and road conditions are back to normal.  I took the accompanying photo through the kitchen window.  Note the outdoor thermometer at the bottom left.

On Friday afternoon (2 days ago) Arnold drove us to Port Townsend where we visited Mark at Shoreline Marine Diesel, which was officially closed for the day.  It was good to see Mark again and it gave me an opportunity to thank him in person for his great service to me in defining and overseeing the engine repowering effort in La Paz.  He agreed that it was one of his more unusual projects.

I passed over to Mark the incorrect buzzer harness cable that had been sent with the new engine as well as the alternator that I had brought from La Paz.  We all agreed that a faulty on-board voltage regulator is the prime suspect, and Mark will put the alternator on a test bed in the coming week.  Later, when the shop is formally open I will obtain from Seth the replacement buzzer harness and the new Volvo single-lever throttle and gear control.  Mark told me that the throttle and gear cables will be identical (Morse 33?), which will make life easier for me.

Mark suggested that I might want to photograph 6 or 7 boats that came to grief during the recent snowfall.  My understanding is that they were caught at anchor when strong winds came somewhat unusually from the north.  I recall hearing several times that Pt. Townsend Bay does not have very good holding ground (due to weed, I think).  I hope to take some photos of these boats in the coming week.

I had brought to Port Townsend a large mailing envelope containing almost everything required for my US passport renewal application: a filled-out application form, a $170 money order ($110 standard fee plus $60 fee for expedited processing) which I had purchased at the Kingston post office, my current passport (which expires in March 2011), and a copy of my confirmed travel itinerary from Alaska Airlines where I highlighted the fact that I was flying to Mexico on 5 Jan 2011. 

I asked Mark if he knew where I could have some passport photographs taken, and he pointed me to a photography shop just past the ferry landing.  We found the shop with no problem, I had the photos taken, and as I was paying I asked about the opening hours of the main post office at the top of the hill.  The lady pointed out that there was a post office agency about three doors up from her shop.  How convenient.  Before long the package was on its way by certified mail - literally on its way since it was ready just in time for the transfer of mail from the agency to probably the main post office for sorting. 

The normal processing time for passport renewals is 6 weeks.  I have asked for expedited processing which should reduce that time to as little as 2 weeks, and I hope to receive the new passport before the Christmas holidays.

Yesterday I went solo with Arnold's RX7 on a short excursion to fuel up the car and do some grocery shopping.   Now that the road conditions have improved and my upper respiratory system is finally starting to dry up after the worst cold in years I expect to hit the road in the coming week with visits mainly to Port Townsend.

Picture Windows

Views from Arnold's office and the living room.

The hot tub (hot and ready to go) and deck.

The dog house and tree house on left.

Looking to the front of the house.