blog

Forida and Bahamas pt 2

Sun, 27 Apr 2014 21:29:45 +0100

Florida and The Bahamas Mar 25 to April 15 2014

Diny and I met sailing in Mexico a few years ago and we have very similar styles of sailing and traveling. She is a retired nurse, very adventerous, travels all over, likes roughing it, doesnt let much of anything bug her, cheerful in rough conditions, and enjoys poking around in wild and obscure corners of the world. We get along great.

All systems finally looked good so on Sunday we launched and sailed with a nice wind behind us and a bright sunny day all about. We sailed about 25 miles and dropped anchor just off a pretty beach to spend the night, expecting to move on to Ft Lauderdale the next day. Right as we were dropping anchor a boat of US Border Patol agents pulled up and asked us if we were legal. Upon assuring them that we were, they bid us a fine evening and roared off to go find the terrorists.

This morning we pulled up anchor off the beach and sailed on down to Fort Lauderdale. It was a very fun and satisfying trip, so much so that when we arrived we took a few laps around the harbor under full sail just for fun. We came in and anchored in a little lagoon surrounded by billion dollar houses with yachts to match. I cant believe the amount of money here. Everywhere you look is a lakeside mansion and mega yacht to match.

Diny`s boat, named Adventure Quest, is a Balboa 26, very similar to my No Bad Days. It is a classic "good ole boat", has seen a few rough years but since she has owned it over the last few years she has done a lot of work on it to get it ship-shape and comfy. She has spent the big part of last year sailing the Florida Keys and will spend this year in the Bahamas. They are a group of about 650 islands, 55 + miles east of Florida. They were a British colony and in the 1960s they became an independant nation. The crossing over there from Florida can be a peice of cake in good conditions but horrible in bad conditions. The Gulf Stream flows north about 3 miles an hour and when any wind blows out of the north the ocean kicks up a nasty chop so we are looking for a 3 day window of forecasted south, west, or east (anything but North!) winds to allow a good safe crossing.

The weather is looking good for a crossing to the Bahamas tomorrow afternoon. It should take about a day or two. Standby for news

Apr 9. A lot has happened to catch up on here. We made the crossing to the Bahamas several days ago. We launched at about 5 PM and sailed all night, ariving without incident 24 hours later. the passage is about 60 miles. We took turns at the helm, about 4 hours each at a time, while the other slept below. the tiller pilot was working well, so the main job all night was to keep lookout for other ships. We saw a number of them but no close encounters. We had a good moderate steady wind from the east the whole time, our course was NE, so we were on a close hauled tack most of the time, making as good as 8 knots somes times. amazing in such a small boat. Other times we were as slow as 1 knot, and could have turned on the motor but we preferred to sail as much as we could instead. Diny and I are very compatible in that decision. many sailors refuse to go less than 4 knots ever and turn on the motor whenever sailing is less than that. We enjoyed a nice sail. One odd thing about sailing at night is that perceptions are very scewed. You can only see what is right close at hand to the boat with no distance perspective . Sometimes it felt like we were going very fast, seemed like there was a good wind , sails set right, seemed like a good stern wake, but look at the GPS and we are only going 1 knot. Other times, in the day, it seemed like we were barely moving but the GPS said 8. Very odd. We made our landfall within about 4 miles of where we planned, at the town of West End on Grand Bahama island. We settled in a nice protected anchorage where we stayed for a few days resting. We checked in to Customs there, a simple process. The Bahamas islands spread over many hundreds of square miles of shallow ocean bank, where for vast areas the sea is less than 15 feet deep. Around many of the islands the water is only a few feet deep and approaches and anchorages must be carefully charted and planned to avoid grounding and damage. Fourtunately, modern tools like the GPS and depth sounder make it much easier. I am amazed at the old timers who only had rough charts , anecdotes, a hand thrown depth line, and a sextant to get occaisional location fixes . They were amazing back then. And they lost ships on the reefs regularly too I guess.

We had some weak wifi internet at West End and I was trying to check my emails and let people at home that we completed the crossing safely and i got a warning from Gmail that my account had been suspended for some unknown reason. they had some crazy system of recovering the account by asking me all kinds of crazy questions like what was the date i set up the gmail account (????), what were the email address of several people I had last communicated with(????), what was the first phone number I ever had (???). Crazy stuff. I got every one wrong and flunked the account recovery test. They then had a system where i could submit a request to recover the account and they would review it and send me an email to some other address (which I do not have), so I gave them Dinys, but we have not had any internet either since then so I may not know the result until I get back to Florida! Crazy. As soon as I get back I am going to terminate everything I do with gmail and use some other service.

We left West End sailing NE with a nice gentle breeze for a mid point island called Mangrove Cay. We anchored there for the night but it was so shallow everywhere and weather was calm we could have anchored anywhere we felt like it anywhere out there. The next day we were headed for another interim point Great Sale Cay, but as we approached there by mid day we decided to skip the mid point and turned north and head directly to our destination,/Double Breasted cay, a series of rocky islands, lagoons and reefs. We anchored outside but when the weather shifted that night we moved in to a more protected anchorage. A storm front had been predicted and came in right on time 2 days ago, with rain and strong winds. We stayed on board as going anywhere in the dinghy would be a bit tricky. The winds are just now starting to soften a bit and tomorrow looks better for doing some poking around, snorkeling and fishing.

We took the opportunity of the down time to upgrade a few projects on the boat. We made a reefing system that will be safer for Diny when she is sailing alone, and she learned how to climb the mast using some climbing gear I brought her. She needed to re-attached some lazy jack rigging up high so she made good use of the ast climb training up there. We read a lot on board. I brought my Kindle and have been feasting on Jack London and Joseph Conrad. We do not have any internet on board, only if we get wifi at some town we visit. Reading, Guitar playing and cooking fills our evenings. The other night a couple from a neighboring boat, Dean and Nina from Willow Alaska, came over to visit. Dean had a really cool 3 stringed dulcimer and we had fun playing songs we both knew. Food on board is very similar to what I eat at home. Bread and peanut butter and yogurt for breakfast. Cheese sandwich and apple for lunch. We have a simple alcohol stove and cook up big pots of potatos and eat them for days. Add onions, garlic, canned chicken one day, eggs, or cheese the next. Diny made a traditional Dutch pot dish called hutzpot, which is a super good mustard potato salad. We anchored near a sport fishing boat and they gave us a big slab of yellow fin tuna that we barbequed and gorged on for almost 3 days til it was gone. (we have a little cooler box that runs off the solar panels so leftovers can keep long enough to get them all eaten.

