Blog 4, July 12, 2015

     Well it has been over a month since my last post! Time really does fly. The last ten days of May were spent trying to finish various projects on the boat before Mike and I took off to do something different for a short while. Mike went off to Cincinnatti to visit old friends for a long weekend and I went to the southwest to join my sister Petra, a cousin-in-law, Maria Raab, my good friend Mary Kurt Mason, and three other women on a 6 day river rafting trip down the Goose Necks of the San Juan River in southern Utah. I was gone for twice that long with traveling to and from, preparing for the trip/ and clean up after the trip.

     Mike had a good visit with our friends the Holstegges and the river trip turned out to be quite the adventure. We were seven women, each with our own “cat boat” to paddle and load with our food, water, and camping gear every day. This was my third time in my own boat on the San Juan. The river was three times as high and fast as it normally is. This meant that put outs had to be anticipated way ahead of the actual put out because of the speed and strength of the river. Three of the women were doing this adventure for the first time ever and one of the experienced women was rowing a much larger boat and this was her first time in a river so fast and full of water. So, put this mix of circumstances all together and it made for quite the adrenalin enhanced river trip. We were so relieved in the evenings to have all made it in one peice to our campsite. This meant that our cocktail hour and meal time became quite jovial and slap happy. The sound of the river was so loud the first night and I was so keyed up after that first fast day on the river, I didn’t sleep very much at all. The second night though I slept like a baby. The next to our last day on the river it flooded even more than before. Some of the  campsites were a mixture of mud and ankle deep water. We were treated to some waterfalls running in side canyons with water a clay red and smelling like a potters workshop. We also experienced “sand waves” because of the huge volume of fresh silt flowing into the river. The sand forms waves on the bottom of the river which in turn create waves on the water. They were wonderful “free” waves, because there were no rocks involved whatsoever.

Since returning we have been pushing ourselves a little more than usual. This past week we began carting tools, paint, varnish, brushes, paint removers, extra clothing, and so on to storage. The car has been returning loaded with boat gear we’d stored for the last two winters. Things like seat cushions, life jackets, foul weather gear, wet suits, survival suits, life raft, first aid kits, water purifier, signal mirrors, space blankets, flares, and so on. Then Mike has been choosing and organizing the tools he will keep on board as well. Extra canned goods have been bought and stowed. 

Mike is off buying diesel for the motor. There isn’t a fuel dock on this side of town so we will be filling the fuel tank ourselves. The water tanks are filled and the decks are washed off of seagull and other birds droppings. The new dodger we had made to replace the old threadbare one  is attached and looks beautiful. The windlass is all repaired and newly painted after it died a few weeks ago as Mike was hauling up the anchor and chain. 

So what is left to do? The dinghy has to be hoisted back on the boat. Some last minute tools and paint, along with the little electric refrigerator we used this last year have to be hauled to storage. The mooring lines have to be brought from storage. The fenders will have to be placed on the side of the boat we will be moored to on the dock. Most through holes will need to be closed. Once the boat is lowered into the water we will sit there for a few days while making sure the engine runs properly, and the rigging will need adjusting since it will be in the water and not on solid ground anymore. The staysail and the jib or foresail have to be attached to the boat as well. So we will be busy even though we won’t be out sailing immediately.

Next Friday we are off to Redmond, Oregon to pick up our grandson, Johannes. He is flying out with a friend of Fiona’s. We will have Johannes on the boat with us for about three weeks. Then Fiona will join us on the fourteenth of August for a week or so.

So if all moves along without any major glitches the travel lift ( a big four wheeled vehicle that raises and lowers boats in and out of the water and also parks them in the boat yard) will set us into the water, Monday morning. Then we will begin the work that can only be done once the boat is in the water. Wish us luck! 

Blog 3, May 17, 2015

     Last week we were visited by Kieran on Friday.  Projects always seem to get finished rapidly  when Kieran’s enthusiasm and past experience on boats is shared with us. Kieran's presence means Mike has someone he knows and trusts with boat knowledge to bounce ideas off of.This often spurs them on to finding a creative solution to some technical problem needing to be solved on the boat. 

