It has been a few days since I have updated the site, but I will try to catch up today.
I have two loads of laundry running, while I am waiting for those I have plenty of time to type a little bit about the past days.
Last weekend we had a cold front come over. Sunday morning I went to take a shower and it looked pretty dark on the northwest sky. But I was in an optimistic mood and thought I would be able to get back on board before it would be here. Well, that sure did not work out. After a nice warm shower the wind was blowing and the rain was being blown almost horizontally. I could have waited for it to pass, but that could take a long time and I would not know how my boat (and the boats around me were) was holding. So I jumped in the dinghy and fought my way back. I was getting wet from the waves hitting the bow, and then the motor lost all its power. I thought it would be some seagrass around the prop, well it was a strong plastic wrap. Had to stop the engine, lift the engine tail out the water and untangle that. By the time I was done I was all the way on the south end of the anchorage, making it an even longer run back to the boat. By the time I was on board I was soaking wet and needed another change of clothes.
The anchors were holding well, but that was not the case for all boats. It was busy on the radio with reports about boats dragging anchor (some referred to this as “watching the drag races”). I stayed on board all day, except for the necessary runs to the bathroom (my sewage tank was full, and I did not get a pump out till Tuesday). Sunday afternoon I took advantage of all the electricity being generated (my wind generator was spinning and whistling along) to do some programming. I had successfully exchanged route information between my GPS and my computer, but it did not work for waypoints. I had download the documentation from Garmin’s website, but, of course the format I was receiving was nowhere in that document. So I just went for the trial and error method of determining what information was where in the message. It was no different from making a serial driver at work…
Sunday evening I installed 2 LED reading lights, pretty easy to do, they give great light and with a power use that is hard to measure.
By Sunday evening the wind had subsided a bit and Monday morning it was just real cold (about 8C), but it was a nice sunny morning. It was real pleasant in the sun that afternoon. I decided to do some work on the engine. I took the raw water pump apart and had a look at the impeller. There are lots of spare impellers on board, but none that matched this model. So I will need to shop around for spares. Also plan on getting a spare fuel pump. I put things back together and started the engine, always an interesting moment after working on it, will it still work? Well, it did, but it takes a while for the water to come out of the exhaust after you have drained the engine, makes for some tense waiting. Then I had a look at the idling speed, when I came into the anchorage I was the third or four going through the bridge. The first boat was going real slow, and I had a hard time staying in line that way. My idling speed was over 1000 RPM, which is pretty high. So I wanted to adjust that. It is pretty easy (just a bolt that stops the throttle), but I did not manage to get it any lower than 800 RPM. I assume it is still an improvement.
Here in the marina there is `cruisers net’ on VHF channel 68 every morning at 9. People exchange information, and help each other out. On Tuesday I wanted to install LED lights in my anchor and sailing lights (both in the same light fixture on top of my mast). Something I needed some help with. So I asked for help on the cruisers net, and Rick from “Della Rose” came by at noon. He had a climbers harness, a lot better than the bosun’s chair that I have (something only that morning I had realized I had to begin with, many times I had seen that thing wondering what it was). So, after talking things over I got in the harness, and Rick winched my up. I tried to help by pulling myself up on the stays. First thing I did was mount the radar reflector under the port spreader. Than I went up all the way to the top of the mast and had a look at the light. It came of real easy since it was a quick fit system (just clicks in/out). So took that down and we had a look at it. Well, the lens on it had cracked, and the light had had quite some water in it. That explains why the strobe light was not working (the electronics for that are at the bottom of the light).
So, I had to go shopping for a new light, or at least for a new lens. There is a local guy here that makes and sells lights with LEDs. So, we went there, Rick had been there before, to see what we could do. He was not selling lenses, which also aren’t very cheap (these lights are built by AquaSignal in Germany). But he was interested in the LEDs I had (I had bought mine online from the Fiji Islands). So he made me a deal, I would get a 25% discount towards one of his new lights in exchange for the LEDs from the competition. That still cost me quite chunk of change, but it would get me a complete new light, with a working strobe light (actually with several strobe capabilities, including SOS in morse code) and one interesting feature: the anchor light has a photo cell. So you can set the anchor light in a mode where it comes on automatically from dusk till dawn. We took a break to think over the options, and I decided to go for the new light. It was the only way to get things done right now, and it would be safer than fixing the old light.
With the new light we went back to the boat, made a plan on how to do this, and up I went. This time I wore work gloves, so my hands wouldn’t hurt as much when pulling myself up on the rigging. It took me forever to get the wires in the terminals, working with your legs strapped in and just a little above good eyesight to see what you are doing does not make for an easy setup. But, I finally got the wires in the terminals and started screwing in the lights mount. Well, the last (of 3) screw would not go in. Turns out that the new base was slightly wider than the old one. Just enough for the base to barely overlap a nut, that nut is holding down the top plate of the mast (quite essential). So, now, what to do. Took the bolt of, just to see, but that really was not going to work. Put it back and went back down (I had been up that mast for probably 45 minutes, the harness limits the blood flow to your legs, and is uncomfortable in many other ways as well).
We came up with a plan: lift the light up a little bit with washers. But, the bolts were not long enough for that. So we had to get longer bolts. Going through my stainless steel nuts and bolts supply we found 2 of the right size. Now we were 1 short, than I realized there was this one bolt that had been in the salon, going back and forth from one place to the other because I always forgot to store it when I had the stainless bolts can out. I found it within a minute, and it actually was the exact right size. So, back up I went, we struggled getting the bag with the light up there because the wind kept blowing it into the rigging. But finally we sorted that out. It was a struggle to get the washers and bolt and base lined up right above the holes. But, just keep trying and eventually I got them straight. I was done just before sunset and took a picture looking down:
And this is the view from up there:
By the time I was down at sea level I was worn out, my legs were killing me and it took at least an hour before I had normal blood flow in my legs. The lights were working on the first try! I celebrated by visiting the local Thai restaurant (with 200 meters from the marina’s dinghy dock), Rick opted out for that.
Wednesday morning I had a look at Rick’s computer. He was receiving his GPS data okay in CapNVoyager, but not in Tsunamis (both are pretty nice navigation programs that come with plenty of electronic charts). Tsunamis has a lit of an ancient look and feel (I am sure it was originally written for DOS) and the setup is actually not from within the program. Once I figured out which program to run up to configure it, I was able to find reassign the positioning system to the correct serial port and that solved the problems.
In the afternoon we decided to make a run to the grocery store. I had depleted all my fresh supplies and had shopping cart full of food. We shared a cab back for $3 each. My dinghy has not been loaded that heavy before. In the afternoon I did some troubleshooting on my own computer. Was wanting to install Tsunamis, but it would hang up. Now, I still was having the old problem where the system would always be 30-50% busy. Reading through windows event log it appeared that the ACPI manager was sometimes crashing and/or hanging up. Then I realized that the power managers icon was not showing up in the system tray. I put these two things together, plus some wild guessing, I thought maybe it has to to with my notebooks battery (because I had noticed that does not really seem to hold a decent charge). So I pull the battery out (the only way to disable it). Reboot, and….. the problem is gone. Now…. How weird is that.
So I will be running the notebook without the battery in. The only disadvantage is that it is a little wobbly. But, a few beer coasters can solve that problem in style!