I’ve been drawing a lot of attention on the dock in Anacortes, Wash., lately. Who wouldn’t while they’re stripping down to bareness in preparation for a healthy dousing of oil? Whoa! What? (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘boat maintenance’
Summer 2018 starts with stripping and getting oily
Posted in Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, Lessons Learned, tagged Anacortes, boat maintenance, British Columbia, Hans Christian 33t, Puget Sound, San Juan Islands, stripping, varnish on May 28, 2018| 7 Comments »
Back on board with places to go
Posted in Bicycling, Boat Maintenance, Where in the World is Sundown, tagged boat maintenance, Colorado, Hans Christian 33t, travel on August 11, 2016| 5 Comments »
The last five weeks or so have been non-stop action! First, we sailed (or motored when there wasn’t much wind) from northern British Columbia to Bellingham, Wash., in nine days—two of those days we sat out weather on the hook. So in seven travel days we did about 375 miles. When you go five to six knots an hour, that’s 50-60 miles a day, and 10- to 12-hour days. Whew!
After securing Sundown on Squalicum Harbor’s dock, we took a shuttle to Seattle, flew to Denver and then drove to Fort Collins with one of our sons. We’ll take the traffic in San Juan Channel in July over that on Interstate 25 any day!
The next three weeks was filled with lots of family, friends and fun. We cuddled with our dog; paddled, biked, ran and swam; cooked for dozens of people multiple times; celebrated birthdays; ate at our favorite restaurant, Los Tarascos; worked (yes, that “W” word); and more! While we went home rather emergently, everything/everyone ended up being fine.
Cool dog Seren
Yum!
Maggie and Martha (not in photo) visitied from Maine
Dave driving to Los Tarascos
Brotherly love
Us & the biking Brackes
Seren riding in Kim’s canoe
Super Bill!
Kim and her mom
Kayaking Molly
Now we’re back in Washington. The first few days here I was on deadline and cranked out several magazine articles and columns. While being home afforded me time for face-to-face meetings and working at Unite for Literacy‘s office with my colleagues, all of which are very valuable, I didn’t get much time to write. So once we arrived in Bham, my keyboard almost ignited I was typing so fast!
On Monday, we had Sundown hauled out, pressure washed and blocked at Seaview North. She sat on the hard in the boatyard for a couple of days while we performed some routine maintenance, such as:
- Replacing the cutlass bearing on the propellor
- Making sure the engine was aligned properly (it was)
- Replacing a couple zincs
- Re-painting her hull and boot stripe
- Buffing her topsides
- Polishing all of her stainless steel rigging, and finally
- Cleaning the deck and windows.
The pressure wash peeled up the “N” on one side of Sundown’s transom. Clay called Graphic Partners in Loveland, the company who made our port of hail lettering, and they are shipping another set of letters to us ASAP and free of charge! Thank you, Shavon!
And while we were in Fort Collins, Dave from UK Sailmakers made small adjustments to our mainsail and genoa. He’s also serving as our postbox here in Bellingham. We appreciate him very much!
So, Sundown’s shiny, ready to sail and we’re off to Anacortes, Wash., to meet up with our friends Bob and Sandy. They just bought a new boat and want Clay to do some work on it. We like that town and love “Sob and Bandy,” so it will be a good time. We’re hoping Clay can get more work while there to help pay off the extra expense of our trip home and the boatyard bill. Time will tell.
Clean and green
Posted in Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, tagged boat cleaning, boat maintenance, cruising, environment, green cleaning, Hans Christian 33t, Norwex, sailing on May 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »
CAUTION: This blog post sounds a bit like an advertisement, but I mean every word of it!
Can something be clean and still green? Absolutely! As long as the green isn’t mold. (more…)
Alaska or bust
Posted in Adventures, Boat Maintenance, tagged adventure, Alaska, boat maintenance, Canada, cruising, Hans Christian 33t, sailing on April 18, 2016| 3 Comments »
What we hope to see in Alaska!
