Since the moment we pulled into this slip we knew that we were dealing with some grumpy old men. Not a one of the 'locals' stopped to say hello or ask where we were from. Even when I would go out of my way to say hello they would barely give me a nod. It was fairly obvious that they didn't like our presence on this dock which is primarily big powerboats. Today I received a call from the harbor office, one of the grumpy old men had complained that our kids were swimming in the water. Um, yah....has he looked at this water??? Talk about nasty! In fact, Loren had fallen in yesterday while playing around on the dinghy with his Dad. It was a fun moment that had all three boys absolutely in stitches....a rare moment to be sure. To have it tainted by a dorky old fart really ticks me off. I guess I'm glad we won't be staying here for an extended period of time.
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Part of our plan for the early summer was to head to Alameda where West Marine has their rigging shop so we could get some repairs completed and also just to enjoy a different venue. I called around many places in the area for guest berthing but was told that our boat was too large, either by length or draft, for their harbor. Ultimately I found Ballena Isle Marina which is on the West side of the island and they had a slip available for us to use for an extended stay so we began planning for our trip down the Napa river and into the San Francisco Bay. It was a little hectic as I had a full day and night of meetings Thursday, my last one ending at nearly 11pm. Meanwhile Keith was working to setup lines and sails for the boat and move any items from the cars that we might need on the trip. We had glanced earlier in the day at the tides and found they were not very favorable except early, early in the morning, leaving at 5am or leaving after lunch. With our slow boat it is always important to catch at least the slack tide or better yet to catch it going the right direction...in this case the ebb towards the gate and the flood towards Alameda. With meetings finally over, we double checked the tides once more and I checked the timing for the Mare Island bridge and then we decided to hit the early morning start so that we wouldn't get hammered with too much wind in the bay during the middle of the day. We thought we had a great plan in place. Key word to note here....."thought". Our oldest was visiting cousins this week so we only had our two youngest on the trip and they were soooo excited that they decided to wake up at 4:30AM!!! Ugh! I heard them up on the deck excitedly talking to each other. Loren says to Elliot, "Look it's the sunrise. Isn't it beautiful?". I rolled out of bed nearer to 5AM and we began prepping for our stroll down the river. We made perfect time to arrive at the Mare Island Bridge at 7AM, the time I had read they began monitoring for river traffic. Alas, they didn't answer their hail on channel 13 and didn't answer their phone so we checked once more on the internet and found that I had screwed up and their hours were 9am to 7pm, not the reverse. Lesson here? Don't do your navigational planning late at night after an exhausting day! Keith wasn't particularly happy with me because we were already pushing the limits of the tide but there wasn't much we could do but keep on keeping on. We dealt with it by anchoring for the 2 hours till the bridge opened and then finished our jaunt down the river. We headed into San Pablo Bay still with the tide still slightly in our favor and managed to chug along at about 6 knots for a short while. After a bit Keith checked the engine and it smelled like diesel fuel. Another Ugh! It seemed we were leaking a bit of diesel and our fuel level was much lower then we wanted but no big deal we are, after all, a sailboat. So we turned the engine off and just went on sail alone for awhile and though pretty darn slow it seemed to be fine. Keith pulled out the charts to look for marina's with fuel and you wouldn't believe how few there really are. I called the closest marina on the phone because the charts seemed to say it was pretty shallow and found that we definitely couldn't make it...their clearance was a mere 4 ft in some areas and we needed 7 to be safe. So on we went at a total crawl until the tide turned and instead of crawling forward we were drifting backwards. We decided to kick on the engine and get us further around the point and headed towards Berkley and our ultimate destination. After a bit we turned off the engine again and seemed to be making our way at a leisurely pace without too much issue other then a couple boys who seemed to be endlessly hungry. Keith noticed that the wind line ahead looked dark and the boats in the distance were all reefed or double reefed. He decided to put a reef in the main while it was still mellow and I'm sooo glad he did for not 20 minutes later we were hit with gusty 25 knot winds and the little guys weren't very happy or hungry anymore. We battled the wind and the current for a few hours before managing to tuck in behind Treasure Island and the home stretch towards Alameda. We arrived at Ballena Isle Marina around 4:30 and pulled into our shiny new slip for the week. Ballena Isle is an older marina, a little dilapidated but the people at the office are super friendly and it does offer some nice amenities like on site laundry. The most significant issue we are having so far is the lack of internet. It appears to be a cell phone hole and the marina doesn't offer any wi-fi which makes it really frustrating for this technology girl. Family and friends have been anxiously awaiting those words I think! Yes, it's been a bit longer then I had wanted but Steadfast has finally splashed. Fresh bottom paint, fresh zincs, new thru hulls and Steadfast was ready to go in. The kids (and adults too) always get a kick out of watching this process. So we are hanging in windy Napa Valley Marina working on a few other items above the water line. Today we had the fuel tanks polished and the fuel cleaned to remove any algae in preparation for heading south.
