“Sometimes, I love the simplicity of glacier life. Everything is reduced to the basics: melting snow for water, putting up a tent for shelter, wearing many layers to stay warm, resting from the walk in and recovering for tomorrow. With things this simple it’s easier to notice that you’re alive, (and when was the last time you remembered to notice?) Perhaps it’s just that the mountains invite a readier contrast between blood and sentience, and the impassive expanse of ice and rock. And perhaps that’s in part what I love about being up there: the special warmth in a cup of tea, the incomparable richness of a hot meal, or the gratitude to a sleeping bag which has gathered body heat only to reflect it back?”
This struck me as being very similar to the attraction of a long ocean passage. The only long distance offshore sailing I’ve done is racing, but in all the reading I’m doing there’s definitely a recurring theme. Cut out the crap in life. Go back to basics. Enjoy now. Here’s a passage from “Across Islands and Oceans”, by James Baldwin, his account of a round the world trip he made in his early twenties:
“With long hours of little else to do, I worked to cultivate a freedom from anticipation – that urgent thief who steals the minute-to-minute awareness of life… I reconfirmed here a lesson I’m condemned to learn over and over again: our days are stolen by our constant grasping at the phantoms of a future happiness as we think about living – rather than living itself – trapping us in our yesterdays and tomorrows.”
Planning is great fun. I definitely get a stack load of excitement from thinking about adventures that lie ahead. And looking back on memories is great too – it’s why I’m putting time into this blog after all. But getting the most from the present moment, every day, is something I’m trying to do more of as well. Slowing down. Looking around. Soaking things up more. Learning how to play this big, crazy game called life.
Last night we got back home from a trip across San Pablo bay to Napa Valley Marina. “Back home” … but didn’t we take our home with us? Has our slip in Sausalito become “home”? Is the boat “home”, wherever we take it? Do we even have a home? We’re not yet really travelling – we’re based in one place, I’m commuting to work, and yet we’re living on a vessel that can take us almost anywhere we want to go. It’s a strange place to be, and we both want to continue the path we’ve started on; seeing new places and “getting out there”.
So anyway, it was a great trip. As part of the new instrument install, I needed to replace the original 1985 depth sounder with a new unit that was a little larger, and since the sounder is plugged into a hole through the hull, the boat needed to come out of the water. The costs involved with a haul out weren’t justified by just the depth sounder replacement, but since the boat hadn’t had a bottom paint since maybe the end of 2010, that was also due. The local yard here in Sausalito doesn’t let you do the work yourself (citing environmental reasons), and were quoting a chunk of money I wasn’t really prepared to pay. We’d not yet visited Napa, and there’s a marina there which was supposed to be a great place to haul out and do your own work.
San Pablo bay, Angel Island and SF city in the background
It took a day to get up there, leaving at 0530 to push against a falling tide across San Pablo bay, getting to the entrance to Napa river just as the tide was turning around midday. The rising tide then took us swiftly up the river, under a series of bridges, to arrive at the marina with (just) enough water under our keel to get in. We did have two attempts to get into the marina, the first attempt ending in a strong bump into the muddy bar across the entrance – nothing a quick burst of max reverse couldn’t get us out of though.
The yard guys hauled us out that afternoon, with a trailer and tractor, jet-washed the green weed and algae off, and left us on some stands at the back of the yard, overlooking dry, arid fields just as the sun went down. It was so peaceful. A range of small birds were coming back to roost in the trees just behind our transom whilst we enjoyed a rum’n’coke in the cockpit, ten feet above the dusty gravel.
Next morning the work started in earnest. The existing paint was sanded down with a rented sander, Rose getting nice and blue in the process. Holding a heavy power sander above your head for hours on end is hard work! Think of all the people paying hundreds of dollars a month for fancy cross-fit sessions and gym memberships – I’d be more than happy to take that payment for them to come and work on the boat 🙂
In the same day we managed to get two coats of copper-based antifoul paint on; a red underneath a blue – the idea being that by having different colours you can tell when the outer coat has worn off. Two gallons of paint just managed to cover the whole bottom twice. It’s a bit thinner than I would have liked, but it looks like there’s a fair bit of paint still there from before which is in good shape. This paint is nasty stuff, but it has to be to keep the little critters from latching on and living on the bottom of the boat. The hull itself is also in excellent shape – just a few small blisters on the keel that I ground out and epoxied.
