Garrison Bay

The Captain decided that we needed to get the heck out of dodge before the next low tide since we were in the mud on the previous low tide. So we got up bright and early and headed out of the snakey channel and turned south to the San Juan channel. The current was flowing fast and furious by the time we hit cattle point and we were picking up about 3 kts of southbound current. The plan was to turn west around the bottom of San Juan Island, but the rips were a little strong so we cruised out into the Straits of San Juan de Fucca (Puka!). My theory was that the ebb was going to last another hour or so and we would ride the flood back North into Haro straight. So we motored around until we were completely encased in a thick wall of fog ... good thing I got the radar working a couple of weeks before. So we flicked on the radar and about and hour later the fog lifted up and the sun came out. Then the wind picked up and we hoisted the sales. We managed to get some pretty good speed out of Kalliope, but still drifted back a mile while we were sailing. What the heck it was a nice day and we were having fun. As we were drifting around we managed to come upon a large school of boats floating around checking out the water ... they were not actually looking at the water, but at the Orcas (killer whales) that were playing in the water. We had about 20 or 30 of them jumping out of the water. Performance on demand, almost like we were at sea world. This was by far the best whale watching experience that we have ever had. After that we headed north and fired up the Iron Pig and headed North up to Garrison Bay.
Garrison Bay is on the west side of San Juan Island and the sight of the British camp during the joint British and American occupation of the San Juan Islands. Everything came to a head when one of the Americans shot a British pig that was rooting up his potatoes crop. The whole episode became known as the Pig War. Currently Garrison Bay is home of a small National Park that has managed to preserve some of the original buildings.

The next day we took a bus to Friday Harbor so that I could pick up some parts that I had ordered from my buddies at West Marine. Friday Harbor is an pretty touristy place. Not nearly as cool as Orcas.

Fisherman Harbor, Lopez Island

Saturday
In order to make it into Fisherman harbor just before slack we got up a bit early and took off towards the San Juan channel. It was a little bit rainy and cold - the first time since we've been out on the water. Wasp pass was a bit tricky to negotiate since we had to dodge a ferry on the way through. As we turned south towards Fisherman Harbor we hit a bit of current outside of Friday Harbor. We had bonified standing waves, rips, the whole nine yards. The rain did slow down and the sun started peaking out again. Life is not too bad. We entered Fisherman Harbor just after slack on a rising tide and managed to sneak through the narrow channel. We called the dock and they gave us a moorage spot in a finger pier on the end. As I came into the dock I noticed that my slot was might narrow, and the current was cruising through the docks at about 1 kt. Hey! I didn't expect that. I realized that if I tried to make the moorage I would hit the other boat so I hit reverse and starts drifting sideways down the docks. With the current flowing, I could not bring the nose around to get out. The dock hands kept on yelling, "Turn her around, Come up here!" Duh. Well, I noticed a nice double wide free space and I decided that docking there looked like a find idea. So I pulled in the spot and all of the helpful dock hands managed to cross me up a bit. But we made it and didn't scratch the boat or anyone else's boat. I think I prefer anchoring.
The marina is really nice with a pool, restaurant, and bar. I met the owner, Bob, on the dock and he was very helpful. Down the dock we met the Captain and crew of Fun on Water. They had a huge powerboat that was docked in front of us in Olympia about a month ago. They invited us over for drinks later that evening.
I don't think that I really need to get a crab pot and go fishing for crab. The dock hand gave us 4. We bought some the other day for 3 or 4 bucks for two. Cheaper than a license and trap. So that night we munched on crab. Yum.We then went over to visit the fine folks at F.O.W. The guys is a walking liquor store. He had a well going on board with Gin, Vodka, Bourbon and about three or four others that I can't remember. After a couple Martini's we stumbled to the bar for a couple more beers and dancing to some fine music. After the band quite, the locals broke out the instruments on the deck and had an impromptu blues jam session. Cool and fun.
Sunday
Ugh, my brain hurts. Who was that fool on the dance floor? We stumbled down the street for a little breakfast action and then rented some bikes for a trip around the island to Shark Reef. Lopes is nice and flat compared to some of the other San Juan Islands, so it makes a nice place to ride bikes.

