Author Archives: Melissa

Replacing Hatch Lenses and Battling the Silicone Monster

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We spent the better part of this Sunday the tragic victims of project-creep; that thing that happens when you start a small project and it morphs into building the Parthenon. Still, life cannot be all rainbows and unicorns and we’d already had a rousing good time on Friday night. One night per week of fun is our given allotment. Bunches of friends and family members gathered at the now-famous Dawson’s Bar and Grill (Motto: knife fights are infrequent)  in the grittier part of Tacoma to celebrate my birthday and dance away the pains of being a year older.

Galapagos anchored in Bedwell Sound

Here’s the kicker to that: I’m actually not a year older. I’m actually the same age I thought I was last year. It dawned on me that all last year, while I was thinking I was 57, I was actually an innocent 56 years old. I missed it! I will never have the chance to be 56 in my mind. But at least the pain of another passing year was muffled by the sound of everyone laughing at me as I realized my actual chronological, if not psychological, age.

So because we have the Protestant work ethic and had partied kind of hard for us, then spent the better part of Saturday hanging out with our kids (our favorite activity besides bear watching), we toodled down to Galapagos to spend the night so we could get an early start on self-abuse today and thereby keep the scales of justice fairly balanced.

This punishment is taking the form of removing the old lenses and their silicone caulking from the hatches. That’s right. We’re replacing the hazy and crazed hatch lenses.  The small hatch over the galley was leaking a little bit when it rained. We do not like leaks so it had to be fixed. Mike removed the hatch cover and brought it home and while he was at work at his day job, I spent a useful hour removing the lens and starting on the silicone caulking.removinghatchlense

I will admit to a small feeling of power as the acrylic began to bend to my will because that lens was bedded really well.   Actually, the stupid hatch wasn’t even leaking around the lens. That thing was in the frame so tight nothing could get past it.  It was leaking where the lower frame is bedded to the deck. But whatever. Seemed a shame to put that cover back looking so bad. There was no turning back now. I was right proud of my work but maybe this is why Mike looked a little chagrined when I showed off my progress. He knew what was in store for us.

I took the old lens down to the local plastics place; Keltech, and asked for a bid to have a replacement cut. When I discovered we might be able to buy a replacement AND food this month, we decided to just replace them all. We don’t need to eat no stinkin’ food. Let the creeping begin.

Down at Galapagos, now that I had the routine down on how to get those things out, the removal of the other two lenses was straight forward. Mike was going to remove the hatch covers from the boat, but this turned out to be much harder than he thought and I, not wanting to get sidetracked and grow a monster with yet another head, just started working on the lens above the v-berth, leaving the cover attached to the boat. This worked just fine so we saved ourselves a lot of trouble leaving them in place and went to work.

The first step in removing the lenses is to break the seal all the way around. It’s pretty interesting how Mike and I approach a project like this from different directions. He has brute strength on his side, but I have to use finesse and cunning. For Mike, breaking the seal involves using a series of screwdrivers that increase in size. He’ll get a small one between the lens and the frame by working it in and shoving it at the same time. Then he’ll apply enough pressure and leverage to get a bigger one into the same area. This allows yet more pressure and leverage. It also requires more muscle than I have and I worry I will knick the frame. My way is gentler and is less likely to cause bruising. Of my body.

Using the brute force screwdriver method of removal. No, he did not use the Kroil on this project. That was for something else.

He’s making that face because he is using his man strength to pull that lens out, popping the rest of the seal as he pulls. Swoon!

I prefer to use a straight razor blade to cut all the way around the seal on the outside. Then I go underneath with another blade and, using a screwdriver as a block, I gently tap the blade until it slips between the lense and the frame. Then, using the same screwdriver and hammer I taptaptap on the blade and scoot it across the lense, cutting the seal as I go. After I get the seal cut top and bottom, then I can go in with the screwdriver from underneath and apply force through leverage. In this way, I am never applying leverage to the edge of the frame. These frames cost about as much as our car.

Tapping with the hammer against the screwdriver, to move the blade through the seal.

Now I can tap the screwdriver between the frame and the lense without fear of knicking the frame.