We get weather reports from several sources, but we cant always get connected to them consistantly, We have an SSB receiver and can sometimes listen in to the daily cruiser net and hear a report there. Sometimes we can get radio from Nassau or even Florida. Diny has a satelite phone that she can connect to download GRIB weather files which seem to be the most reliable but she only has limited minutes on the phone so we check it only every 3-4 days and get the 5 day forecast. She is also getting pretty good at watching the barometer rise and fall, watch the clouds and compare it to her cloud chart and come up with a pretty good prediction.

APR 10 the storm seems over today. seas and winds are calming. We moved over to a neighboring island, Grand Cay, and hung out there for a few days. Seems like I just got here and already we are planning my trip home. It is Thursday and on Sunday I need to catch the ferry out of Freeport on Grand Bahama cay back to Lauderdale.

Grand Cay is actually a series of 3 islands, Little Grand, Big Grand, and Grand. Big and Grand are uninhabited private islands, but there is a Bahamian settlement on Little grand. And it is really little. the whole island is only a few hundred yards long, and half that wide. There are no roads and no cars. There is a wide concrete sidewalk that ran the length of town, and few people had golf carts to drive around in. Most everyone walked. About 500 people live there, houses are small, they are jammed in tight, and it is pretty "3rd world". The people are poor, but they seemed to have a good simple life. They certainly were friendly. Everyone we met was eager to visit and help. There is a school, a little health clinic, 2 churches, a police station, only a few small cafes and grocery shops with pretty limited selection. (We met a yachting tourist who thought he had broken his leg and the clinic could not diagnose it. He had to take a boat to Freeport to get an Xray. Turns out it was not broken, just a bad wack) The town seems to revolve around "Rosies Place", a sport fishing complex of docks, a few motel rooms, and a bar\restaurant where everyone hangs out. Rosie is a local guy, and he owns most of the commercial business on the island. I never ot to meet him, and no one seemed to have anything bad to say about him, but it seemed like I sensed a bit of resentment whenever they would refer to something on the island as "Rosie Owned". Maybe it was just my imagination.

The island is solid rock, with no soil to speak of so there is no gardening at all. Not even any chickens. We thought surely someone would have chickes but no. Even eggs had to be brought in, like everyting else). There are are a few scrubby bushes and grasses that grow in the cracks, and it is really dry. Even though it rains a fair bit, it just runs off into the ocean. Fresh water is provided by a giant desalination plant, and fresh water is precious. No wasting water there! (we here in Utah could learn a thing or 2 from them!) There are no big resorts on the island. (no beaches=no resorts I guess)but being on the edge of the deep water there is a lot of sport fishing there. Almost everyone make their living from fishing or supporting the sport fishing tourists.

Seems like we just got here and already I needed to be planning my trip back home, which could well take several days. it is Thursday, and I had a ticket for the Freeport to Ft Lauderdale ferry on Sunday, then a plane to Utah on Tuesday. We heard that Rosie makes regular runs in a very fast speed boat from here to Freeport every few days, next on Sunday (we were told) . If so, we will head over to Walkers Cay (5 miles away) until Saturday for some snorkeling. If not, we need to start leaving right away in Dinys boat heading back to Freeport today to allow for conditions and get me there on time . Everything on a sailboat out here is a matter of "if" based on "conditions". "If this.... then that....". Everything is conditional, with 2-3 back up plans. I may name my next boat "If Then"

Diny and I were wandering around the island and met a funny little guy named Leslie. He was very shy about his name "it's a girl name" he said. he showed us a place to eat that had no sign, just a house and the lady, Valerie, made us some awsome conch and rice and fried plantain. Then when we mentioned that I was planning on taking the Rosie boat to Freeport he said "oh no, the weather looks bad,he may not go, but take the mail boat , it is going tomorrow (Saturday) and will go no matter what. " Plus, since I would get there a day earlier that I needed to, he said I could stay in the crew's cabin that night and save the cost of getting a room in Freeport. Leslie said he knew the owner and it would all be OK. OK, so we made that arrangement. We pulled over on to a little table and I jammed on my guitar while Leslie did some rasta rap stuff along with me. Diny filmed it all. watch for it at Sundance.

We had happy hour with a cruising couple we had met, Glynn and Eilene from Nova Scotia Canada. they were living on an old catamaran that had been fixed up here and there with scrap wood and junk steel from various abandoned ships and random spare parts. They had a great little cockpit table they had made out of junk material. It was so refreshing to meet cruisers that were OK doing that and didnt feel that their boat had to be a spectacular show piece. We felt right at home with them! He was a wildlife biologist in Canada, and had good stories to tell.

The next morning early I bid a fond adios to Diny and paddled the dinghy over to the mail boat dock. It is more than mail boat, it is a big 85 ft drive-on cargo ship with 4 big diesel engines. The local owner, Ed Cooper, has the contract with the government to run the mail to Grand Cay and anything and everything else needed on the island comes along for the ride. People were loading up frozen fish they had caught to sell in Freeport. Others brought their propane tanks to him to have filled. One of the deck hands, a young fellow named DiAngelo, had been gathering scrap metal from all over the island and the boat was almost half full of that: old batteries, engine blocks, pipe, old outboard engine parts to sell to a scrap dealer in Freeport. He said it would net him about $400! there were about a dozen passengers. But it was definately a cargo vessel, not made for passenger comfort. People stood, or sat on one rough wooden bench, or milk crates. I dont think the boat had any chairs. Just milk crates. Good enough tho. We pulled out pretty much on time and cruised across to Freeport on Brand Bahama cay. It took about 6 hours. About half way across the captain served everybody plates of rice and pork he had been cooking up in the pilot house. It was amazing good, and certainly unexpected. It was a calm day, and a lively game of dominoes was started on deck by some of the the men. (Domines seemed to be the past time of most of the old fellows on the island. We saw them playing on almost every porch in the heat of the day). They had a table set up on deck and sat on milk crates. They invited me to play and I was schooled real fast. No money involved but lots of very good natured teasing about letting the others see my pieces. They said "If you dont learn anything else here, learn how to rack your pieces" (3 in one hand, 4 in the other, held at an angle towards myself so the other folks cant see them) I won one game when the other last player for that round could have blocked my last move but he put it on the other end instead and let me play my 4 (which he knew i had., because I had not learned good racking yet...) to win. We approached Grand Bahama island from the north, but Freeport is on the south side. The island is 60 miles and 10 wide and going around is a major problem so we steamed in and across in a canal system called Lucayan Channel that crosses Grand Bahama island to Freeport. That was pretty interesting. It was man-made, dug and dredged, about 50 yards wide, fairly deep for good sized boats, and the edges were lined with concrete. I guess there was a low bridge further along which prevented big boats from going all the way across. (I later saw a new looking sign announcing the construction of a big new tall bridge for the main highway crossing the canal, but nobody I talked to knew anything about it.) Every mile or so there were side channels that went several hundred yards in for pulling out of the main channel. We saw no other boat traffic, (but I knew the Rosie boat would come there later also). The area around was rocky slab, covered with scrub bush and pine trees for miles. They seemed to grow out of solid rock. very amazing that anything at all could grow there, on that limestone slab, but it was growing pretty thickly. You would have a hard time walking thru it. It looked ripe for development, which was the plan, but here 35 years later, I guess nothing much had ever happened there. Just the canal. and us We tied up to some trees in one of the pullouts in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, next to a dirt track , and people started driving up the little dirt road and collected passengers and frozen fish. Soon the boat was empty and it was the just the 3 crew and me. We spent the afternoon just bumming about. I played my guitar and visited with them . DiAngelo's dad Richard was the other crew, along with Ed Cooper the owner. DiAngelo was a nice fellow, about 20 something, shy and seemed like a hard worker. When he wasnt working the boat he was out collecting scrap metal and catching fish for the market. He won quite a few of the dominoes games. he said he would like to have a child some day ("Just one, no more"). He dream was to go to live in Africa. "the Home land" he said , but it was interesting that he didnt seem to know much about it. Just that he was black and felt that that was where he should be. He said that Leslie had told him to watch out for me