Slow-pez

We ended up on the south side of the island (Not far from Aleck Bay) at shark reef. This overlooked the San Juan channel. Between tides, the current just rips through here, creating standing waves and all kinds of whirlpools. On the rocks below the bluff, quite a few seals hung out in the sun. Hmm, shark reef. A good lunch spot, no?

Orcas Island

Friday

Dave and Lisa are supposed to arrive this afternoon. Still gotta get a stash of groceries. I unload the groceries and haul off to the ferry terminal while Kathy stows the groceries. Dave and Lisa arrive about 3pm and I bring them over to the boat. They are up for a little first class Orcas touring. So we drive up to Mount Constitution and check out the view.

After that we head down to Rosario Resort to listen to a band. Every Friday night they have a band out on the lawn next to the marina. We then cruise up to the hotel for a drink and appetizer. Damn good crab cakes! Next stop the north shore to check out the sunset. Not a bad place to have a house Diane!

Deer Harbor - Almost

Wednesday
We had a nice late start so that we could get in sink with the tide at Lopez pass. We hit the pass just after slack and had no problem negiotiating the maze like entrance. Inside the pass, the channel opens up and you have a beutiful view of Lopez island with Orcas in the background. The wind was again blowing close to zero so we had the motor running. About miday is started "hunting." Sometimes it would speed up and then slow down. Hmm, looks like it is time to do some work this afternoon. Of course after an hour of hunting the motor just dies. We are sitting in the middle of not just one, but two ferry channels. We pull out the jib and let Mike try to use the little wind to keep us from hitting an Island and/or a ferry. I dive below and start looking. The first thing I check is the Air filter. Man is it dirty. Man, I thought it was cleaned in Olympia. I guess not. So I set out to clean it up. Clean, clean, clean. Put it back on. Try starting it. Nothing. Okay, I don't want to try and crank it too much and crap out the battery, so it is time to think. I check the injectors for fuel and make sure there is no air in the line ... looks okay to me. How 'bout a little starter fluid? Turns out my buddy Nigel says that I can use WD-40 and spray it directly into the air filter intake. I try it. The engine sputters and springs to life. Yeah. We head off. After about an hour the motor starts sputtering again. I decide to detour to West Sound marina instead of Dear Harbor (since there is a boat yard there, the only boat yard in the San Juans). It turns out that Diane, my brother's wife knows the owners. I must explain, one of the reason's that we are on Orcas is that Diane grew up here, and her mother, Judy, still lives here.
That evening Diane's mother picks us up and takes us to Christiana's for dinner. A very nice dinner. Probably one of the best meals that we've had up in the NW.

Thursday

Mike and Dianne take a small plane out of Orcas for SeaTac and then off to NY for another wedding. Hopefully they had a good time, we didn't quite have our shit together yet.

As an added bonus, Judy lent us Diane's old college car to use for a couple of days. This is a good thing since we had a ton of Laundry and grocery shopping to do for our next set of guests. I spent the next couple of hours changing the primary fuel filter. Turns out my mechanics put a 2 micron filter in place for the primary which clogged up pretty quickly. The only spare that I have was also 2 microns, so I will try and pick up a spare later.

That night we have pizza in east sound. Nice view for a pizza joint.

Aleck Bay

Now we are really sailling! Mike and I rolled up the dingy for our expected wild ride across the Straits of San Juan de Fucca only to have about zero wind in the morning. But the wind did manage to pick up in the afternoon so I managed to get the wind vane up and working. It seemed to work pretty well. Steared a nice straight course. Pretty cool. Hopefully I will be able to use it again.

That night we anchored in Aleck bay on the south shore of Lopez Island. A really nice large bay with only one or two other boats in the harbour. We got to drop a whole mess of chain and had a really nice secure anchorage for the night. Near the entrance there are a couple of small islands that Mike and I dingied over to explore.