Getting the old depth sounder out and new one put in didn’t cause any trouble. Whilst Rose was charging ahead with sanding and painting I also managed to get a bunch of other jobs done; including replacing the flax packing in the stuffing box; the useful bit that stops the water coming in through the propeller shaft hole. Whilst I had a tube of sealant open for the depth sounder, I pulled out one of the portlights that had been leaking – above the chart table – and replaced all the goo that is supposed to keep the water out. Fingers crossed it’ll work, ‘cos I sure don’t want to be taking that out again …
We pushed hard to get it all done in a day so that we could get put back in the water on the next morning’s high tide, rather than Monday morning, which would mean we could travel back over the weekend rather than me take another day off work on the Monday. So, back in the water on Friday we did a few other jobs, including filling the port side stanchion hole with epoxy – the one I tore apart the other day to get the rotten core out.
Over the other side of the visitor’s dock was an English chap called Steve. A round-the-worlder from Norwich who was about to head south to Panama when his crew dropped out last week. So he was on the hunt for someone to join him on the trip. I helped him troubleshoot a problem with his masthead lights, me being a good few decades younger and more able to scamper up and down his mast steps (which are super useful, wish we had some).
We’ve been wanting to rename the boat ever since we bought her. In fact we’ve already registered our MMSI number under the new name. But we have been keeping schtum until the old name is off. In order not to upset Neptune you need to be very careful about these things, or so I’m told. So yard man Dave spend a couple of happy hours sanding off the old name and buffing up the gel coat all nice and shiny, like.
Now you see it…Now you don’t!
The three of us headed into Napa for dinner, as Steve had a car. Nothing special to see, really – just another American town, perhaps a little cleaner and upmarket than some people are used to – but nothing to write home about really. Makes me wonder what about a town would make it special. I’m not a town or city person, and I don’t really have a scale to mark these things against. As long as there’s somewhere nice enough to buy food, it doesn’t smell*, and feels safe, I’m OK with it.
We hung around on Saturday to meet an old friend of Mum’s who lives in Napa – he took us on a tour of the valley, into Sonoma for a coffee, and out for lunch by the river. Rose is really into her “proper” coffee now. We don’t have the paraphernalia on board to make it “just right”, so any opportunity to visit a coffee shop is jumped at with great enthusiasm. Whilst I’m just as happy with a fresh coffee brewed in our stove-top espresso maker, I’m a sucker for cakes so am more than happy to make a trip. It was really good to get a taste for meeting new people in random places, and a good reminder that we need to get “on the road” again.
Sunday morning high tide at 0900 meant “time to go” just after dawn, with the plan being to ride the ebb all the way back to Sausalito. The plan worked out just fine, and we were back at the dock by early afternoon, Rose having done a load more rows of knitting, chatted with family on Skype, and me having munched a bit more through my latest book. We even got some wind, so didn’t have to use the donkey all the way back.
* San Francisco often stinks of rotten cabbage, but more about that another time.
Don’t you just love it when a store decides to run a big discount on something that’s been on your wishlist for a while? Today is West Marine’s “Friday deal” – which is a tidy 40% off all bulk rope. Whilst it was tempting to go overboard (how many phrases have nautical origins?!) and replace most of the tired lines around the boat, I was able to restrain myself to the “need” rather than “want” list.
The other day on the trip up to Point Reyes we got some nasty riding turns on the jib sheets, partly due to the ancient, flattened and fluffed ropes. So they were up for replacement. I got blue ones thinking that all the other lines aboard were white … making it easier to give instructions – “pull the blue one”. Getting back to the boat I see that the jib furling line is also blue. Oops. Ah well. At least now I’ve got two more tired, end of life ropes hanging around … perfect for holding the kayaks down!
I have no halyard backups to use in an emergency if the jib or main halyards go, and at some point I’m going to be looking for a spinnaker, so it also made sense to get the line for a new halyard too. Ended up with 8mm dyneema. I’m amazed by the breaking strength of this stuff – it claims 7000lb, which means that I just need 3 lines to hold the WHOLE BOAT up in the air.