     On Saturday Mike and Kieran took a long look at the standing rigging for the mast. After some research and experimentation Kieran was able to find a rather simple solution to the problem. It seems the stern stay (the metal rope at the back of the boat that helps hold the mast up) must be attached to the boat before the bow stay. If not done in this way, on this particular boat, the tension is all wrong. Anyhow this “problem” had been one of those things one spends too much time worrying about, only to find that the solution is much simpler than one expected it to be. Sometimes I think we believe we have to worry about a problem before it can be solved. One of those illusions we go through life living out without ever examining it closely. Somehow I find myself believing the worry is essential to the process but it's just self generated anxiety. It's not necessary but I often believe it is.

     

     On Mother’s Day I didn’t cook or prepare any meals. We went out for breakfast at the Blue Moose Cafe. Serves you lots of good food without robbing you. Mike brought lunch from the grocery store deli, complete with a dozen red roses. For dinner we went to the local brewery for excellent beer and burgers. Kieran concocted a dessert for us consisting of warm brownies, fresh strawberries, and ice cream. I had calls from all my children interspersed with jokes and comments from Kieran and Mike while the conversations buzzed over the phone lines.

     Betsy joined us on Monday and we happily got all the new running rigging attached to the boat. This involved melting the ends of all the new lines and taping them. Then attaching the new lines onto the old lines by sewing the ends together. This way as you pull the old lines out, the new ones are threaded  into their proper place. Sometimes the lines pass through the mast, sometimes through the boom, out and around and througn different blocks and so on. It’s not rocket science, it just requires time, attention and patience.

     Another project was in progress when they arrived. It was abandoned so I could help with the rigging project. When we finished the rigging I returned to the other project. It involved hooking up a new hose to a footpump for getting fresh water to the sinks without having to use electricity. Kieran and Betsy helped me complete this project also. It’s so satisfying to cross these things off of our “to do list”.

     We had fun with with those two. We went out for tap room beer and pizza. They baked goodies in our newly overhauled propane stove/oven on the boat. They brought their dog, Lissie, and she is lots of fun too. She is black with a curly tail, small, and hot wired with energy. She is also super affectionate. When we weren’t on a group walk we would take turns taking her down to the beach at low tide and watch her run like a deer over fist size rocks, chasing seagulls joyfully into the salty water. I realized how much I miss “dog” walks. Lissie’s delight in everything was infectious.

May 20, 2015

     The weather is in a holding pattern this week. Clouds and fog in the morning, burning off by noon into a clear, cool day. It’s nice to experience both climates in one day. In the evenings in the last of the sunlight while we are out walking, there are huge New Mexico thunderclouds over the mainland. Last night they were a pale peachy color at dusk and we could see the Olympic Mountains. On super clear days without haze, cloud, or fog we can see Mount Baker and Mount Rainier in the Cascades on the mainland. Western Washington certainly has it’s share of majestic mountains.

     Work continues as usual. Not at the fast pace that happens with Kieran around but we keep chipping away at things. The project taking most of our time is definitely the electronics. It involves taking out and putting in small screws in tight, almost inaccessible places. All the wires then have to be labeled and attached using a heat gun. Then the wires have to be attached to the bulkhead or some solid part of the boat where they won’t chafe when the diesel engine is running. Whatever happened to simplicity? Our technology is so complex. It makes me nervous. Are we deluding ourselves maybe a little by being so dependent on it for so many things?