Bonus Note: 8/3/2003

We really lucked out in our crossing. A lot of people I've talked to that crossed in the last week or so have had near gale winds from the beam. They nicknamed it Straits of Juan de Pucca

Port Townsend

Monday
So we got up early am to get the hell out of Edmonds before all of the power boats arrived. After hand spinning the boat around the fuel dock we were off. After we cleared the breakwater I turned around to let the dingy out and surprise, not dingy. I looked back to see it floating against the breakwater --- oops, looks like the dingy did not like being in captivity. We quickly turned around and nudge up to the breakwater and speared the dingy ending its short escape. That afternoon as we motored through the dead calm of northern Puget sound another wandering dingy caught my eye floating all by itself. I thought about capturing him, but she looked so happy bobbing around the bay that I decided to let her be free.
That afternoon the wind picked up and we brought out the sails. We managed to get her moving at about 6 kts. It is fun to be sailing.
That night we anchored outside of Port Townsend. The winds were from the NW so we were pretty well protected by the mainland. The ferry also goes pretty slowly by so we managed not to bounce too much. That evening we picked up a bunch of crab in town and had a crab feast on board the boat.
Port Townsed is a cool little town with all kinds of boat facilties and a cute little downtown area. We will have to check it out again when we come back through.

Crossing the Sound - Edmonds

Today my brother, Mike, and his wife, Dianne, arrive for a visit over the next couple of days. They were up in Seattle for a wedding and are Joining us for the trip up to the San Juans.Since they arrived after noon, I decided that I probably didn't want to schlep all the way up to Port Townsend and decided, instead, to do a short trip to Edmonds. Kathy had picked out a Restatement that she was interested in. They had dock space. Mike and Diane had arrive, so away we went. As is usual during the early afternoon, there was no wind on the sound.It was a beautiful day though and we turned on Wandering Wanda our shift auto-pilot and relaxed and chatted as we plodded towards Edmonds. Now this trip is only 15nm, so it didn't take us long to cruise up to the breakwater at Edmonds. I think it is a breakwater, it looks more like the entrance to the Bat cave. Narrow, with twin 90 bends at the end of it. I'm supposed to take my boat into that. The folks at the marina assure us that we have a space, "Just turn south after the breakwater and circle around to the back of the fuel dock". Well the back of the fuel dock is a very narrow space with no mooring signs painted all over it and a small travel lift at the end for all of the local Bayliner folks to drop their boat in the water for a day. But, there was a space for the boat and we squeezed it in. We really had no option since turning was completely out of the option. Turns out that was were they wanted us, so we choked exhaust for another hour or so until the lift closed and then headed in town for dinner. Maybe not the best introduction to boating life, but tomorrow we are off to Port Townsend. Hopefully it should be a bit better.

Back to Bainbridge

Friday
On the 4th we headed back to Winslow on Bainbridge to finish up some work. My brother Mike and his wife, Diane are showing up on the 6th and we still have a pile of stuff to do. However, the raft group decided to raft up in Eagle harbor to view Seattle's and Union Lake's firework show. We dingied over there and watched the fireworks with them.
Saturday
A ton of small projects and a car reorganization took up the bulk of the morning. In the afternoon we went to Lake Union for the Wooden boat show (but not before stopping at West Marine to spend a couple more boat bucks.) to meet Beth and Eric. Eric was showing his boat and we managed to take it out of the water. The wind was a little weak, but we managed to get an assist from a passing plane.

That night, Eric and Beth joined us downtown for dinner at a little French restaurant and then dropped us off at the ferry terminal back to Bainbridge. They ended up driving our car home to keep for the summer. It felt a bit weird parting with the car. You really get used to having one and it really gives you a sense of mobility. Now we are dependent on the boat, dingy, and public transportation. Hopefully we have outfitted the boat so we can make it through the summer.

The ferry ride back was just gorgeous. A nice clear night with a slight breeze. Mike and Dianne arrive tomorrow. It must be time for vacation to start.