The frame releases the lens with a gentle tug.

Now it’s time to remove the old silicone. You know, silicone is the gift that just keeps on giving. You remove it, then realize there is more. Then you remove that, and discover you haven’t actually made a dent in the total amount of this stuff that exists on your project. Still, it is satisfying to think about having clear lenses on these hatches; lenses that are not all crazed and cracked. Think of the light we’ll have! And we are dead motivated for those lenses not to leak. So we kept at it.

Since silicone resists the attempts of razor blades and scrapers, preferring to cling tenaciously to whatever substrate it’s on, we quickly determined we needed the help of some kind of solvent. We gathered all of the chemicals we have on board Galapagos to see what would work best. You can find all kinds of information on the interweb but we like to entertain ourselves this way. Removing old caulk is boring. So we gave each of these caustic unguents a test.

We had all this on hand.

The silicone laughed at the alcohol, acetone, and lacquer thinner. The thinner worked a bit, but not until we had the thicker stuff off. The LiftOff is a gel that you can let sit for awhile to do its work. It works fairly well, but the Release by BoatLife really got our attention. This was on the boat when we bought her and there was only a bit left in the bottle. Too bad because this stuff really did the trick. I made a pass with the Release by BoatLife on my hatch cover and got most of the silicone off. Then made another pass with the LiftOff when I ran out of Release. We were going to make a trip to West Marine to see if they had some of the Release stuff, but I didn’t want to give up my parking place at the marina.

Here’s what it looks like when you use the LiftOff stuff. The silicone kind of shreds with the razor blade rather than the usual thing where the blade just bounces off of the stuff.

We have all the big stuff off and the frames are smooth to the touch. Too smooth. Suspiciously smooth. It may be invisible to the eye, but we know there is still silicone on those frames.  We’ll probably buy more of the BoatLife Release product but it’s about 40$ for the pint sized spray. That’s right, it has the word ‘Boat’ in the name. Anyone have a tried and true cheaper product to recommend? Maybe something you can buy at the hardware store? Because we want as much of this stuff off as possible, even though we will stick to a silicone based caulk when we rebed. We kind of have to. These frames are probably ruined for any other kind of caulking.

Then there is this:

We have 4 of these ports on the boat and they have seen better days. The one in the quarter berth leaks so we’re replacing that one and the one in Mike’s shop. Anyone know what this black stuff that looks to me like butyl rubber might be? It’s crumbling off, it’s so old. The acrylic is beveled and sits against a thick rubber liner against the hull. Then there are many screws into the rubber liner and wood, then the seam is covered with this stuff. I have some ideas about using the black Lifecaulk when we replace these, but wondered if anyone may know if this might be some kind of tape?

I believe we see the problem here.  Some of these screws were way over tight and cracked the acrylic. There were several cracks in this one.  The screw holes were countersunk and the screw heads fit into them exactly. We can’t understand why they had to be so tight.

Like this.

Here you can see the thick rubber liner behind the lens. It is in good shape and we are leaving this in place. 

Tomorrow we’ll go order the new pieces and cross our fingers that it won’t take them too long to fill the order. Stay tuned.

Tour of O’Reillys

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So now that we’re back and you know the trip was great, I know what you are thinking. You are thinking “What? No boat work in the exotic wilds of British Columbia? No problems with Galapagos? Surely there were moments filled with tension, drama, and huge outlays of cash?”.   Well, maybe not, but we did get to do a grand tour of O’Reilly Auto Parts because : refrigeration.  Our little Cool Blue unit isn’t tweaked juuusssttt right yet. So here’s how that went down.

Mike, practicing being a hunter/gatherer just in case.

In Mike’s post on Reefer Madness he explains our decision-making process when it came to refurbishing the fridge box we already had on Galapagos. By the time we left the dock in July, the fridge was icy cold, the freezer temp was in the low teens, and we were ready to provision for the trip. You know, it is common wisdom that a full fridge is more efficient than an empty one so I filled both sides up to the brim with pre-chilled foods.  We had fresh food, produce,  milk products, and frozen meat to last us at least 3 weeks. We left the dock and made way to Liberty Bay to hopefully meet up with some cruising club folks for the fireworks display on July 3 (they do it a day early).