So, now I have another job for the next trip up the mast; fit a spinnaker halyard crane and run the line. It’s also going to need a cleat on the mast.
Today I was working from home. The internet is fast enough to do what I need now that we’ve installed a WiFi booster and aerial – it claims to work up to 5 miles offshore with a good signal and line of sight! But where we are a few boats down from the dock transmitter is fine too, even though there’s a big beast of a motor boat in the way. Anyway, the reason I based myself here today was to be around for the first stage of the dodger install. Two guys from Iverson’s came down from Washington and up from San Diego – they also have a few other jobs in the area. The frame was mailed to me last week, and today they set it up and measured out the panels.
I love sailing without a dodger (what we call a spray hood back in the UK). It gives you so much visibility, and you feel much more like you’re part of the world around you. On Rancote we almost always sailed with the fold-able spray hood down. Thinking about that always makes me feel lucky to have had such good weather for our trips over the last few years. Either that, or exceptional planning and weather awareness. But we’re going to be heading off for longer offshore trips when it’s going to be wet, windy and grim, and we’re going to be heading south when hiding from the sun is just as important as hiding from the spray. This thing will have fully removable windows so we can use it in sunshade mode too. The trickiest decision is going to be choosing the colour! We got a new sail cover a while back in taupe, thinking that we’d get the spray hood done in the same, but having looked at samples today I’m thinking that a coffee brown would be nicer. These white plastic boats could do with a bit more brown.
It’s been super warm, too. And really peaceful. The wind is blowing slightly onshore which means there’s no highway noise at all. Only the chink chink chink of halyards against masts, and the gently plop plop of tiny waves lapping against the hull. And yes I did manage to get some work done. However it does really set the mind thinking about getting away from the dock and off to new places, away from cities and gazillions of people.
Rose got back from a trip to the David Hockney exhibition at the De Young museum with Kate and then we took the kayaks out for a paddle as the sun went down. You can just see the city in the background. Last night was the full moon – a “mini moon” – the smallest this year. I bought some 7×50 binoculars last week and we checked out the night sky last night – with Jupiter above the moon as it rose. I was sure I could see Jupiter’s moons – is that possible through binoculars?
Rose, me, Mike, Rachel and Brittney headed up the coast for the weekend to Drakes bay which is nestled in just inside Pt. Reyes, about 30 miles north of San Francisco.
Leaving the bay – calm and cloudy
The day started out a bit wet – the forecast was for showers, and it was right. We had rain for the first few hours as we sailed north up the coast in a light westerly breeze. Mike and Rachel had been having it large the night before so were fast asleep below, keeping nice and warm and dry.
Land ahoy! Point Reyes on the horizon
Soon the sky started to lighten in the west, and within minutes we were in the sun. Point Reyes was on the horizon. The wind picked up and veered north, so we ended up tacking up to the bay as the sun started to set.
Off Balinas just after the cloud and rain clearedThe sky’s brightening up!Love being at seaMike
We had 3 attempts to get the anchor to hold, eventually getting it to stick as dusk fell. Food and drinks and games took us all the way to late evening – everyone pretty tired and all asleep by 11. The wind picked up further overnight, gusting over 30 knots. Up in the forward cabin it felt like we were still at sea – but the anchor held and we woke to calmer conditions and warm sunshine for Rachel’s birthday.
Breakfast time!
Dawn at anchor after a blowy night
After breakfast we rustled the kayaks off the deck and took turns heading to shore to check out the (very noisy) elephant seals. These things are huge. A few harbour seals (like we have down in Sausalito) were their usual inquisitive selves, following the paddlers almost all the way back out to the boat. I’m pleased by how the kayaks handle the chop – we got a bit wet without spray decks, but that’s easy to sort.
Off to investigate the elephant sealsJust enough wind to get the kite up …Folie A DeuxRose and BrittneyHello crew!Mike and RachelRose
By 1130 we were “back on the road”. A fresh NW wind from almost dead astern meant we had to put a few gybes in as we headed back down the coast. We tried wing-on-wing for a while but it was a little too rolly without polling out the jib to be comfortable.