Poulsbo

BJ and Trish, on the Nelle Bly, invited us to raft up with them at Poulsbo. Poulsbo is actually pretty close to Winslow by car, but take several hours by boat, since you have to sail completely around Bainbridge Island. Poulsbo (home of Viking Days) has a pretty big fireworks celebration on the 3rd of July each year. About 500 boats anchor in the harbor to check out the festivities. Everyone on all of the boats was super nice and we met some fine boating folks. That night the fireworks were first rate and Belini didn't even get scared too much!
The next morning we hit downtown to get some bread and munchies at the Bakery. They make some awesome bread, so don't forget to check em out next time you are there.

Rafting up is fun

Downtown Poulsbo

Eagle Harbor

We actually pulled the sails up and got a little sailing in today. The wind was from the NE and we pulled out all of the canvas. As I was using one of the lower winches to crank in the outhaul, the winch just completely broke off the mast :-(. Looks like the threaded stainless screws pulled out of the aluminum mast. Possibly they were not bedded correctly.

Ranier from Puget Sound

That night we pulled into Eagle Harbor on Bainbridge Island to stay for a couple of days (turned out to be more like a week).
Bainbridge Island is across Puget sound from Seattle and has a ferry that connects with downtown that runs about once every hour. It is a cute little town and has a nice small town feel to it. As an added bonus, it is pretty easy to take the ferry across to Seattle, have dinner, and ferry back. The last ferry leaves at 1am (or something like that). We stayed at Winslow marnia. It has a littl marine store, a groovy coffe house and a couple of resteraunts.
We also met a fine group of people while we were there. BJ & Trish on another Tayana 37; David and his wife living on a WWII dentist boat; and Bob, a retired minister, on his Hans Christian, getting ready to start sailing a bit.
On Friday morning I hoped on the ferry to Seattle from there I took Amtrak back down to Olympia to pick up our car. All went well, except that the Amtrak train terminal is out in the middle of nowhere with a bus that shows up once an hour. Of course, the bus schedule and the train schedule are not synchronized, so I had just missed the bus by about 10 minutes. While I was digging in the phone book trying to catch a cab, a guy came up to try to buy some tickets at the station. Of course the station attendents had bugged out early before closing time and he was out of luck. I, however, was in luck and managed to score a ride downtown to pick up our car. The next stop was West Marine to pick up a new Battery and a bunch of electronics. Because this is a boat, nothing can ever go smoothly, so of course, the charger I ordered was the wrong type. Seems the catalog had the incorrect numbers in it ... hmmph. Okay, I'll just order this thing and pick it up at some other West Marine .... Everything else seemed to be there and I was off to pick up an outboard motor for our dingy. You guessed it, they were sold out. This was after the sales guy told me two days ago that they had plenty in stock and I didn't need to reserve on. Well they did call around for me and found another motor up in Auburn. Turns out it was on sale and about 100 bucks cheaper than I was going to pay anyway. So a bonus. I didn't have time to hit Auburn today, but could do it on Saturday. So I head back up to Bainbridge Island for a much needed nap.
Saturday - Road Trip
So we have a bunch on our plate ... and it mostly involves spending money .... ye hah. First stop, Auburn to pick up our dingy motor. Cha-ching - 1 unit. Next stop, Union lake to pick up an inflatable. Cha-ching - 2 units. Next stop, Fisheries Supply to pick up a bunch of random crap. Cha-ching - 1 unit. Ye hah. Got to stop.
Afterwords, we went up north to Kenwood to visit one of Kathy's friend's sister and husband for dinner (Beth & Eric). They have a nice house in the woods just north of lake Washington and a nice little wooden boat on the lake. We all seemed to hit it off and they offered to let us keep our car up there for the summer (we were going to keep it at the airport). We will think about it. Anyway, we had a great fun at there house and hope to get up with them soon.
That evening we took the Edmonds-Kingstion ferry at about 11:30pm and hit the pillow pretty hard when we got back at 12:30am!
Sunday
Beth, Eric and the Kids came over to see our boat. We had a nice time hanging out in Bainbridge and had lunch at a suprisingly good Mexican resteraunt. We couldn't go out for a sail, since I still had to fix the batteries - tomorrow.
Monday - Thursday
Boat work day! Replaced battery bank 2 with new gel. Replaced alternator with high output Balmer. Added new external charger. Rewired battery banks. Fixed a bunch of other crap. Whew. I am beat. Is this the fun part? Somewhere in here we go to Seattle pick up our newly regalvonized anchors and our newly inspected life raft (another unit! anyone keeping track?)
Somewhere in there we had a really nice dinner in Bainbridge.