     Well it is time to post this. Until the next time, Tina

May 2, 2015

     I have not been attentive to my blog for some time now. I am back to keep you all up to date on the ins and outs of our life and work in the boatyard. We are now back to our old routines. A walk every day, either in the morning or evening depending on how we feel. For example today is Saturday. We got a fairly early start on the day. By 7:45 we had finished breakfast and listening to the morning news on the radio. It is sunny, not windy, still quite cool and so off we went for our walk down the beach to a pretty park full of blossoming trees and bushes. I now know some of those trees (in New Mexico we would call them trees) or very large bushes are rhododendrons. They have these huge voluptious blossoms just everywhere. Some are yellow, some are pink, some are pale purple. They are beginning to fade. There are azelyas still blooming everywhere too and lilacs and that is the extent of my plant vocabulary so far. Two weeks ago there were primroses blooming and giant, absolutely giant California poppies. There are some purple and white bells still happy, I think they’re called Lily of the Valley. Anyhow the air is very fragrant and the birds are still in their spring mode, i.e. at 5:30 am or so they start singing their hearts out. So through this little garden of Eden right by the sea, we walked through, taking more pictures of new blossoms we don’t know the names of. Then we came upon a garage sale with lots of nice stuff but we didn’t need anything so we just admired it and walked on. We came out onto one of the main drags, about four blocks away from a local grocery and bakery and remembered we needed bread. So up the hill we went to buy bread and mostly browse the local Farmers Market that is always there on Saturday mornings. There was a young kid about 12 years old selling cards with photos of wild birds that had been rescued by a local organization. He was helping to raise money for the bird sanctuary by selling his photos. I bought a couple of cards to send to my birder sister and her husband. They are neat close ups of two different kinds of owls.  One is of a Barn owl and the other is a Northern Saw-Whet owl. I was amazed by the unique look of the Barn owl with it’s recessed eyes. It’s almost so ugly it is beautiful. It just doesn’t look like the owl I was raised to expect. I imagine it is a common sight seen by people living in the countryside who have barns. I will never forget what it looks like.

     On our return to the boat we decide what the tasks are that we hope to complete that day and get started. Usually we stop for lunch around 12:30 or 1:00. One of us often jumps on their bike to ride over to the hardware store or a local marine supply store during the day for some tool or apparatus needed for the job we’re working on. I’ll also go to the post office to check our box for mail. Nothing is very far away. Until about a week ago I was going to the library two or three times a week to take an online boating course for the state of Washington. I finally finished it last Sunday. It’s a requirement by the state of Washington that every boater born after 1955 take this course. It’s good I had to do this because even though it’s information Mike and I learned when we took our boat course three years ago, I’ve forgotten so much. A lot of the course covered boating safety, rules of the “road” , laws, etc. It was tedious at times, but I’m glad I did it. At about 4:30 or 5:00 we begin to put tools away and make room so I can fix some dinner and we have a place to sit down at our table and eat. That takes at least a half hour. If we got a late start that day, we stretch the routine out and quit later. It’s easy to be flexible. Some days we go to this coffee shop first thing in the morning to check e-mails. We have a favorite restaurant that makes their own soups and pizzas and we usually go there at least once a week. We go there so regularily the owners know us.  Every three  weeks or so we will make a trip to Seattle to do some shopping for boat parts and to visit Trader Joe’s. We try to coordinate it with a visit with Kieran and Betsy (our son and his girlfriend) and our friend’s daughter and son-in-law, Lili and Vince. Kieran and Betsy are back working as mountain guides on Mount Rainier this summer. It looks like Kieran will be doing some guiding on Denali in Alaska too. Lili and Vince are friends with some of our children, and from Santa Fe originally. They have been living in Seattle for the last eleven years or so.We met Kieran and Lil for dinner on Friday after doing errands in Seattle all day. 

    There is always some event or circumstance that changes our routine in some way. A couple of Sundays ago an acquaintance of our’s here, invited us to go sailing with him in the afternoon. What a perfect day for it. The wind was just right, the sun was shining, and we laughed alot. It felt so good to be on the water again. It makes me want to finish up this boat work soon! 