After returning from the Seattle area where we sold and shipped some unused sailing gear that came with Sundown but we decided not to use, we hung out in Deer Harbor on Orcas Island for over a week. While there, we accomplished a lot. (more…)
New sails, zincs and wee wee pads
Posted in Adventures, Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, Lessons Learned, tagged adventure, Bellingham, boat maintenance, Hans Christian 33t, sailboat, UK Sails on March 2, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Fancy fabric
One of the first things we did when we arrived in Bellingham in September was to seek out a sailmaker. We wanted to have the sails which came with Sundown (her original ones!) inspected. Right in Squalicum Harbor Marina, UK Sails has a shop and a very knowledgeable and experienced sailmaker, David O’Connor. (more…)
We’re in Practical Sailor
Posted in Boat Maintenance, Lessons Learned, Uncategorized, tagged boat maintenance, Defender Marine, Hans Christian 33t, Practical Sailor, sailboat, Webasto heater on January 29, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Practical Sailor (PS) is a great publication that “takes the guesswork out of boat & gear buying with its bold, independent, product-test reports just for serious sailors.” Clay contacted PS to tell them about our experience getting our Webasto heater registered for warranty. They ran our story in December. It’s a tale of woe and how great customer service turned that around. Enjoy!
Cruising with Bob, Sandra and Alison in the San Juans
Posted in Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, Lessons Learned, Where in the World is Sundown, tagged adventure, Alison Krauss, boat maintenance, Bob Perry, cruising, Friday Harbor, sailing, Sandra Bullock, Sucia Island on October 30, 2015| 4 Comments »
So, it has been awhile since I wrote a blog post. To say the least, Kim and I have been busy…still.
While Kim went to Colorado to take care of business and go to Molly and Matt’s wedding (which I am so sorry I missed, Molly and Matt!)
I kept making forward progress on Sundown. The paint job on the mast and booms was finished and all the hardware needed to be put back on. We replaced all the wiring, lights and halyards. We also inspected and replaced all the standing rigging. New radar, anometer and antennae were installed.
The morning Kim came home from Colorado, the boatyard guys and I stepped the mast. It was a pretty emotional morning for me. I was so anxious! Not only was this the second time I was Sundown’s helm, but Kim wasn’t to help or witness this moment. The whole thing went smooth as silk, however. Seaview North Boatyard and its crew don’t step masts like Mark Grindle and I did in the mid 80s, but their process worked.
It was great to have Kim back after being gone for so long! She and I put the sails on and hoisted them one at a time to work out the bugs in attachment and sheeting. We then did a pre-sail check, pulled the dock lines and left.
It’s hard to describe how you feel after four years of working on a project like Sundown in a prairie dog field in Randy and Andrea’s storage yard in Fort Collins (A Unique Storage…it certainly was while Sundown was there), to motoring out of port with no schedule or exact place to be. We knew where we were going, however, because we had been there before–Sucia Island. Setting off to Sucia gave us confidence and we felt a little more secure because we had sailed there twice before. It was familiar and an easy first stop. We picked up a mooring and enjoyed our amazing boat. Rather than getting the outboard out and attached to Lightfoot (our dinghy), we chose to row it to go and pay our state park fee on the island.
There were two boats in the harbor near us, both from Utah! One of them was a Tayana 37, a very nice blue water boat like ours with very common roots (thanks Bob Perry!).
So the journey has begun. We are roughing it every day. Heater, propane stove, teak furniture, marble counter tops and beautiful ports of call.
The other night as we were anchored in Friday Harbor and snuggled up in bed watching a DVD–The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock–we determined that the wind and the way it was blowing Sundown required us to move our anchorage. Hmmm, never had to do this with the land house, but you gotta do what you gotta do. At 11pm we hoisted anchor and moved a tad farther from shore in the rain and wind. The task taught us some lessons and we are already using the information at our current anchorage in Deer Harbor where we’re still roughing it.