Gig Harbor

The next morning we hung around Boston Harbor for a bit so that the Tacoma Narrows tide was running in a favorable direction. The views were just kicker!
Many people really like Gig Harbor. I'm not sure what the appeal is. We thought it a bit dumpy. The highlight was the mega-yacht "Mystic" that had just been commission. All of their crew was running around trying to get the damn thing to work. They had people flying in from all over the country trying to get it set up. They even had a fleet of mopeds with "Mystic" engraved on them at the head of the dock. Truly ghastly.

Mt. Ranier from South of Tacoma

Boston Harbor

Tuesday
Damn, now the boat is ready and we still have to buy food. That is just friggin' crazy! But we load up pack the boat and pull away from the dock at about 4pm. It feels good to get away. Never mind that our destination is only about an hour away in Boston Harbor. We are finally moving. We don't quite have our shit together to anchor so we are going to moor in Boston Harbor.
Boston Harbor is a cute little community just north of Olympia. It has a cool little store with kayak rentals and nothing else.

It also has some kick butt views of Mount Olympia.

After Kathy and I got back from a walk a guy was having a his picture taken in front of our boat for an album cover for his latest album. He said it was spiritual music. I'm not sure what that means in Olympia (they have a Magic/witchcraft store in Olympia), but I suspect it is more of the traditional burn in hell good old time religion.
We also met a nice couple that had a boat for sale across from us, Gary and Susan. They were in the process of selling off all their possesions, buying a new boat and heading for the open water. Susan gave us a couple of prints of her artwork to liven up our boat. We wish them good luck and hope to see them again on the high seas.

See Ya Olympia

Sunday

The sails are done. We cruised over and picked them up. Lookin' good.

Monday - Still in Olympia

It looks like we are really going to get out of here. The pulpit is done. It took most of the day to reinstall it and drill new holes in out new platform. But it went mostly well. I installed the running lights and they even seem to work. Now for a little of this and a little of that and we can cruise.

Summer Solstice

But fist, what Saturday would be complete without a trip to the boat store? Three of them. At the first store we picked up a new burner for our stove. It seems the previous one was only held together with epoxy and managed to break and produce all kinds of funky flames. The trip was interesting we managed to hit tons of traffic around .... Later we found out why. We were only mere steps away from another famous summer solstice event. The Fremont summer solstice, let it all hang out, parade. Complete with a bevy of nude bicyclist to top off the day. Now that is some pagan fun.But there is more boat crap to do so we head over to Budget Sound Inflatables and check out some dinghies.
Now we are off to the Vikings. And these guys really know how to party. Tug of war. Fish toss. Bonfires. A good time, you betcha.

Don't forget to enlarge this baby so you can zoom in on the fish during its flight to the bucket.

Sacrificial Virgin

Ahh the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, the time when all good pagans go a bit crazy. Since we are pretty much stuck for the next couple of days we decide to check out Poulsbo's summer solstice festival. Poulsbo is a tiny town located on the east side of the Olympic Peninsula. Years ago, as their fishing and farming lifestyle waned, the town fathers dug hard and deep into their collective creative selves and decided to reinvent the town. The town would now be Norwegian. They would have Vikings and rename the shops and make downtown look like a bit of Norway (Heck they were even located on a fjord ... of sorts). And like any good Viking town, they must celebrate all of the Viking holidays.

