So glad our sweet girl found such a loving happy home! Thank you Elaine and Joanne! Tiilicum loves to be with us on the boat….at the dock. Underway, she shakes and shoots us with these ‘suffering-looks’; she is not a happy sailor. So we decided to leave Tilly behind. We will miss her as she lives the the high life with Aunty Elaine and Aunty Joanne in the Comox Valley!
Sue and Tilly on their last walk.
Tilly and Aunty Elaine bonding!
Good bye Comox
Finally we got down to the last couple of weeks before casting off our lines! Amidst final-final projects we enjoyed lots of wonderful gatherings, dinners, mini boat trips, cockpit parties, and yes even Cuban cigars! So many friends wishing us well, helping us out, or…just getting us off the dock! Thank you! Love and hugs to all! Look forward to the ditch bag party when we get back!
Going – Going – Gone!!!!
We have done it – left the dock that is. All the projects are not done, we have less $$ than we wished for but carp eh diem!! We were done sitting at the dock doing the “LIST”, I packed up my office, took our car to its storage spot, Tilly’s off to her great new home for a year and we cast off the lines. There will be blog catchup over the next few weeks on projects. We didn’t get far the first day but Henry Bay was far enough. We need a day to decompress Barb and Bob were out on their boat and had cocktails with us that evening. That was repeated the next evening as Mal and Sandra Walsh and Jim Edgar joined the Tease’s for a pot luck aboard Adesso. A good time was had by all and now our new adventure begins!!!!
Argh Matey
Mal and Sandra with their friends Zinda and Robin Fitzgerald were headed out on a Irish mission to Hornby and back. Somehow Sue and Sandra conspired to have us all meet in Henry Bay for a drink or two… and dinner. It turned out to be a beautiful evening, not to mention, being surrounded by the Irish is a workout, on your face’s laugh muscles. I often wonder if the “Irish humour” is actually a gene and when an Irish child is born their first words are a joke! When the sun shines at this time of year our “backyard” is undoubtably one of our planets most beautiful areas.
Enjoying the evening on Adesso
The Irish hard at work!
View of Denman Island over Chance.
The path out of the cockpit to the deck on our Passport 47 is narrow and we always found ourselves grabbing the wire life lines for support. This can be dangerous if you miss and hard on the hands is you are in a rough seaway. Finally I decided to replace that section of wire with 1 inch stainless tube. All I did was have a split fitting welded to one end and the other was welded to the first stanchion. If I need to remove the section it is still possible. Wow what a difference, easy to grab, secure, and best of all Sue loves it!!
Sue holding on tight!
We are going!
Hurray – or – Akkkk what have we done!!! Sue with great excitement gave her leave notice so we are committed to our offshore adventure this fall. The boat list is small ( I hope it stays that way) , our piggy bank has no where near enough $$$, the list of what we need to organize seems way toooooooooo long but throwing caution to the wind we are off. You might find us at Costco in future year getting the $1.50 hotdog special to survive but as I often say ” you never know what might fall out the sky”. Josh is enrolling with PIE education for school and is very excited to be off traveling the less traveled road. Tilly will have to find a temporary home while we are gone because she is terrified at sea and really needs a few sheep to keep her occupied, Kayto on the other hand will join us, Yeh
As with most renovations it all started in a rather innocuous way, our Raritan manual head was leaking and in need of a rebuild. The story goes something like this; now that the head is out I should refinish the head base, now that the head base is out I should refinish the bulkhead behind the head, oh right the wash down pump needs replacing and the plumbing should be moved, now that I have access, maybe I should put a waste Y valve in and a shut off valve on the holding tank and all of this is connected to the forward gear locker that has a leak somewhere, I might as well tear that out – while I was at it .
After all the work !
Because there was not room in the head the vented loop was put in the forward locker all old holes in the bulkhead were sealed and the wash down pump was moved to the celling of the locker. Paint and a new LED light will finish off this zone.
Moved wash down sumo
Vented Loop
This was not the day or two job it was weeks, but well worth the time spent. Leaks gone and the forpeak will never be so organized again. Also the shower was painted (Interlux Brightside ) a little varnish touch up – WOW big improvement. I’ll post a picture when all done.
Bluewater Cruising Association (which we are members) put on a one day safety at sea course for those of us that have never had the misfortune to use that expensive piece of safety equipment call the ” Life Raft”. Our thinking was it might be a good idea to have this experience before we were actually in a crisis, in fact our inflatable lifejackets had never been activated either! So off the whole family went to dress in full gear, jump into the pool and try all this out. Was it worth it – YES!!!!!, and it was a lot of fun.
In thirty years of cruising we have never fallen over board, need a life raft, even had to use a flare gun but you really don’t want the first time you use these to be in a real emergency when the stress is high and a wrong decision could cost a life. I recommend this for all sailors whether your going offshore or not. What were the big lessons?
Class of Spring 2014
1. Mustang lifejackets were great but you need a bum strap. Without this the jacket tends to ride up and you could slip out if your being tossed around in chop.
2. Know your life raft. Every manufacturer has different features and the position of the gear in the raft is different. Spend the time to study your particular raft. Our is a Givens and are happy to know its design features are great. We had trouble getting in the DBC because there was no ladder and with an inflated life jacket this is no easy feat!
We lost our beautiful spring like weather to a foot of slush, ugh. The last few days have reminded us why we really are looking forward to our trip South. Slush is worse than rain as it doesn’t run off, just piles up putting water in places that you never imagined!
Adesso in the Snow
Our Kiss installed on Adesso
Adesso came with a KISS high output wind generator with lots of spares. My research on the product indicated that it was a durable and respected name in wind generators of the past. Kiss is no longer in business but parts were available so with that in mind I rewired it when recommissioning Adesso after the trip across the US. During the summer trip around Vancouver Island an unexpected compatibility issue arose, the KISS does not have a regulator relying on a simple heat sink and diode to produce DC and assums that a battery can be overcharged to up to 10% of its capacity negating the need for stage regulation. Well that may be true BUT when you mix that with a Morningstar MPPT regulator for the solar, things are not so happy, the “smart” regulator sensing the high voltages that the Kiss would output would shut down charging and not recover until it was reset. The Mastervolt charger/inverter didn’t like it either, should I mention the Balmar regulator as well, Sigh@><!
Air Breeze on a sunny day!
The choice was to buy another regulator and larger heat sink for the KISS or look for something else if it was affordable. In the end I did not want to spend hundreds to support an older piece of technology on our boat so the KISS was sold to someone with a simpler alternative energy environment. Looking for bang for the buck and taking into account that Captain Sue wanted less sound we opted for the Air Breeze Marine and installed the carbon fibre Blue Blades made in Portugal. Wow – no more problems and very QUIET not mention the blaze of blue in the sunlight! Another project off the list.