     Another situation that changed our routine was a molar that’s been bothering me for the last couple of years. That tooth finally got the better of me. It started aching and aching. Then early last week a big hunk of it broke off. Time to see a dentist. I decided I would  go to the first who could see me as soon as possible. I found one who would see me the very next day. He took a good look at it, did some x-rays, and said if I wanted to save the tooth I would have to see two different specialists. I asked how much it would involve money wise. At least three grand! I asked him if he could pull it out for less. No problem, 1/6 of the price, including a bone transplant in case I ever wanted to get a false tooth in there, the next dentist  would have some bone to attach the implant to. I was in and out of there the next day in an hour and ten minutes! My recovery hasn’t been too bad. I was getting a cold the day I went in. The following day I seemed to have taken too much hydrocodon or I took the antibiotic right after eating when it should be taken on an empty stomach. Whatever it was I threw up and was nauseous the rest of the day. I just slept that day. The next day was much better. I took it easy and just read a book all day. On Wednesday I go for a check up and to get the stitches out. 

     Last week we finally signed up at a gym for the next two months. We decided we need to do more to get in shape than just our half hour walk every day. There is a great bonus to doing this. First of all, there are all kinds of classes one can take by joining and they have  free showers, a sauna, and a hot tub! It is much nicer than the showers that cost a quarter for every minute that we’ve been using in the marina. Why didn’t we do this sooner?

     Well that covers the main doings of the last couple of weeks or so. Not very adventurous but the simplicity of our days is very gratifying. 

     

April 14, 2015

    Well here I am blogging again. Last summer was quite the whirlwind summer of wedding attendance, wedding preparation, and boat work on “the hard” inbetween hosting a wedding and attending three other weddings. Our oldest daughter, Marisol and her fiance, Josh Beckner, were married at our home last summer on July 19th. Needless to say we had some projects to finish up in preparation for the grand day! By June 23 we were back in Santa Fe after a month in Port Townsend, to get the house and property ready for the wedding. 

     After a joyous wedding and wonderful visits with family and friends, by early August we were back in Washington continuing work on the boat. At the end of October we were ready for a break and returned to New Mexico for the winter. We had completed about half of the things that have to be done before the boat goes back in the water. Some of those things included pulling the mast to inspect it for corrosion and replace electrical wiring for the electronics on the boat. We also pulled all the running and standing rigging off the boat to be replaced. All the “bright work”, i.e. any wood on the boat that needed to be varnished, had up to 7 or 8 coats of new varnish applied after preparing the wood. Prep involved sanding everything first. This was all done by yours truly. I learned quite a bit about the skill, knowledge, and patience required to do this job properly. I also learned about caulking when I caulked all around the whole outer cap rail on the boat where the wood is attached to the fiber glass. In all my life I never thought I’d learn to wax a boat but I did that too.

     Later in the early fall Kieran came to help out on the boat overhaul. He showed me how to service a winch. I ended up cleaning and re-greasing five of the seven on the boat. Mike persevered with the work on the mast, getting advice from the rigger in the boatyard, he managed to put all new standing rigging on the mast, new wiring inside the mast, and steps for climbing up to the top. In late October the mast was put back on the boat! We have also replaced most of the old hoses on the boat, and Mike installed a propane alarm and new propane hoses.The old anchor chain was taken out of the boat to be galvanized in Seattle. 

      Things left to do on the boat are not so major as the mast overhaul but are many. The wiring for the radios is ready and waiting for the new radios to be mounted. The shifting mechanism on the steering is backwards and needs to be changed. Mike is not satisfied with the fore and aft standing rigging. So he will have to get some expert advice on that. The “head”, which is a marine composting toilet, (state of the art, way ahead of the ones we all know about on land) has to be installed with it’s fan. It’s about half finished. The new running rigging will have to be put on. The sails will have to be reattached. There are many more details that I’m not going into right now. Various and sundry, necessary odds and ends. All these things take lots of time! Lots of time, partly because we’ve never done this kind of thing before and partly it just takes time. Oh yes, Mike is a mechanic but the setting is brand new, and his helper (me) is learning about stuff I've never had anything to do with before in my life. We are hoping working towards being in the water no later than the fourth of July!

      Today is a lovely mostly sunny spring day. It is about 55 degrees out. Flowers and flowering trees are blossoming everywhere. So many kinds and varieties I don’t know the names of. A trip to the library is in order.