I spent the night in the crew cabin with DiAngelo and Richard, there were 6 bunks, 2 rows 3 bunks high. There were only 3 of us so there was plenty of room. The cabin is a small metal room, no windows or AC, stuffy, and being right over the engine rom, it smelled of diesel fumes all night. They had to keep the engines running to keep the freezers cold so there was a steady roar all night. I got used to it quickly and slept well until about 4 AM when it stopped and everyone woke up. Some repairs were made, the problem was fixed, the roar and rumble resumed, and we all went back to sleep.

The next morning I had to find a way to the ferry terminal, several miles away. I had all day to get there, but didnt know if I would have to end up walking so I got going on the project right away. A fellow soon arrived in a pickup truck full of groceries to load on to the ship. We all formed a line and passed over countless bags of rice and cases of Coke. The Staples of Life on Little Grand Cay I guess. I asked him if he could drop me at the airport nearby where I figured I could catch a shuttle or a taxi on to the ferry. He said "I am going to the ferry now. that is where I work my other job. I will take you there". His name was Alvin but everyone called him Yellow, because his skin tone was lighter than everyone elses. he was an interesting fellow. Married, 3 kids, good job at the ferry terminal as a porter, loading luggage on and off. But he had started the delivery business trying to get ahead. Besides the pickup he had another bigger truck he ran all kinds of stuff all over the island. He hoped someday to have 4 trucks and a few employees. We got to the ferry terminal before his shift started so we sat there a while by the pier and I played some songs on the guitar. he asked for some Kenny Rogers. I used to know all of those good old tunes, The Gambler, Lucille, Ruby, Coward of the County, but they had drifted way back to the nether parts of my brain and it took a while to dust them off and get them back into Playback mode. His wife pulled up in her car with 2 of the kids , bringing him a big platter of rice and chicken and beets, which he graciously shared with me, and I shared one of my beers with him. What a fine fellow.

My ferry started loading about 5 PM and it was such a disaster in crowd control. It was a nice new modern building, but with no organization for managing the masses of people. The area was small, and jammed with many hundreds of people. You had to push thrugh the crowd of people already checked in to get to the counter to get your ticket, then push back throught the crowd to the other end of the room if you had to check your bag, then back again to the ticket counter area where the loading door was. no lines, just masses of people. Those of us there already checked in had to "part the seas" for the late comers to get to the ticket counter (and being already jammed in tight there was nowhere to part to!) , of course towing huge piles of baggages, then part again for them to go back the the baggage check area. Then they called for "First Class boarding" and we all had to part again for First Class people from all over the mass to push thru to the boarding door. There was no PA system and a lady with a small voice was making the call, so everyone would shout relay the message all over. It got to be pretty hilarious and went on for almost half an hour, with always one more late First Class goofball answering the call and we had let the seas part yet again. Finally when they made another call for first class we all shouted in unison "NO!!!!!" They then opened the door for us cattle to load. The crossing to Ft Lauderdale was quick, 3 hours, compared to our 25 hours a few weeks ago, but I have to say I enjoyed the sail much more.

It took forever to get thru customs and I got to my motel room late that night, and bummed around town for another day until my plane left. I had a brutal delay in Houston which put me home in SLC about 1:30 AM. The end of a wonderful voyage.

Florida and Bahamas March 25 2014

Tue, 01 Apr 2014 01:31:08 +0100

Florida and The Bahamas Mar 25 to April 15 2014

They say that life happens while you are making plans. I had been making plans to go kayak sailing in Mexico this winter, but various and sundry situations had me postpone that plan until next year. Late March came and things were looking quiet for the next few weeks at Casa del Ramona so I accepted an offer to join my friend Diny sailing on her boat in Florida just in time to cross with her to The Bahamas where she planned to spend the next several months. I flew to Miami and took the commuter train up the coast to West Palm Beach where her boat was in the water. Her plan was to work our way down the coast about 45 miles to at least Fort Lauderdale where it was a better place to take off and give a better angle for crossing the Gulf Stream to The Bahamas. We spent a few days there at Palm Beach waiting out some nasty weather and doing a few odd jobs on the boat, including trouble shooting and changing the oil pressure switch on her brand new engine, and fixing a leak that was a bit worrisome in the bilge. All systems finally looked good so on Sunday we launched and sailed with a nice wind behind us and a bright sunny day all about. We sailed about 25 miles and dropped anchor just off a pretty beach to spend the night, expecting to move on to Ft Lauderdale the next day. Right as we were dropping anchor a boat of US Border Patol agents pulled up and asked us if we were legal. Upon assuring them that we were, they bid us a fine evening and roared off to go find the terrorists.

Diny`s boat, named Adventure Quest, is a Balboa 26, very similar to my No Bad Days. It is a classic good ole boat, has seen a few rough years but since she has owned it over the last few years she has done a lot of work on it to get it ship-shape and comfy. She has spent the big part of last year sailing the Florida Keys and will spend this year in the Bahamas. They are a group of about 650 islands, 55 miles east of Florida. They were a British colony and in the 70s they became an independant part of the commonwealth. The crossing over there from Florida can be a peice of cake in good conditions but horrible in bad conditions. The Gulf Stream flows north about 3 miles an hour and when any wind blows out of the north the ocean kicks up a nasty chop so we are looking for a 3 day window of forecasted south and east winds to allow a good safe crossing.