View From the Top
That is what I hear all the time when I mention we are working on our boat. It got me to thinking about it because as home owners I would think we'd have a good comparison between the two. I've been noodling on the idea for over a week now as it seems I've gotten this comment more then a dozen times over the past few weeks. It's true to a certain extent that you always have projects in your home that need to be done but to me they seem less worrisome then those on our boat. I guess it's just my perspective but I kinda feel like I'm putting my life, and those of my children, in the "hands" of this boat. After all, every year we take it into the open ocean off the coast of California which at times can be a little inhospitable. Granted you try and pick your optimal weather window but there is never a guarantee. While continuing along this thought my mind then thinks about all the bad things that can happen in our home, like electrical fires & carbon dioxide poisoning but for the most part I just can't compare them. After all, we have smoke and carbon dioxide detectors all over the place to ensure that we receive enough warning to get out of the house. Perhaps if I spent enough money on a fancy emergency life raft I might feel like I had that level of "out" on the boat too but I don't have that so instead we keep working to make things as safe as possible with the money we have available to spend. This past weekend found us back at Napa with all the kids in tow, making it a true family adventure. Keith and Loren had been up there for a few days and Keith had managed to check off a few more projects on the list. At this point we are working to finish up the plumbing in the head area so that the boat is solid under the water line and we can drop her in the water. By the time we called it quits, and headed towards the hotel and the much anticipated swimming pool, we'd made excellent progress. This weekend looks promising for a drop, provided the yard is available to support the request, and then we'll work on getting the gang moved aboard...I can't wait!
We spent last weekend working on the boat again and making very little progress, or so it felt. Seems that every project we worked on ended up needing parts from West Marine (a lovely 1 hour drive at minimum) or we ran into a snag that meant going backwards and having to rethink things. We ended up dinking through small things trying to make headway and then just doing some cleaning. Mason came along and helped out on things that needed more muscle, like hauling Keith up the mast to clear some line that had tangled and to check the fittings.
At this point our score is looking much like a recent Giants baseball game....not so good. Finished Projects - 1 Unfinished Projects - 5 On the positive side, the sail maker came out finally and measured our boat. We are waiting to hear back from him on the final details. I also managed to track down the guy to polish our diesel fuel tanks and filter out the algae. He can get us in as soon as we are in the water. So now that we have all thru-hulls replaced we just need to finish up the related plumbing (sea cocks, hose, y valves, etc). Keith is heading up later in the week and I'm hopeful he can get wrap up the thru-hull project. Memorial Day weekend found Keith and I in Napa Valley...wishing we were doing the wine tour but instead Keith gave me a tour of his boat projects and what we had in store for us over the coming days. From the new bunk bed configuration, to the refrigeration, the wiring, the head, the bottom, the thru-hulls.....oh my the list is long and a little overwhelming. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) for Keith I'm a trained professional and I set to work prioritizing our tasks: refrigeration, thru hulls, bottom, head replacement..those were the primary projects for us to tackle. Some of these were multiple day projects as they required cure or dry time. So I bumped those up our list, thru-hulls and painting the head. First up - the thru hulls which had us removing the old ones and cleaning out the holes for the new Marelon ones which wouldn't corrode. After cleaning Keith sealed the bare wood in the thru-hull with a light coat of epoxy to ensure they stayed nice and dry...and then we moved on to the other projects since that then needed time to cure. Handing Keith parts for his wiring project way back in the transom. Keith started working on wiring - focusing on clearing out old wires that weren't doing anything and organizing existing wires to safer placements. I then took on the task of sanding out the bottom of the head, which Keith had stripped bare, and I painted it with a primer. This had to be done before we could put the new head in place to the newly designed shelf for it which would be much lower and do-able for the young ones. After the primer coat I had to wait for it to dry so I then became Keith's assistant on a couple projects, wiring and putting the refrigeration back together. I suggested I should be called Vana White but Keith said I was more like a dental assistant since mainly I was handing over tools. Screw driver - check, wire clamp - check, drill - check, and on and on it went. Here I am battling the boat logos - I swear I read the directions first but the thing was evil and I had to learn how to fail before I learned how to do it right. A super exhausted me with Steadfast's fresh bottom and new thru-hulls. My big accomplishment for the weekend was a new layer of paint on the bottom. I buffed the whole bottom on one day and painted the whole thing the second day. My arms are killing me but it feels good to have that task checked off my list. So in all - not a drop of wine did we taste but we had three solid good working days where we made some excellent progress. Finishing one project, nearly finishing two others. With another few days like this we will be ready to drop her back in the water and move aboard where we will tackle some of the lengthier projects on the water. As a Star Trek nerd this keeps going through my mind lately as I hear (and see!) the state of things for shore power on Steadfast. Keith started to undertake this project and just like when he did the DC rewiring last year, one task has blossomed into a full scale assault on the whole system. He spent hours crawling back and forth trying to understand where the wiring is going, labeling, finding issues (such as the image below) and cutting old wires that seemed to have no purpose what-so-ever. The end result....we have just chipped the tip of the iceberg and are looking at a pretty long way to go to get things where they need to be. Ever so slowly we are working this boat back into physical shape - though frankly you probably couldn't tell from just looking at her. Sometimes I wish that I could have some of the "pretty" stuff done but when I see what is hiding under the hood it becomes evident really quick that beauty is going to have to take a back seat to function and safety.