Kim is making chile rellanos and Spanish rice for dinner. We’re listening to Alison Krauss (thanks for the introduction to her, Daryl and Karen Lawyer). Tomorrow we go sailing!
Shaken up by shakedown anchoring
Posted in Adventures, Bicycling, How to Live Afloat, Lessons Learned, tagged adventure, biking, boat maintenance, Friday Harbor, sailing, San Juan Islands on October 28, 2015| 12 Comments »
Sundown in Echo Bay
Yep. Kim’s writing this. I admit there have been times during our first few days of sailing that I’ve felt shaky. Land sickness has struck (meaning when I get to land, it’s moving all over the place), and I’ve felt less than competent and scared too much of the time. (more…)
Alternative lifestyles may require new alternators
Posted in Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, Lessons Learned, tagged Alternator, Bellingham, boat maintenance, ElectroMaxx, Yanmar on October 2, 2015| Leave a Comment »
All the systems on a boat need to be working properly for a vessel to be ship shape and safe. If you have a sailboat, of course the first means of propulsion ideally are your sails, powered by the wind. Having a fuel-powered auxiliary motor also is necessary for a boat the size of Sundown. (more…)
When meetings run your life…
Posted in Boat Maintenance, How to Live Afloat, tagged adventure, Bellingham, boat maintenance, Hans Christian, Hans Christian 33t, sailboat on September 18, 2015| 2 Comments »
…you feel a bit disoriented when you don’t have any to attend. Thus, I feel like I’m operating on hospital time. If you’ve ever hung out in a hospital for days with a loved one, you probably know what I mean. One hour runs into the next and then the next and before you know it, a whole day has gone by. That’s how the past few days have felt. We get up, start working, work all day and then we notice the boatyard’s gone quiet, which means it’s closed. Another day is done.
I’m also starting to feel a little land sick whenever I run errands ashore, which means my body’s getting acclimated to being on a moving surface. I’m feeling a little woozy when on terra firma.
Beyond that, I’m feeling a little homesick. I miss my boys, my dog, my mom, my coworkers and my friends. I know you’re all 
out there and that we didn’t see each other every day or even every week, but just knowing I can’t see you when I want makes a difference.
Alright, enough about feelings. Let’s update the list of things we’ve accomplished lately. We:
- Unpacked and organized the galley (kitchen) and salon (living room)…although you wouldn’t know it by looking at either spaces since every project seems to cause an explosion of tools and stuff everywhere!
- Installed the pulpit
- Moved 550 feet of anchor chain and loaded into the anchor lockerout of the propane
- Determined that a propane generator won’t work on our boat, so we took it
system loop so we can use our stove without the gas
leak alarms going off - Commissioned the water system so we can have
running water. We had to riddle out why we couldn’t get the system to pressurize; one of the connections wasn’t totally secure, so it was sucking air. Now we just need new gaskets for both faucets so they don’t leak. - Rebuilt the toilet so we can use it rather than pee in a bucket in the middle of the night. (While Clay did this once already, the gaskets and whatnot probably got ruined by cleaning the system with bleach after the fact
- Removed old varnish from the safety line stanchions and secured them to the deck
- Contacted a safety line contractor to construct new ones for us. (We were going to make them ourselves, but decided to pay someone to make them since we don’t really have the correct tools and don’t want to purchase more.)
- Bought a dinghy. Now we just need an outboard motor.
- Bought new dock lines (the ropes we use to secure the boat to a dock). We’ll use the old ones as back up.
- Visited the local Apple store to learn why I couldn’t update iPhotos on my new Mac. It’s because iPhotos was replaced by just Photos. Good to know.
- Did more that I can’t remember. Go back to the top of this blog to understand why.
So we’re making progress every day, even if all the days feel like they’re running together.
Sundown Sailing Adventures 