Diny and I met sailing in Mexico a few years ago and we have very similar styles of sailing and traveling. She is a retired nurse, very adventerous, likes roughing it, doesnt let much of anything bug her, cheerful in rough conditions, and enjoys poking around in wild and obscure corners of the world. We get along great.

So this morning we pulled up anchor off the beach and sailed on down to Fort Lauderdale. It was a very fun and satisfying trip, so much so that when we arrived we took a few laps around the harbor under full sail just for fun. We came in and anchored in a little lagoon surrounded by billion dollar houses with yachts to match. I cant believe the amount of money here. Everywhere you look is a lakeside mansion and mega yacht to match.

The weather is looking good for a crossing to the Bahamas tomorrow afternoon. It should take about a day or two. Standby for news

a new adventure is brewing!

Tue, 17 Dec 2013 05:26:41 +0100

Several years ago , never mind exactly how long ago, I got interested in sailing from an article i read about a guy sailing a small boat along the wilderness sections of Baja Mexico (and it is almost all wilderness...) Pulling up on a beach every night to camp, took them several weeks to cover a few hundred miles of outstanding wilderness coastline. That idea really fired my imagination. I bough a small boat i could cartop, learned to sail, then got a bigger boat that was pulled on a trailer, sailed all over the place in that, then one thing led to an other, went totàlly gaga about sailing, and before I knew it I was living on a 27 ft yacht No Bad Days in southern California getting ready to sail to Mexico. (See blog posts for 2010-11) Some unexpected ed family situations and some lifestyle choices led me to sell that boat and move back to my little urban homestead in Utah. But I still had the bug to sail some small boat along the Baja coast.

One thing I had learned in all my sailing was that you can only sail when the winds blow and unless you fire up an engine or can row the boat, you will spend a lot of time bobbing around out there. Now I enjoy bobbing around in a boat. Most people don't. But there were times when I just wanted to get there. I hated everything about any motor I have ever had. But rowing a 27 foot boat was tough. It can be done, but man is it tough. Even rowing my little 15 ft daysailer Sirocco was a hard days work . I looked around and decided that a sailing kayak was just the ticket: car-toppable, beach launchable, Sleek, light, easy to paddle when there was no wind, and could be set up with a decent sailing rig. kayaks are pretty seaworthy as is, and with outriggeres for extra stability, i figured that might be perfect. Hobie makes a really nice rig, in fact I spent quite a good time on one with my buddy Steve up on Yellowstone lake. But they are very expensive and i am a cheap bastard. So I improvised, as I tend to do. I bought a used simple plastic touring kayak with a foot operated rudder, cobbled together an outrigger floatie out of spare PVC junk, and made a sail out of an old billboard tarp. Boy oh boy but Dang if that didn't work fantastical! I sailed it around all over Utah, in some realy tough conditions and even spent a week touring on lake Powell loaded down as if I were out for a month in Mexico. Having proven the concept, i upgraded the Pvc outriggers and old tarp sail to some really tricked out storebought kit and tried that out a few times before it snowed. (And even once after it snowed! There was snow on the dock on my last go. )

After all that, I decided she is ready for a Baja voyage. So am I.

Plans On MEGA hold

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 02:02:57 +0100

My mother passed away on Feb 13. I am still here in Logan Utah with dad. I expect to be here for some time. Since the slip rent after a few months far exceeds the street value my boat, I decided to sell her. ARGH. Like cuitting off my leg. the transaction went pretty well. I drove down there for a quick trip in mid March to clear out all my stuff and get her ready to sell. Mostly polish and a bit of paint. Kathy Krantz and Bill Jenks gave me huge help in getting it done. I ran adds on craigslist and other places, got several calls. My friend Mike Gunning in Dana agreed to show her to any qualified buyers I sent his way, and she sold in 3 weeks for the $4500 I was asking. (plus $200 for the slip which I had to pay for an other month anyway!) I may have been able to get more if I waited, she is an incredible boat in fine condition, but since i am not there, I didnt have that luxury, and it doesnt take many months of slip rent to offset any increase in sale price, so i think it turned out well.

I have no idea how the future will play out, as we never do. I am sure it will involve a boat somehow. I am so thankful i had the chance to spend a fine part of my life on this fine craft. I hope the next owners will enjoy her as much as i did.

putting boat plan on hold

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 19:28:21 +0100

well, its official, I think I mentioned my mom and dad are in failing health so I am going to put my boating plans on hold for a while and move in with them up in Logan for a while to help them get through this. I expect to be moving up there within a few days. it could only be a few months, but who knows? lets keep in touch and plan visits whenever possible.

Solar cooking

Wed, 02 Nov 2011 15:01:30 +0100

As I mentioned before, I have installed a new propane burner on the boat earlier this summer and cooking with that is easier and more economical than my old burner. However, I have been exploring the idea of using a solar cooker to reduce my use of propane so I don’t have to shop as often. This fits in with my idea of reducing our needs and our consumption. (Don’t worry, I am not going off on a tangent about the news this week of the 7 billionth person on earth being born. I think actually it was my great-nephew Cyrus. Welcome, little buddy!)

In our modern world, even on my simple little boat, we simply turn a knob and have as much electricity or gas as we want and cook whatever we want and never even think about it. In many areas of the world there is simply no easy fuel to cook with and many folks need to walk for many, many miles every day just to gather a small bundle of sticks or animal dung to kindle a fire and cook a simple meal. Some aid agencies are sponsoring efforts to introduce and supply these folks with solar cookers, which I think is great work. Not only can these solar cookers be used for cooking but also for sterilizing water, which in many places is too polluted to drink safely. I am not sure how well the idea is catching on, though. New ideas, even really good ones, are sometimes slow to catch on. I know of one story where some primitive folks were given a very powerful parabolic solar cooker that got miss-directed and burned down the poor fellows shed. I think he lost interest in solar cooking. However, even for us modern folks I think this is a valid idea to spread around, to reduce our energy use and even if only for fun. We are all keen on backyard barbeque cookouts on the grill. Maybe solar cookouts could caught on. I can see it now, we could all gather round the solar cooker in the backyard and with a beer in one hand and hot-pad mitt in the other, your fat old obnoxious Uncle Zeke is telling lies about the fish he caught that is sizzling away in the solar cooker. Good times eh?

