Nothing achieved

I went down to the boat yesterday, intending to epoxy the stbd teak coaming back together. It was blowing hard, though, and, although it was sunny and otherwise gorgeous, I didn't really want to work in the wind, so I just shot the shit with Cap'n Tad for a while and headed to Marshall's for some shopping. On the way there my car started overheating -- my fault: I know there's a coolant leak, so I replenish it every week or so, but I slacked off -- but I made it to the store without redlining it, shopped for longer than normal, refilled my radiator and made it home with no problems.
I should note that the windex installation has bit the ghost. I need to go aloft and redo it with epoxy and locknuts, because the doubled-up standard nuts still rattle loose, no matter what anybody tells you.
I'm really looking forward to the spring season...

Dinghy outboard maintenance done

A couple days ago I finally bit the bullet and replaced the outboard lubrication gear that had been stolen from my Saab last winter. I pulled the Honda off Buttercup, did the engine and lower unit oil changes and actually failed to hit the grease points because the brand new grease gun I bought from Boater's World isn't working -- no pressure? I should return that thing. In any case, I was shocked at the fact that both the engine and lower lube I replaced were practically new. Maybe I'm doing these oil changes too frequently?

Super high winds

Today the SB Channel W buoy is showing winds of 40kts and a 20ft swell, while the E Channel buoy is showing 30kts, gusting 40, and 8ft swells. It's nuts out!

Winter TODO list

Random scribbles on a paper from last time I was on the boat:
* put lock nuts on the aft chocks
* install larger anchor cleat
* repair broken teak coaming DONE
* varnish teak
* make anchor locker hatch DONE
* raise water line
* leak-proof forehatch (g'luck with that!)
* find and install new traveler
* fix windex (REMOVED)

Winter berth

Yesterday Alli, Tijn and I took shadow to her usual winter berth. She's now at slip C13 in the small boat marina. The trip was very uneventful, and we got great gas mileage out of the motor. The previous month has been relatively boat-free, but only because I've been dealing with car problems. The next couple of months may be boat-free because I'd like to do some camping and other landlubber things.

Back from the islands intact!

This past weekend Alli, Tijn and I took a trip to Pelican Bay again. We had 12 kts of wind going out and coming back, so it wasn't as bumpy or wet of a ride as last time. On our way out we saw a whale (my guess: pilot whale, black, pointy duck-bill like snout and a little fin fairly far back), and a superpod of dolphins. Alli rode the bow to check out the dolphins, and Tijn jumped in and I towed him, but he didn't really get close to any of them... We made landfall near Diablo again, and then started downwind towards Pelican. Fry's was practically empty and really beautiful looking, so we wanted to go in and check whether we could anchor there. We started sailing in, and the wind kept diminishing, so to continue pointing I brought the main really really close in. Then we must have come out of the windshadow of some giant rock, because a nasty gust caught us and Shadow broached. We got water gushing over the side coamings into the cockpit when we developed this insane angle of heel. It took me a couple scary seconds to blow the mainsheet, because there was so much force on it. Lesson learned: you probably want to motor into anchorages with steep funnel-like cliffs. I still want to stay at Fry's some night.

So we got to Pelican and anchored a bit closer to the cliffs this time. Later these two fishing boats came along and dropped anchor right over where I thought mine was -- that was annoying -- and proceeded to have boat-to-boat yelling conversations. Sigh! But they piped down soon enough, and when they weighed anchor the next day nothing was tangled, so no harm done.

Dinner was awesome, the moon was spectacular, the swell at night was really mellow and we barely budged from where we were pinned between the anchors. Overall, stressless. After breakfast we all jumped in the water in our wetsuits (cold!). I scrubbed the bottom of the boat, and Tijn and Alli went ashore for a few minutes. We then dried and warmed ourselves, and headed back. The trip back was fast (4:30 hours) and totally uneventful.



Alli and I getting ready to jump in.

More sailing...

You're probably wondering why I try to write a post whenever I use the boat. It's just so I can keep track of how much I actually sail, kind of a quick and dirty way to have data to amortize the cost...

So, on Monday I sailed with Tijn and Alli, and yesterday I went out with Mel and Loren. Great wind both days, about 15 very close to shore and petering out to maybe 10-11 a little further out.