Limbo Land

We brought the sails by Cox Molded sails for them to have a look. The owner was pretty nice and is going to try to have them done by next Monday (1 week). So Kathy and I think that we can leave on Thursday for Gig harbor and use our old beater sails and just pick up the repaired sails when done. Sounds like a plan.
Shurtz finally got to work on the bow pulpit platform. I've been waiting over 2 1/2 weeks for the stupid thing and am ready to get the damn thing on! So far it looks pretty good, but the anchor rollers are now 2" back. Now I am just praying that the anchors will fit. I was supposed to get the anchors back from the galvonizing place today, but they are behind schedule so I won't get them until Wednesday. A Thursday departure is starting to look unlikely.
On Tuesday I finally dry fitted the pulpit itself. This is another thing that should have probably been fixed a week ago. I ended up taking it over to a local welding shop to have some of the cracked welds replaced. Maybe they will be done by Friday. I am sure now that we are here for the duration of the summer.
Now it is Wednesday morning and we have a funky misty-rainy day. We will pick up the anchors and liferaft.
The anchors look good. I brought them down to the boat and tried to have them fitted ... of course the big 60# CQR is way too big. Didn't these guys measure the old pulpit platform. So now even a Friday departure is looking like a no go.
On Thursday, the Shurtz guy comes over and we enlarge the roller holes so that the big CQR fits. Right then the welder guys calls and says the bow pulpit is ready. Holy crap! I may make it out on Friday. I cruise on over and they've missed a couple of welds ... damn! However, I did get the new backstay mounted radar mount in the mail (to replace the old crappy one that was mounted to the cap rail). Of course I am batting about only 0.300 today, so of course there is a problem with the fit. After farting around with it for about two hours I realize another h/w store trip is in order and decide to blow it off until Friday.
Friday morning rolls around and I head off to the library for some serious dingy research on the Internet and then off to the h/w store for some parts and a grinder for the drill. It is amazing how easy things go together when you have the right equipment! The new radar mount goes right up and looks great. Now I just need a waterproof cable pass-thru for the electrical cable and it is good to go. As an added bonus, after reading the manual, I noticed that the unit was not properly grounded. I wonder what other fun surprises I'll find as I dig deeper into the bowels of the boat. The pulpit is still not done. When the hell do we get to leave? I've made an executive decision. If the pulpit is not done by noon on Monday, then I take it with me and have it fixed in a couple of weeks. It is time to get out of here!

Week of Boat Prep

Saturday, Olympia
This week was boat prep week. I've been slowly knocking items off my list. The big surprise project this week was installing a new water strainer. Earlier in the week I was feeling positively lazy. I was going to let Shurtz install the strainer for me. So on Wednesday we cruised over to the work dock and started the process. Turns out the old strainer had two different size hoses on it: 1 1/4" where it connected to the thru-hole and 1" where it connected to the water pump. I, of course, just measured one side of the strainer and picked up 1 1/4" fittings. So we nipped that project in the bud. Shurtz was also supposed to install my new bow sprit platform, but that wasn't quite ready so we delayed that until Friday.
On Thursday, Kathy and I cruise back up to Seattle to get parts and to look at our life raft. The life raft is getting ready to be repacked and is sitting fully inflated on the floor of Puget Sound Inflatables. It is kind of nice to see what the thing looks like before you need to use it. The raft also has a dome light and flasher that needed replacing. but the (rather small) battery cashed out at $180, we are already paying $600 to get his thing serviced. Screw that! The existing one still had a good charge on it and we have a strobe on our EPRIB, so I decided to nix it. Then another trip up to Fisheries Supply to pick up all of the water strainer parts. Hmm, it is 5pm and I have all of my strainer parts so I decide to install the damn thing myself. Of course nothing is ever as straight forward as one might expect. I had to move by charger first (to a drier location!) and remove the inverter that was mounted on the opposite side of the bulkhead. Now the inverter was not connected and I was going to see if it even worked. When I removed the inverter it made the most amazing rattling noise. I opened it up and noticed that someone had let all of the smoke out of the power transistors that were connected to the AC output. Looks like someone had connected the inverter directly to shore power --- oops. Pitch one inverter. The rest of the installation was pretty straightforward and three hours later and it was all done.

New strainer with old leaky strainer below.