Anyway, while I am here in Utah I have experimented with solar cookers to take to the boat. On the internet there are plans for many different types of solar cookers. Funnel types, box types, parabolic concentrators, Fresnel lenses, all very cool with their pros and cons. Some of the designs were very effective but were big bulky heavy things with big arrays of metal reflectors, or some even used glass mirrors. No good for my needs. I needed a design that is small and light that doesn’t take up too much room on the boat, and in unbreakable. I discovered some plans for designs that are folded, origami style, into the right shape, made out of that plastic corrugated cardboard stuff they make little signs out of. One of the designers suggested waiting for an election season when signs made of this stuff sprout up all over, free for the harvesting. Somehow stealing from a politician seems wrong but I am still not sure why….. I was disappointed to notice that the only elections going on here in Utah right now are for school boards and city council positions and their budgets are too small to put out signs big enough to make solar ovens out of. I guess it takes a presidential election to make a solar oven. I had to resign myself to not being able to recycle/re-use old plastic until next years election. Luckily though, this stuff can be bought new for only a few bucks for a big sheets of it so I got some and proceeded to lay out and cut a design. I covered the sunny side with that shiny foil tape used for heating ducts. (not old fashioned “duck tape” that melts in the heat, but the good stuff made of thick aluminum foil with heat resistant glue.). I folded it up per the instructions, aimed it at the sun and voila! In no time, it was up to the proper temperature and I was cooking potatoes, my favorite food. For the handling of the food, I took an old camp pot and painted the outsides black with high temp stove paint. In the lid of the pot I installed a little thermometer I scrounged from an old barbeque cover. I place the pot inside a turkey roasting bag inside another bag to help hold the heat in. I am still learning how long it takes for stuff to cook. Since it doesn’t seem to burn inside the pot, I have been leaving it in the oven for about half a day and when I open it up the potatoes are soft and ready to slather with butter and garlic and chow down. MMM MMM . Gather round, Uncle Zeke, and dig in.

I have fiddled with a few designs, and it takes a bit of practice to get it aimed correctly, but now I am seeing temps of over 300 degrees in the pot. In addition to the potatoes I have cooked some flatbreads. Julio says they are like a Columbian bread he grew up with called arepas. It looks easy to also cook rice, beans, just about anything. Just like using the slow cooker in the kitchen, I just need to plan ahead for the next meal. And hope the sun shines. Today it is snowing which is why I am sitting here typing and not out cooking.

Out on the boat I will need to work out a cooking strategy, since the boat tends to move around a lot and it will be hard to keep the oven aimed at the sun. I expect it will work best to just go on land every few days, which I do anyway, and cook up a bunch of stuff for the next few days. No problem.

Sadly, there is not enough sun for brewing solar coffee in the morning, so I will have to keep the propane burner. Or perhaps just sleeping in until noon is the answer to fuel -efficient living…

Kenzie and Julio visit me at Dana

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 03:44:43 +0100

My daughter Mckenzie came to San Diego over Labor day to dance in an Irish tap competition. She brought Julio and we all spent the weekend together. They flew into Long Beach, I picked them up and we drove to SD. She did great in the comp, placing high enough to move on to the next level at the next feis which was 2 weeks later in Boise. She did great there too, placing “in the money” and letting all the veterans there know that there is a new set of legs in town! You go girl!

After the dancing we spent a few days here on the boat but sea conditions were pretty rough, big chaotic waves and light winds that wouldn’t keep the sails full, so we didn’t stay out too long. We rented a standup paddle board and took turns paddling around the harbor by the “Baby beach”. they are real popular here, I dodge around others paddlers all the time,. But this was the first time I had ever tried it. It was pretty easy to get the hang of it in those mild conditions and we had a great time. Kenzie even got so bold that she left the basin area and paddled out in the channel. Seems like she has a bit of her dad’s crazy blood in here eh?

They had to leave way too soon, it was great to have them here and I miss them and all of you.

Channel islands Part 2

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 01:53:28 +0100

Channel islands Part 2

After a day or 2 at Smugglers Cove, I headed west to explore other anchorages. The wind was light and I spent most of the day bobbing. As the sun was setting lower in the western sky I caved in and fired up the engine and steamed to my next anchorage, Coches Prietas. I am not sure the origin of the name but the cove is as pretty as the name. Rocky cliffs enclose a very tightly protected cove, with a clean sandy beach along the back side. There were a few other boats already there so I took a spot out in front, which is still nicely protected from the prevailing winds. The next morning I rowed to shore and went for a very nice long hike. I walked a trail along the top of the shoreline cliffs, looking down on the boats in the bay and the waves crashing on the rocks outside the bay. Then another trail up into the interior of the island to the top of the ridge overlooking the great Central Valley that splits the island into 2 distinctive halves. These islands are very dry, brushy, rocky, and appeared stark and bleak, so I was pleased to find a nice fresh water stream flowing in the little canyon. Always good to know where to find water out in the desert, eh?

Earlier I had spoken to a park ranger who told me that over on Santa Rosa island, the next one west, the elephant seals were congregated and doing their annual “young bucks trying to knock off the old boss and take over the harem” ritual, so I headed out there to see the show. It is a 20 miles passage as the pelican flies. With good wind I would be there in 4 hours. If not, I may never make it. There were several other bays to pop into along the way if I decided to abort. Since the mountains of the island shelter the shore from the winds, I motored out of Coches Prietas out to where the winds were blowing, and it was a wild ride from then on. It was probably the most challenging and satisfying of any passage I have made yet. As I crossed the channel between the 2 islands the winds were whooping and the seas were big and No Bad Days could do no wrong. I clocked over 7 knots for most of the crossing. I didn’t even know she could go that fast! I am not sure how strong the winds were, but the forecast was for winds to 15, with gusts to 20, and I am sure it was all that.

Measuring and feeling and reporting the force of wind is a funny business. The force of wind is felt as a measure of the velocity squared. So if we take a wind of 10 knots, squared,, we feel a force of 100. (an imaginary measurement of force that I made up for this blog post, but I am sure it will catch on now that it is in print on the internet…) But a wind of 12 knots, only 2 knots more, is felt as a force 144 (12 squared)! And 15 knots is felt as a force of 225! When we stand up and feel the force of the winds against our face or body, we think “I know what 10 knots feels like and wow that is twice as hard as that, so it must be 20.” Nope, sorry, only 14. And all this is complicated by the fact that cold or wet wind packs a bigger punch than warm dry wind, so without an accurate anemometer to measure the wind speed, usually we are just guessing wrong..

But anyway, without really measuring accurately, this was a lot of wind, with big waves and whitecaps and spray blowing. As passed over the channel between the 2 islands, the winds seemed even stronger so I decided to reef the main and roll in the jib a bit to maintain control. It felt all out of balance and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The wind was howling and the boat was shaking and shuddering wallowing and we were barely moving. Hmm… Well, The other day I had practiced with a sail I found in the locker, a tiny Staysail, which is put up in place of the big genoa jib in conditions such as these. As soon as I pulled that sail up and sheeted it in we were off again, this time in very nice balance and control. It was so cool to try something new that I had just practiced and find that it actually works! I rocketed along and soon I was pulling in to the bay of Johnsons Lee, where I am anchored now, out of the wind and in perfect calm. I didn’t see any seal colonies as I cruised along but tomorrow I will launch the dinghy and explore.

