Farewells are not so fun

Farewells are not so fun   ....    Monday September 24, 2012

Sunday morning we did laundry. Then we set up the inner forestay and attached the running back stays.  My sister-in-law Sue and brother Rod dropped by to take some measurements for the new hatchboard holder. (I feel badly because I think I guilted  Rod into doing this. I’m know he has lots of other projects to be working on… ) He gave us the benefit of his experience and knowledge around the use of running back stays. So now we think we have some idea how we would go about flying the staysail.  This would be used in so called ‘heavy weather’—big winds and seas.  There’s a delightful prospect.  I’m hoping that sail stays in the bag!

We spent a great evening with our friends Laura, Steve and Daniel.  The plan was to enjoy dinner and then the Patriots game vs. Baltimore.  Dinner was great and I guess you could say the game was exciting but the outcome…. Oddly, every time we have watched a game with Laura and Steve, the Pats have lost.  I’m predicting that the season will turn around for them this weekend.

Yes, this does mean that the departure date draws near.  Weather permitting we will be leaving on Friday morning. The jobs list is dwindling rapidly.  From two pages of entries in the notebook we are now down to a handful of things to complete.  There is a big provisioning trip to come.  The shopping part will be straightforward.  The stowing part is bound to be more challenging.

Most likely the toughest task will be all the goodbyes.  We already said farewell to quite a number of friends. With luck I’ll get though this without a total melt down.  People keep asking me what I’m looking forward to most.  Right now it seems like there are just lots of things to worry about.  What were we thinking when we decided to do this?

Gloria

Rusty Fortress anchor - East Greenwich

Painted Lock - East Greenwich

"Jasper" an 8 month old our Husky belonging to Capt. Dan Murphy, one of the EGYC launch drivers

Husky eyes

The "Ruggedly Handsome" Goblin

The "Ruggedly Handsome" Goblin     ...      Sat 22nd September 2012

We spent the morning getting tidied up on the boat and then went in to the dock to pump out the heads. The docking is going much better these days, however, the pump out wasn't as well contained as it might have been. The less said the better, but I definitely felt that I needed a shower afterwards. Having cleaned up we took a quick trip to "Dave's" to buy provisions for the afternoon. Just to note that I think "Dave's" in East Greenwich is one of the best, if not the best supermarket that I have been to. Around 2pm some of our work / climbing buddies came over for the afternoon. Bridget arrived first, followed by Stew and his son Evan. We took Cotinga out into the Bay for a sail in fabulous conditions - clear and sunny skies and 10-15 mph winds from the south. We had a blast, although it was just about as busy as I've ever seen it out in Narragansett Bay, which is probably not suprising for such lovely day at the end of the season. Once back on the mooring we drank some fine English dark ale and barbecued sausages, burgers and pineapple. At this point I should say that I started to worry a little about Bridget … she at first called the goblin on the "Hobgoblin" beer bottle label "cute" and then expanded a little to describe him as "ruggedly handsome" ! If she'd already had a few beers I might have understood where she was coming from … but this was half way through the first beer! Agh well …. a fine afternoon was had by all.

"Ruggedly Handsome" ...?!!

Evan takes control

Stew and Bridget

It got chilly outside - so we went indoors to eat

No bundle of Sweet Peas

No bundle of Sweet Peas   …   Thursday 20th September 2012

It' just coming up to 7pm and we are back on the boat having been to shower over at the yacht club. It was pleasure to get cleaned up. We spent the afternoon replacing the hoses on ours septic system. Not a very pleasant job, but it went well and I'm very optimistic this will address the odor problem we had under the forward v-berth. We still have a couple more to do before we complete the job but we ran out of new hose and are awaiting delivery of more. Tonight we plan to row ashore and have dinner at "Fat Bellies" pub in East Greenwich and hopefully watch the Thursday night football game if they have the NFL channel. We seem to be on track to get all our jobs done by middle of next week and ready for departure southwards shortly thereafter. When we get going again hopefully we'll have more exciting things to report and start to get more photos up.

Errands, Friends and Fun

Errands, Friends and Fun    ....   18/19^th Sept 2012

Yesterday was a bit of a different day.  Mike has a tooth that has been bothering him and had managed to get an appointment with our dentist in Weston, MA.  The traffic was astonishing, despite leaving East Greenwich at 6:30 am it seemed we were going to be late for his 9:00 am appointment.  The dentist sent him off to the endodontist (?) who was unconvinced that the problem is the tooth that Mike thinks is hurting (and did nothing).  I guess they don’t think much of Mike as a tooth-sayer.