Heading south – Pt Reyes on the horizonSun, wind, warmth. Mmmm
By the time we got down to the SF bay, the swell had picked up considerable. 9-14 feet the forecast said, and it was definitely on the large side of that. Large and rolling though so not dangerous. As we rounded the SW corner of Four Fathom bank, we were surfing at 12 knots down some of the larger waves. Closer in to the bridge in the shipping channel things mellowed out a bit.
Dusk as we approach the Golden Gate
As usual, we lost the wind when the sun went down and motored back to the slip in Sausalito. Mission accomplished!
One of the big projects on the boat over the past few months has been installing a new set of electronic instruments. I bought the boat with original kit still installed – speed and depth sensors, and a Loran setup for navigation. From the first owner’s receipts I can see that it all added an extra $20,000 to the price of the boat! I didn’t even need to check if it still worked. It may well have done, considering how fastidious the previous owner was about cleaning… or maybe it didn’t, since I don’t think he was so hot on the sailing side of things. The reefing lines weren’t even set up properly. But I digress.
Old skooolMore art than electronics
I spent weeks researching options whilst still in the UK. I knew I wanted a modern below-decks autopilot which was going to need a modern boat network system, and pretty much most of the other stuff hung off that. Warning – this is probably going to turn into quite a technical post! So, having chosen to buy the Raymarine Evolution system, it meant that Raymarine stuff was the most sensible for the rest of the system. I needed new speed and depth sensors, new wind speed and direction sensors, and some way to tell the autopilot where we were going and how fast we were travelling (Course Over Ground and Speed Over Ground from a GPS). Because there was no wind instrument before, it also meant I had to run wires all the way to the masthead. There were no masthead nav lights either, other than an old non-functional anchor light – so whilst I was up there I planned to add an all-round tricolor. I considered LED for this, but having read too many stories about excess VHF interference after a few months, I decided on classic tried and tested incandescent light bulbs. Hey, I can always switch the bulbs for LED ones later.
New goodies
Once all the kit arrived it was a case of spending a good few evenings routing wires around the boat ready to add the sensors and other gubbins. At the masthead is the Raymarine wind jobby, with a wire that runs down the inside of the mast to a converter device under the forward saloon seat which converts the signal into the SeaTalkNG that the rest of the network needs. Also plugged into this is the speed/depth/temperature tri-ducer, which needs the boat to be hauled out of the water before I can fit it. I’ve an i70 display unit at the chart table, and one at the helm. There’s also the autopilot control head at the helm. I modified the original instrument pod at the helm with a new plastic fascia. Not too glamorous, but waterproof and solid.
Instrument podSystems are GO
The Evolution course computer and drive controller sit out of harm’s way at the back of the huge cockpit locker.
Running wires under the floor
Rose hauled me up the mast one Saturday to get the wires in. Fortunately the messenger line was still intact (a line added by the manufacturer for just this purpose). The idea is that you tie your wires to it, then haul the line down through the mast. I fed them down from the top with Rose pulling from the bottom. It’s a keel stepped mast which made this job easier than I expected – though it still took a good few hours. I was still up the mast as it got dark, not yet finished. An hour or so later I was nearly hypothermic, so had to abort for the day. Everything was connected and fixed on – just the mast cap needed bolting down.
Before …and after!
Mast cap offFeeding wires
Once everything was plugged in (apart from the autopilot drive unit, which needs some serious engineering / fabrication that’s beyond the odd evening’s work), I fired up the system and the displays came online. Sweet. Now I could see the wind speed and direction at least. A couple of nights later it got pretty windy. We never had technowizardry like this on Rancote, so it’s all going to feel rather extravagant.
A frisky night!
I spent some time hunting a good deal on eBay for a GPS unit and ended up with a Garmin 17x NMEA2000 unit for 90 bucks. Pretty good. Better than the $300+ that Raymarine are asking for one of their units. That went in without any problem, so now we can see where we are. One of the challenges is that the instrument network is uses a system called SeaTalkNG (which is compatible with NMEA2000), but the VHF radio I bought in April, perhaps a little prematurely, only interfaces with a GPS signal on NMEA0183. I’ll figure that one out later.