I saw several elephant seals basking on the beaches, but no wild fights over harems. Maybe these were the mean old ugly harems that no one wanted to fight over. (Actually I met another expert who said the harem fights were scheduled for later on in the fall…) I never did make it to shore here, since there were seals basking on every beach and I didn’t want to disturb them, and actually they looked sort of scary if they ever felt provoked.

The days were pretty calm in this anchorage but every afternoon about 4 the winds would howl over the hills down into the bay and rock our world. I clocked gusts to 28 knots.

During the days I would row around and look at the seals, and snorkel around the boat in the kelp gardens. I saw many fish but all pretty normal looking, pretty but nothing spectacular. Of course I did a boat project, trimming down the ends of the main sheet traveler track (OK, if you really want to know what that that gobbledygook is let me know. I will elaborate off line) so things didn’t snag on it. My sail had snagged on it earlier in the voyage and had caused 2 small tears in the sail, and ropes snag on it fairly frequently, so this was actually a pretty important to fix.

I was planning to head out the early next day, so the day before I decided to test pulling my anchor. I know that in the wild weather we had the anchor can foul in the kelp and be a big project getting it up. I got to a point where it was mostly all pulled and would come no more. I pulled and pulled, even with the new winch, and sure enough it just wasn’t budging. Fortunately I had planned ahead for this sort of thing and had picked up some scuba gear while I was in Salt Lake to go down and free a stuck anchor. I was getting my gear rigged to drop down and see what was what, and another boat pulled up nearby to discuss the weather and such and it turned out they are professional urchin divers and were already rigged and offered to drop down and help me out. I was tempted to decline their offer and use my own stuff, but I decided I might need to save my air for another time when there wasn’t a handy diver standing by. One of them went down and found my chain had wrapped around 2 big rocks and it was never going to come loose without help. He untangled it and all was well.

On Friday Aug 26 I got up early and was on my way before sunrise, headed back towards Catalina and then Dana. It is an 85 mile passage to Catalina, mostly sailing downwind so I planned on making good time. The wind was moderate, about 10-15 knots and the seas were big and chaotic, with waves coming from every quarter , left over from the storms that had been blowing, so it was a pretty wild ride. I have had experience in downwind sailing but again, this was a level of intensity and length of passage that was new for me and it was a real challenge. It is a bit unnerving to watch these huge waves come rushing at you from behind and you think they are just going to swamp your little boat but it is so cool, the boat gently lifts up and the wave roll on past with very little commotion. They say “never look back” in conditions like this and I can see why! Much more comfortable to keep watching forward and ignore the waves. My auto pilot seemed to have trouble holding the course in these sorts of bigger conditions. I think it was because the wave would push the boat aside a little bit and then the wind would catch the sail and continue pushing the boat sideways even more and the little auto tiller just couldn’t adjust fast enough to those forces. I hand steered most of the day and all that night, with only short occasions where I would trust the auto tiller while I grabbed bite to eat or change into warmer clothes and such.

I was hoping I might have been able to duck into a bay on Santa Barbara island for the night, but it was after dark when I got to that area and I didn’t want to explore my way into a strange harbor in the dark so I kept on going all night. I cranked up the I pod and listen to the tunes all night sailing. During the night I was watching for an oil drilling platform that I saw on the chart to make sure I steered around it and thought I could see it, a big blocky shape in the dark with a few dim lights glowing. Within minutes it came closer and turned out to be a huge freighter coming my way with very few lights on. I was over 20 miles from the designated shipping lanes so I was not expecting this guy there. The winds were pretty calm at the moment and I didn’t have ability to steer much but was able to get out of the way as it thundered on past in the night. Within 3 minutes it passed was gone. I have seen a lot of freighters going by but never that close and it was amazing how fast it goes and how much wake it kicks up. I was a bit worried that all the turbulence might swamp me but after a bunch of rocking and rolling she was gone and there was nary a drop in my solid little boat.

By sunup on Saturday I could see Catalina island ahead and worked the winds to slide into Isthmus harbor before noon. After dropping anchor I settled in for a good long nap. I spent 3 days here, just relaxing and fiddling around. I used my computer to record a few new songs, and get caught up with everybody on the internet. My cell phone seems to be not charging up so I am not able to call anyone very easily.

Sometime during the overnight voyage my main sail took a big tear across the foot of it. Not too big of a problem for now, because I could just pull in the reefing lines and secure the whole foot that way and keep on going, but it will need to be fixed ASAP. Many months ago I had picked up a new used super duper heavy duty sewing machine that I have never had to use yet. This thing is a beast, made way back in the day when men were men and so were sewing machines. It is made of solid cast iron and must weigh 40 pounds. The instructions say it will sew through ¼” of anything. I recall years ago Mom having a sewing machine that sewed through a wooden ruler and I thought that was pretty cool. We’ll see if this one is as tough. I plugged it into my battery inverter and spent the day sewing on little projects, getting used to the machine and the settings. So good so far. Need to scrounge up a wooden ruler to really test it.

The ride back to Dana was mild. The forecast called for light winds all week so I slowly motored the first half, and then a caught a mild breeze the rest of the way, pulling in after dark on Tuesday Aug 29. Again, I anchored out in the bay until morning. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to head back into town quite yet. It was a very nice end to a very wonderful voyage.

So did I pass “The Test“? I don’t know. I don’t know if the conditions were tough enough or if I suffered enough. I know I expanded my limits a huge amount, learned a lot, and improved my boat along the way.

Channel islands voyage - Part one

Mon, 29 Aug 2011 00:20:23 +0100

Channel islands voyage - Part one

Posted aug 28 mid voyage, from Catalina island . Twin Harbors

For over a year now, whenever I mentioned to experienced sailors about my desires to sail to Mexico , they have almost all suggested that a good way to practice and prepare for voyaging in the wilds of Mexico would be to voyage to the Channel Islands here in California. Sort of like a “final exam” for me to make sure that I and my boat was ready for extended voyaging in Mexico. After completing several major upgrades on No Bad Days such as finally printing her name on each side (Yeah!!), replacing the new wire rigging, installing the new propane burner, the new dinghy, the new winch on the bow for cranking in the anchor, and a locker cover over the fuel tank in the cockpit, and after a few voyages out to Catalina Island, I decided to go for the Channel Islands.