Charge it
Friday morning was wet. After being here for about two weeks it was our first rainy morning. I had to cancel the bow platform installation because of the weather. Of course about an hour later it cleared up a bit. I spent the rest of the morning deciding what to do about my batteries. Kalliope has two battery banks. Bank 1 consists of 2-4Ds. Bank 2 consists of a 4D and a DF180. On the charging side of life a nice multi-step shore charger (Truecharge-40), Solar panels, and a Delco-type Automotive Alternator. This set up is seriously broke and I suspect it is why bank 2 holds less of a charge than a AA battery. When I bought the boat, the Truecharge had been set on AGM instead of gel. I initially thought that was why bank 2 was trashed. But I have other issues. First the solar panels put out an unregulated voltage of around 18v. So they will just charge and charge as long as there is sunshine (there is a cutoff switch though). Second, the alternator puts out 14.8 volts and is unajustable. This voltage is way to high for gels and is probably what cooked them. So now I am looking at replacing the alternator and Bank 2. After thinking about this on and off for about a month I've decided to rewire the boat so that it has a single house bank (Bank 1) and starter bank (Bank 2). I think this will be easier than it sounds since the only major thing that I need to do is move the dedicated electronic connection from Bank 2 to Bank 1. The other thing that I decided was to use independent chargers for each bank instead of using a combiner or an isolator. So the Trucharge-40 stays since it can charge multiple banks independently (by the way, the house switch was typically set on both at the dock, this defeated the advantage of having multiple charger outputs). A couple of months ago I picked up a FlexCharge Solar charge controller with dual outputs (PV7D), it also stays. And the final piece will be a Balmar alternator with dual outputs and two chargers. Monday Update: On monday I called up Balmar. It turns out that the dual outputs are not independently regulated like I thought. It only uses one charger. Kind of a goofy solution. So now the change is a single output alternator with a digital echo charger for the starting bank.
So with the pieces in place, I decided to install the Solar charger next to the Truecharge-40. I also placed an off switch so that it won't fight with the Truecharge when I'm at shore. Today I've turned off the Truecharge and just using the solar panels. I had a light on all morning and have been running the fridge and playing the radio. It has been mostly cloudy and the panel seems to be keeping up. Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny so I'll measure the current at noon and see how these panels are doing.
Wash Day Sunday
The panels put out a peak of around 4.3 amps when connected to the charger. Average seems to be around 4 amps. So we should get around 40 amp-hours a day on an average day and maybe up to 50 amp-hours on a really sunny day. Probably enough to run the fridge!
So we pulled the sails up to the grass to wash them and also to inspect some of the random sails that we have. We had a bit of a nasty surprise when examing a couple of them!

Sail Inventory:

1. 
   
   Main: Heavy duty main. Dirty, but seems to be in good shape.
2. 
   
   Staysail: Original sail. This sail has a rip at the head and needs repair. As an added bonus it's luff cord is basically gone. We will repair it for now and replace it at the end of the summer.
3. 
   
   130% Genoa: In really good shape except that the UV cover stiching is completely dead and must be restiched - bummer.
4. 
   
   100% Jib: The original jib. Pretty dead. We will use it until we get the Genny back from the sail maker.
5. 
   
   Storm Jib: Really good shape. Doesn't look like it has been used much. Use it until the Staysail is repaired.
6. 
   
   Big Ass Asymetrical Spinaker: Fine shape.We will probably stow this for now and bring it out once we have our shit together.

Olympia

Saturday
Saturday was mostly a day of rest. We probably only worked on the boat a couple of hours. However, we did manage to explore Olympia for most of the days. Olympia is the Southern most part of Peugeot Sound and also the capitol of Washington.In recent years Olympia has bee fixing up their water front. There are multiple marinas, a boatyard, and grocery stores all within easy walking distance. Multiple restaurants line the water front and nearby 4th street. One of our favorite lunch spots is Pho Olympia (Vietnamese). Kathy and I shared a nice hot bowl of pho one cool day. Other spots of interest include the Spar (on 4th). They have wireless Internet access for about $3/hr. A block away on 5th, The Tea Lady, offers free WiFi access and a nice spot to have a cup of tea. Also check out Mercato a nice Italian spot near the farmers market.