Keith is hard at work getting some much needed projects done and we are talking through what we need to work on together when I get there in a few short weeks. When he unpacked the boat from winter storage he found we had a guest aboard. Some poor mama bird made a nest on the wrong boat...one that actually gets used. Keith moved it to a somewhat safe location and hoped that the mama bird would return to finish raising the little guy. The bunk reconfiguration (i.e. The Pet Project) One project that wasn't on our To Do list but which Keith has started (I affectionately call it his Pet Project) is to create a full bunk for Elliot, our youngest, who has been making do with a half bunk these past few years. This involves removing some drawers and storage space which means I'll need to figure out where to keep their clothes. Wouldn't be a difficult issue if we lived in the tropics but as we live off the coast of California, when the fog rolls in we gotta layer...hence a wide variety of clothes are required. One thing I can't stand is storage under bunks for frequently accessed items, like clothes, so I'm going to see if we can somehow leverage the forward closet, maybe have Keith build some shelves in there. Keith seems to have gotten the refrigeration hardware working (saves us some big cash) and is focused on rebuilding up the interior of the frig as the glass has fallen apart from water over the years. Kind of a stinky job. The other big item we need to work on is the shore power. That might have to come in phases though with the first order of business being my office space. It seems the season is fast approaching and Keith has gotten the bug to get working on boat projects. He'll be heading up to the boat this week to start things off with our youngest in tow for 'help'. We'll see how well that works out but meanwhile he did go to the boat show, Strictly Sail, at Jack London Square for inspiration.
After years of debating I finally convinced Keith to commit to new sails this year. I'm still not quite sure how I managed it though I am a highly skilled nag. He talked to a few vendors at the boat show to get some quotes. In fact I got to listen in to one negotiation going on and I laughed to hear him tell the seller "My wife won't spend that much", even from 1500 miles away I got to play the big bad wife role. So after negotiation we ended up with three new cruising sails on order (Main, Jib and Yankee) and we'll be getting a new furling setup for the jib which I'm nothing less then thrilled about! Having had it on our last boat it's very hard to go back to hanking, especially on a sail as large as Steadfast's. I guess we won't actually get to see them until late July or August but at least I know they are coming soon. Next up on my list...refrigeration. We survived another Holiday with friends and family and cookies and presents and food and SNOW on Christmas day sooooo what does that mean in our household? It means we start planning for the year and assessing the boat and prioritizing projects. Sounds exciting doesn't it? NOT! Actually it's one of those stresses in our marriage that we seem to muddle through.
So what's on the list this year? Well....I still would like new sails and most especially a roller furling head sail. That was on last years list but got bumped off by Molly's exorbitant back surgery bill. Top of Keith's list is to replace one of the fuel tanks, the one that is totally corroded and which we can't use at all right now. His plan is to replace with a molded plastic of some sort then move the fuel line off the tank we currently use (the less corroded of the two and one without a hole in it) so we'll have one good tank at least. That is a dirty, stinky project! A new addition to the list is to pull the mast and have it completely overhauled. That sounds fabulous but I'm not sure how we are going to tackle it. I'm thinking that this is a project we can have someone else do while it's still winter time around here. I did contact the marina today to get a quote and they already suggested it had many dollar signs attached to it. We'll see what the quote comes in at though. I know for sure I need to finish painting the bottom of the boat. Last year I only got the water line and down about 4-5 ft, I figured the paint was pretty good so this was just a precaution to go over the area where the sun hits the most. I was amazed to see how much growth was on the bottom where I didn't paint so I'll be going over that area with the sloughing stuff that seemed to work marvelous where it was applied. Another on my list is the refrigeration, the fiberglass in the bottom of the fridge has completely failed and needs to be rebuilt. That's not something I want to take on either so maybe I'll see if the yard can give me a quote. Keith is actually pretty handy at the glass-work but again it comes down to how much can one man do before it's time to drop Steadfast back in the water? Hence....the list and the debate commences. So we'll continue to review our project list, it's a rather lengthy spreadsheet already, and determining what's In and what's gotta wait. |
AuthorI'm the wife of the captain, a mother of three boys and a PM in the corporate world. This blog is my view of life and activities related to our boat. Archives
February 2022
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