The Channel Islands are a string of several islands off the coast of Oxnard and Santa Barbara on the mainland, about 65 miles northwest of Catalina. Technically, Catalina and San Clemente islands are part of the “Channel islands” proper but in the last few years the Channel Islands National Park has been formed and includes the islands Anacapa, Santa Cruz, Santa Rosa, San Miguel, Santa Barbara. These islands have in the past been the scene of cattle and sheep ranching, with very little permanent habitation over the years. The Chumash Indians had lived here for about 11000 years before the diseases of the European invaders decimated them, and they vacated the islands over 150 years ago. The islands are managed now as wild sanctuaries, with no one living out here, no services, no permanent residents, and hiking and camping is closely controlled by permit only. There have been huge efforts underway to bring them back to their original flora and fauna conditions. Invading species like horses, goats, pigs, rabbits and rats have all had to be exterminated for the indigenous species to recover.

These islands can have very wild weather. They lie just south of Point Conception on the mainland which is a big “weather maker” for the area, and wild storms come ripping around the point and can pound the islands, mostly during winter. There are very few trees that can survive here, and the islands are mostly steep, rocky, brushy chaparral and grassy flattop hills with steep cliffs coming right down to the waters edges. For the sailing voyager, a big part of the experience here is to stay aware of the weather predictions, and be in safe harbors when they come ripping, and prepare secure anchoring. The islands are pretty small, so it is fairly easy to pop around to the other side if a storm comes in from any particular direction. I have access to listen to the national weather service radio forecasts 24 hours a day. I am still learning how to predict weather myself, but rely heavily on the professionals.

I started my voyage on August 13, making a 2 day overnight passage to Catalina. After a day of resting and fixing a broken light up the mast (yes, up the mast, at anchor in an open bay rocking and rolling with every passing boat) , I headed out again for another 2 day passage to Santa Cruz Island. Both passages went pretty straightforward with the expected calm periods where I waited out until the wind blew again, allowing me to make headway. I kept careful navigation using both my GPS and paper charts. One weird experience was during the second day the winds calmed and the sky clouded over and was a thickness and uniformity of grey that I have never experienced before. The sky was gray and featureless, the water was gray and calm, to where the sky and the ocean seemed to have no dividing horizon. The clouds were so thick that there was no hint where the sun might be, and with no wind, it was very disconcerting to have no perception of up or down or left or right. This was as complete a sensory deprivation as I have ever experienced, even in extreme white-out conditions in the mountains. At least there I was standing on solid ground, and had the wind to experience some sensation of “that way is still that way”. As the boat shifted around, bobbing in the water, I would glance at the compass and be surprised that I had shifted a full 180 degrees and couldn’t tell that I had shifted at all. Very odd. But after a few hours the winds filled in, and following the compass and GPS I made my way successfully to Santa Cruz island where I anchored I was pretty pleased, with this being the completion of a voyage of about 100 miles ( as the crow flies) from Dana. I anchored in Smugglers Cove on the southeast side. (I suspect that back in the days of prohibition the rum runners used this protected bay to move the homemade goodies to the mainland. )

I had some friends from Salt Lake, Vivien and Fanny (direct from Singapore), who have been on a road trip along the coast and were staying in Oxnard for a few days so I sailed into town and took a slip there and spent a few days visiting with them. We went out for a short day sail in fairly rough conditions and then back in when Fanny got sick. Coming back in, Vivien did a great job learning to steer with the tiller. Fan recovered enough to enjoy a big fancy barbeque on the boat, with Vivien selecting filet mignon to grill. I wasn’t sure my little barbeque could handle anything that fancy but it turned out wonderful.

Then the next day, I bid the ladies farewell, they shoved me off the dock, and I am again out here out here at Santa Cruz island where I am today, August 20.

For the past few days there has been a pretty fierce storm pattern blowing out beyond Point Conception up north on the mainland, and hammering the outer islands, but here where I am it has stayed pretty calm, being under the protection of the point. Winds have been less than about 15 knots, and conditions on the outer islands are expected to soften over the next few days.

Standby for more to come next post

Catalina voyage July 21 2011

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 04:13:03 +0100

Catalina voyage July 21 2011

With the new bulk propane burner system installed in No Bad Days to replace the little butane burner, and a good supply of provisions laid in, I decided to head out to Catalina for a voyage of unknown duration. Since the wind generally blows dead on the nose from Catalina to Dana, the traditional way to get there from Dana is to motor the 35 miles right into the teeth of the wind and waves. I have never enjoyed that much motoring, and with gas over $4.00 a gallon here, my strategy has been to make a day passage to Newport, overnight there, then another day to Long Beach, where from there the wind is at a more favorable angle for a nice day sail across to the island. (I have friends that motor the 25 miles to Long beach so they can then “sail” to Catalina….). I have been needing to get experience in overnight passages so I decided this time to make it in one continuous passage without any of the interim pit stops. After a few long tacks putting up along the coast, it was early evening and I was just outside the Newport harbor where I would normally duck in for the night. This time, I tacked out towards the island, expecting to sail across during the night, arriving early the next morning. That is if the wind stayed strong all night. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. This time it didn’t. Shortly after sunset the wind died and I found myself bobbing about. No wind to allow me to move or to stabilize the boat. Rocking back and forth, sometimes as much as 45 degrees, even in what would be considered calm seas, is about as uncomfortable an experience I have had in a boat. It was impossible to relax, impossible to read, hard to sleep, impossible to cook on the cool new burner I had installed. I sat in the cockpit all night with all my navigation lights on and waited for wind. With no other traffic out and about, I allowed myself to doze off a bit, setting an alarm to wake up at least every hour to look around. When the sun came up I found that the 1 knot continental current had pushed me almost all the way back to Dana. I was several miles off shore, actually about half way across to Catalina, but many miles southeast from where I was when the sun went down. I bobbed a few more hours, sleeping down below, waiting for wind. A science research vessel pulled up along side me and asked if I was OK. I replied “sure, just waiting for wind“. When the wind picked up about midday it was a nice ride on across. I passed by the town of Avalon, not wanting to visit there this time. I had chosen Isthmus Harbor up on the northwest end as my original destination and as I tacked back and forth towards it, it wasn’t looking like I would make it there before dark and so I laid in an alternate course for the bay at Whites Cove. The closer I got, the more I was determined to make it to Isthmus in one continuous passage, even if it took another night. It was going to be touch and go whether I would make it there that evening before dark. I have been in that harbor before and knew the lay of the land, but the harbor has several big rock islands guarding the mouth, and with no moon rising until well after midnight, it would be a very dark and unsafe endeavor. I knew if I didn’t make it I could just heave to in the lee of the island and wait until morning to make my approach more safely. However, the wind was really honking, No Bad Days was knifing through the waves like a champ, and we made it into Isthmus harbor just as the sun was going down. By the time I had the anchor set it was pitch black.