Probably one of the nicest features of the waterfront area is Olympia's farmers market. They are open Thursday thru Sunday and are a great place to provision on vegetables, organic meats, fresh breads, pastries, and seafood. We picked up some fresh whole scallops for the evening meal. I had never had scallops in the shell, but kind of knew what to expect. They are amazingly disgusting! But after cleaning, they were delicious.

Sunday
Back to working on the boat. I decided to start up with some of the basic maintenance. I checked the raw water strainer and saw a bit of seaweed in it ... so I decided to clean it. Opened it up cleaned it and noticed corrosion on the brass around seal. I tried to put it back together, but was unable to seal it completely ... looks like it is time for a new strainer. Nothing is easy about this. The existing strainer is this tiny thing that was custom built in Taiwan. Replacement strainers won't fit into the existing strainers space. Time to reroute the water inlet!
So when I bought this boat it had a battery charger that was had been set to charge AGM batteries, the problem was that I had GEL batteries. Bank 2 has always seemed to be a bit weak. I started doing some load tests and concluded it was really hosed. I started trying some of the Nigel Cader tricks to revive it. Next week I'll try the more drastic measures and the replace it if I need too.

Homeward Bound

We had planned on taking the Anchors up to Seattle to get them galvanized in the afternoon and then swing back and get a hotel room near the Airport since both Kathy and I had early flights on Thursday. Of course the Anchors were not completely sand blasted to we found the afternoon off. We decided to drive up to Tacoma and check out their water front. We had earlier read an article about how Tacoma was developing their water front and trying to attract cruisers. The article included a couple of pretty photos of the new glass museum. Well Tacoma still needs a bit of work before it hits my list of places that I want to hang out. They have some good ideas going, but they are at least a year or two away from getting everything done that they need to.

We did manage to get to Point Defiance Park that afternoon. It is a really nice urban park with a really pretty drive around the perimeter. It also includes a zoo, multiple gardens, and miles of hiking trails. Definitely worth a look if you are in the area.

That night we stayed at a hotel near the Airport and ate at nice little strip mall Italian place called Luciano's. Very tasty.

We are truly insane. Our next couple of days will cause us to travel thousands of miles all around the cou. I'm off to Huntsville, Alabama to visit some high school buddies from the debate team (you already knew I was a geek, right?) and Kathy is going back to Colorado to bring back Trier's remains to our house and to get Belini so she can stress out on the boat.

Steppin' Out

Ah, today we get to be a sailboat again. It is kind of embarrassing to be docked without a mast. People actually come up to you and say things like, "That sure is a funny looking boat. It almost looks like a sailboat." But first we get to change the oil. I decided to let Shurtz do the change since I didn't feel like buying an oil pump. So we motor on over and they do the oil change. Now it is time to step the mast. I start up the motor and start pulling around the dock and the engine just dies ... damn, they forgot to turn the fuel back on. Luckily we aren't too far away from the dock and I get a line to Kathy and we proceed to line her around the dock. This is really quite the chore since we weight over 13 tons. But the mast finally goes on and we are a sailboat again.
Tonight I found an open WiFi location that I can access from my car: The Tea Lady on 5th. We ended up going there the next day and connecting as well (also got a spot of tea).

Fishing for Anchors

Road Trip to Seattle

We decided to road trip to Seattle and do some marine related errands. The first was too get a new battery for our EPIRB and get the life raft serviced. We took them both to Puget Sound Inflatables. Servicing these guys is not cheap and will probably cost us another unit.

We also found a galvanizing place to get our Anchors cleaned up. This place was truly a dump. Later we found another place, Ace Galvanizing, that was only a mile away from the Puget Sound Inflatables that we ended up taking the Anchors to. I dropped off three Anchors: 65# CQR, 45# CQR and ~30# Dansforth. It will cost about $75 to get all of them dipped.

Our next stop brought us to Fisheries Supply where we managed to buy all kinds of goodies. These guys are already cheaper than West Marine and if you get an account with them the savings can be even larger.

After that we took a break and did a bit of touristing. We visited the Market in downtown Seattle and had dinner at Wild Ginger. I had eaten at Wild Ginger about 10 years ago. They've moved since then and have greatly expanded their space. I liked their old satay bar better, but the food was still outstanding.