While we were in our old stomping grounds, we did a few errands.  These included picking up some medications from the pharmacy, acquiring some additional warm clothes (those few weeks in Maine were an eye-opener) and purchasing some second hand books.  I managed to have lunch with one friend at AZ (also saying hello to many others) and dinner with another friend.  Mike arranged to go to the climbing wall with a set of his pals and then had dinner (and one or two ‘hops-teas’) with a few more.  We spent the night at our friend Gunther’s house.  He was kind enough to offer us not only beds for the night but also a fantastic breakfast of cappuccino and croissants.  Almost enough to make you think you were in Paris…

Today we returned to the boat and the glamorous chores.  Mike did some more work on installing the monitor into the holding tank.  I continued to sand down the teak “eyebrow” that goes around the top of the cabin on the outside.  Mike got one coat of varnish on this before we gave up for the day.  Tomorrow we will start on replacing the hoses on the holding tanks and hopefully get more coats of varnish on the "eyebrow".  Ah, the joys of the boating life.…

Our Glamorous Lifestyle

Our Glamorous Lifestyle    …   Monday 17th September 2012

Amongst the list of jobs we have to get done in the next week are a number of enhancements to our septic systems. These include putting in new hoses on the forward holding tank, installing a tank monitor on the aft system and replacing the overboard discharge pump. We have a number of parts on order, but today I got to drill a 1.5 inch hole in a stainless steel holding tank. How exciting is that! Believe it or not I was thrilled to accomplish this. I wasn't at all sure how to approach this job, but a quick call to the manufacturers of the tank gave me good advice. I bought and used a "bi-metallic hole saw" (a drill bit with a circular saw blade around it) and taking it fairly slowly the cutting went just fine. I also drilled holes to screw down the flange of the new monitor, but the stainless steel is so hard that I think I will have to tap these with a proper thread. I keep wondering how all my training and career experience helped prepare me for such glamorous work. I can't wait to get to those hoses! Earlier in the day our projects weren't going quite so well. We had bought some parts to mount our barbecue on the rail, but they didn't fit so well. We were debating whether we could adapt what we had or take it back to the store, when it became a moot point … I dropped the clamp plate overboard. The air was rich with choice phrases…

I can't sign off without mentioning the great time we had round at our friends Steve, Laura and Dan yesterday afternoon. We watched the Patriots and ate lots of food. The Patriots were really lame and lost … but the food and company were spectacular. Strawberry crapes with maple syrup and ice cream are the best!

Mike

Engine Problems and Solutions

Engine Problems and Solutions …   Saturday 15th Sept 2012

It's fun to be back in East Greenwich after our shakedown cruise. After dinner at "Twisted" last night, pizza with olives and anchovies for me (yummy) … a "lovely big salad" for Gloria (not what I call dinner!), we found a cool coffee house / bar where we had cappuccinos and lemoncella tart, which was great. Anyway, the main purpose for coming back here is to address any issues that came up during the previous 5 weeks and prepare to head south at the end of the month. We do have a long list of things to do or to buy, none of which are a big surprise. The thing that Gloria didn't mention in her last blog is that after weeks of trouble free motoring we started having engine problems again. A couple of days ago we noticed that the boat would run all day at 2000 revs but when we tried to increase to 2500 revs the engine would speed up then quickly fall back. This happened a number of times and was clearly evident this morning when we went for a "test drive" after cleaning the boat. So this afternoon we set to changing the fuel filters. This is a pretty straight forward job, but with the very real potential to introduce air in to the lines and cause the engine either to not start or cut out, so we approached the job with some trepidation. Fortunately, the previous owner was very meticulous and we have plenty of spare parts on board that he had bought in. We started with the two fuel separators, located in a utility area under the settee and finished with the fuel filter on the engine. Only one separator is used at any one time and if you have problems you flip a lever to engage the other. However, we had already switched from one to the other back in August when we had the previous problems but had not replaced the used one. The whole process went well, although we did seem to create a lot of diesel coated waste (spill cloths and paper towels) but we managed to contain it all in plastic bags. The great news is that the engine started fine and showed no signs of any air in the lines. Even better is that when we went out for  a test run there were no problems holding higher revs. It looks like we sorted the problem and we feel really good about learning another necessary skill for the live aboard sailor.

A view of our 75 HP Yanmar turbo-diesel ... with it's new fuel filter!

The fuel separators - the first stage in removing any water or debris

Home again, home again

Home again, home again   ...   14^th September, 2012

We had a more relaxed start this morning, leaving Cuttyhunk at 9 o’clock.  After a short while we put up the sails and turned off the engine.  We were sailing tight to the wind but able to use the SSW breeze to head west.  On a single tack we got to Brenton reef off Newport. In a short distance we rounded Beavertail on Conanicut Island.  Then we were going downwind into Narragansett Bay.  Suddenly we seemed to have entered the ‘highway’.  First, we got into a right of way problem with a sailboat also on port tack but coming out of the Bay.  Then we encountered two ocean going tugs who were not giving way to anyone.  Next came a tug towing a barge laden with what appeared to be giant plastic dome.  Then some sailor had the audacity to overtake us.  All of this had to happen just as we were trying to eat our lunch.  It was almost enough to put us off our food.

The wind seemed to strengthen during the afternoon and we maintained good speed toward Warwick Neck.  The gybe to turn into Greenwich bay seemed a bit more exciting than we might have liked.  Lively sailing was to be had on a broad reach toward “C3”.  Shortly thereafter we started the engine and dropped the sails.  Greenwich Cove seemed so full of boats after the places we have been recently.  An uneventful motor to the mooring completed our “shakedown cruise” to Maine.  Showers on land with plenty of hot water were followed by a meal in town.  We would be sitting pretty if it weren’t for the bands playing in the bars along Water Street….

Beavertail Light - marks the entrance to Narragansett Bay

A fine looking ketch outside of Narragansett Bay