The Isthmus harbor is a very nice quiet laid back place, with moorings set out for visiting boats, places to anchor out, and a ferry dock. The “town” of Twin Harbors consists of a restaurant/café/bar with free WiFi internet, a general store, a boat repair outfit, a scuba dive/kayak/bicycle rental shop, and a shower/bathroom facility. Pretty basic but perfect. No cruise ships come by here like they do in Avalon. There are no accommodations here except for people’s boats, and few camping areas nearby, so there is a really cool set of people hanging out here. There is great hiking all around, beach combing, scuba diving in the kelp (which I still have not tried yet. I need to find a buddy to dive with). A wonderful place.

I have spent several days out here at anchor. I confess I have lost track how long. It is so nice and there is no huge compelling reason to hurry back to Dana so I am just sort of hanging out. I have completed a few projects here on the boat, getting the new depth sounder installed, and installing solar panels on the dinghy to keep up the batteries for the electric motor. (I also just had to dissemble and overhaul said electric motor when it gave up the ghost. It seemed to all go well except the motor now runs backwards!. No problem, I just run it full speed in reverse and it seems to go just as well, but I am a bit perplexed on how I could have done that. I didn’t fiddle with and reverse any of the wiring to my knowledge. I just took the coil out, cleaned it up and re-installed it. Backwards? Hmmm.

The portabote and solar panels are a big hit with the other cruisers over here. Everyone I pass comments how cool and asks about it. If I wanted to be in the business, I bet I could sell a dozen of them already.

I have met several very cool people anchored nearby. Jim, an interesting old fellow on the big twin mast Chubasco, paid me a very nice compliment. He said “I like the way you anchor. You stay put! Most people come out here, drop the hook and then just drag around. You really pay attention to what you are doing and it is right.” I am afraid I don’t always feel so confident, but perhaps all those nights practicing anchoring over in Dana are starting to pay off.

The water here is very deep, over 130 feet where I have been anchoring, and pulling up all that rope, chain, and anchor in order to ever move is really tough. It takes almost half an hour and I am exhausted afterwards, hands and arms numb from the exertion. I have decided to look into installing a manual windlass to allow me to crank it in using leverage rather than with just pure muscle. Oh goody, another project!

I also met a group of the SoCal Trailer Sailor association. About a dozen of them came out here together in a flotilla of small boats, some no bigger than my Sirocco! There was a couple cruising in Montgomery 15, and most were in West Wight Potter 19s. (no that is not a typo, it is spelled Wight, as in the Isle of…off the coast of Britain) They are really cool folks, not trying to impress anyone with how big or shiny their boats are. Just living the dream of “Go small and go now!”

I met a guy named Bob who I have seen around at Dana but never really got to know him. He is a retired engineer and sails a Pacific SeaCraft, one of the most studly ocean going boats ever made. They are a timeless design, with the new ones looking exactly like the ones over 30 years old. They are so well made they never seem to age

. (and they are so expensive I suspect the owners take better care of them than the average “Ford or Chevy” owner.) His is a brand new one.

Friday July 28- Many days later: This morning I had to pull up anchor and head offshore a few miles to pump out Rosie the toilet. Since I was going to be out and about anyway, I headed down the coast a few miles to Whites Cove, where I am anchored now for few days. There is a scout camp on shore here, and a private yacht club pavilion, but no public facilities. It is the weekend and it got pretty crowded here in the anchorage. Some folks are good about leaving enough room between each other but some try to cram in a bit too close and have to move. A few have dragged anchor when the wind piped up a bit, only 15 knots, but it sure raised havoc with a few boats. I watched one big one drag loose while the owner was off in his dinghy, and it took off surprisingly fast drifting down through the harbor, luckily missing the other boats nearby. I jumped on the radio and announced to the harbor that “a boat was adrift and all stations beware“. The harbor patrol came roaring in about the same time the owner showed back up and got the runaway under control. After that he tied up to a mooring rather than trust his anchoring again.

Today I set up my scuba gear and took a dive to look at my anchor, just for fun. The water was 50 feet deep, crystal clear and very nice but 50 feet down looking up I could not see the hull of No Bad Days. I was surprised to see that the bottom was smooth clean sand, not all kelp and rocks here like I had been told. My anchor was well set. Perfect placement. Ah, sweet success. Not being a reef area, there were not too many fish about, but I did see 2 sea bass-looking fish that were at least 4 feet long , round, and very big. I bet they were 200 pounds. WOW. I saw people pole fishing right around there. I wonder what they would do if they caught one of these monsters! I looked around a bit for sunken lost booty but saw nothing but a big abandoned (or lost) mooring block sunken into the bottom. . It was concrete, about 5 feet square, with huge chain links set in. the bottom was very clean. I was a bit surprised, pleasantly, that I didn’t see more any garbage or anything that had fallen off all the boats that moor there. I thought I would at least find a spoon or something. I know I have tossed out my fair share of spoons with the dishwater!

I worked a building a piece of gear to make pulling up the anchor a bit easier. It is a one way “valve” that allows the chain to be pulled in, but not let it slide back down when I release my grip to rest. I have some chunks of sheet stainless steel on board and I spent a day cutting, drilling and filing to make such a device. I ran into a problem with the drilling. This is really tough tough stuff and all my drill bits are old and dull. The project had to be delayed until I get back to town and buy a few new tougher drill bits.

I went for a really nice hard hike up the hill above the harbor. This is steep, harsh, dry country, very much like the west deserts ranges of Utah that I love so much. Very few trees, mostly low scrubby brush. I hiked all the way up to the ridge overlooking ths other side of the island. It was very hot up away from the water, probably a better hike for early in the day or in the spring, but I enjoyed the good sweat. I was very surprised when as I crested the ridge to find a small pond nestled there in a tiny depression of the ridge. WOW. I would never had guessed to find such a jewel, especially so near the top of the ridge. There was a buffalo laying near the shore, and a fox casually sauntered away into the brush. She gave no indication of having been alarmed by my coming on the scene. A mule deer bounded off, and a red tail hawk soared overhead. It truly was an oasis of shang-ri-la proportions. The water was shallow, brown, and murky, but here on this desert island it was life itself.

The next day (today, Aug 2)I decided to head back to Dana to make progress on making my chain holding thingamabob. As soon as I cleared the protection of the island I caught a wind roaring out of the northwest. It was really honking about 15 knots and I had a thrilling ride all the way across. I was going 6-7 knots most of the time and had a very quick ride, arriving at the mainland about 1:00. I aimed for Newport and am anchored there now for the night. I will go on to Dana tomorrow. All is well.