And that just left the autopilot drive unit to install. This was going to be the biggest challenge, and needed some thinking time. It’s a beast of a machine which can pull up to 750 pounds on the rudder, which means it needs to be mounted REALLY strongly somewhere in the transom. As it’s such a critical piece of the project, and as I’m by no means a fibreglass construction pro, I thought I might get the guys at the local yard to do this. After getting a quote for well over $2000 I soon changed my mind. They wanted to haul the boat out of the water to get it closer to their air powered tools, and whilst it was out give it a new coat of paint on the bottom. The local yard doesn’t let you do your own work due to environmental regulations, so we had to pay labour for painting … anyway it was all going to be well over budget so I decided to do it myself.
After a load of templating with cheap, thin timber I put together a solid marine ply shelf that was screwed and glassed in over the period of a couple of days. It’s solid. And now I’ve the confidence to tackle most other fibreglass jobs that come along. Granted, it’s not the most beautiful of jobs, but hidden away down there nobody minds. Finally I bolted down the drive unit, hooked it up and we were in business. The Evolution autopilot “dockside wizard” took a few seconds to run through and then we were running. Just in time for our cruise over the bay to see the new year fireworks. Let’s see how it all runs when we get to sea.
The last piece of the puzzle is to get the speed/depth sensor put in, which I’m going to do when we haul the boat out for a bottom paint at Napa Valley Marina in January. The depth sensor actually works from inside the boat if I mount it into a short piece of PVC tube filled with water – which is great for the trip up the river but of course not a permanent job.
David sheltering his coffee from the morning drizzle.
On Friday we made a last minute decision to head down to Plymouth and suggested mum and David came along. After spending some wicked time with Shaya and Laurie we headed off. On Friday I picked up the van, hoping that they had finally got to the bottom of the power problem that has been plaguing us for a year. Yes! Back up to max power. Awesome. So we arrived at Mayflower marina at 9pm, just in time for last meal orders at Jolly Jack’s restaurant. We stayed aboard on Saturday night; it was windy and the dock lines were too short so it was a bit noisy and bumpy. Heading out to sea, the heavens opened. An hour or so towards Cawsand and back was enough for the day. Enjoyed the fresh air though!
I’m still glowing from the weekend (inside and out … having caught a little too much sunshine) – even though we only spent a day and a half away, it felt like a lot longer. It’s amazing how refreshing a short trip can be. We only sailed just around the corner from Plymouth to the river Yealm, but the weekend was spattered with a load of different Things To Remember. So what did we manage to cram into a trip not lasting much more than 24 hours?
Got some great footage from the kite + Gopro
Decided to hoist the camera up the mast with the boat hook as counterweight
Lost the camera when the mount broke and it catapulted itself over the side (boooo)
Couldn’t get the boat hook down …
Sent Ant up the mast to retrieve it (and fix the wonky windex whilst he was at it)
Replaced the primary diesel fuel filter after the engine had trouble on the Yealm approach
Discovered a broken wire to the diesel pump … must sort before next offshore trip
Had the first swim in the sea this year (brrrr)
First go at driving a dinghy with an outboard for Anna
Found some amazing squidgy squashy seaweed to squelch in
Reminded ourselves how great mud between the toes feels
Lazed in the sunshine drinking G&Ts and Rums&Cokes
Had a good mid-ocean (well, slightly off the coast) boogie to Les Yeux D’La Tête
Slept under the stars in the cockpit – another first for this year
Gotta love the sunAnt and Anna6 knots!Exploring in the mudAmazing squishy seaweedAnt retrieving the boathookEasy with that starter cord!Rivermouth anchorage, Yealm‘toneThe last we saw of the Gopro …
Some shots from yesterday – a windy, sunny day on Peter Jones X112, “In X Celcis” – crewing in the annual Round The Island race – around the Isle of Wight. About 1,700 yachts took part, with an average of say 10 crew per boat, it’s the UK’s second largest sporting event in the UK as far as participant numbers go, second only to the London marathon. Who’d have thought it eh.
DawnSpinnakers coming outSo many boats!The NeedlesRail monkeysArtur9 knots
Road and Ocean 