Turn out this is just too many boats for us. It was crazy crowded.

By the next day it was clear that the fridge was not cutting the old proverbial  mustard. My note in my cruising journal says “Fridge is struggling to keep up with keeping food cold and Mike is struggling to figure out why.”  The freezer was measuring at 19F but that must have been only in the very coldest spot as the food was not frozen, only cold, except in the very bottom. The fridge was measuring at 47F; not cold enough to keep bacteria from growing. With three weeks of food in there, we had to do something in order to avoid spoilage because Mike is still learning how to fish up here.  The only thing we could figure is that the system was somehow losing freon, although we didn’t know how this could be true. Still, it was a hypothesis to be tested.

One of the reasons we chose the Cool Blue system is that allegedly it is easy to work on in remote locations with easily obtainable supplies you can buy at any auto parts store. Since we were still in a town, I fired up the Safari Browser on the smart phone and located the closest O’Reilly, betting that some poor sod would be keeping the consumer fires burning even on a national holiday that celebrates our freedom.  We had definitely not planned on spending July 4 at Liberty Bay with literally hundreds of other boats, but the fridge duty called. Freedom isn’t free, you know.

This seems like the perfect place for the Cool Blue unit. It’s easy to access here.

We rowed to shore, crept surreptitiously up someone’s private stairs to the road from the beach, and hiked the 2 miles to the O’Reilly Auto Parts. It was open. And the freon was on sale. Oh happy day! We bought the refill kit, the exact stuff Cool Blue has in our instructions. Sigh of relief. On the way back we stopped at Starbucks for a celebratory coffee and mini-scone and a delightful conversation with a 5 year old girl and her baby brother. Ah, the early childhood days. How precious and fleeting they are. We hiked back to the boat.

Filled with the trust of the innocent, or at least denial, Mike prepared the Cool Blue for infusion with the life-giving fluid. The drama begins here. Because it’s just NEVER that simple, is it? Mike carefully attached the little hose to the can of freon, then went to attach the business end to the nozzle on the Cool Blue.  The attachment on the nozzle was the wrong size. It didn’t fit.

See that blue thingy? The opening on the other side is too big.

The little kit we bought, which matched the photo on the instruction sheet exactly, had the wrong sized valve for our lovely little Cool Blue. For some reason known only to men in outdated suits eating donuts in some board room somewhere, the manufacturers changed the size of the valve. I hate them a little bit for doing that. Mike’s face crumpled. He valiantly tried over and over to get freon into that system. But there was no way to tell for certain if anything was actually doing its job.  Was the freon, in fact, entering the tiny tube? Or were we breathing it into our lungs? Only time would tell, so we pulled anchor and hightailed it out of there while the current was in our favor to get under the Agate Passage bridge.

After observing the temperature for a couple of hours it was clear that we had failed. The fridge temperature remained the same.  Our destination became Port Townsend, one of the places we usually stop in preparation for crossing the Strait of Juan de Fuca. There would be an O’Reilly Auto Parts store there.

Trying to get the fitting to work by holding it on just a certain way; which is useless.

This part of the passage, from south to north, is almost always an upwind passage and over the years we should have learned not to try to sail on this leg. But you know, every time we sail to Port Townsend, we are still newly into whatever trip we are taking and we are like children at a birthday party who cannot wait to open their presents. We want to put the sails up and turn that dratted engine off. (Sorry, Hiram. ) We put them up. We tack. We make no progress. We sigh. Mike plays ‘Let’s Make a Deal’ with the wind, but what is behind door number two is more frustration as he tries to eeek out nautical miles against both wind, and by this time, current. Finally, Hiram is fired up to do his job and we motor the rhumbline to Port Townsend and drop the hook close to the public dock among our own kind. We love Port Townsend as a place to visit. Too bad it seems like we’re always either on a mission, or just passing through.

Why Port Townsend is so charming.

Someday maybe I will see the inside of this place.

After an excellent sleep and morning coffee in the cockpit we parked the dink at the public dock and walked the mile or so to see our friend, O’Reilly. There we ‘splained to the nice lady behind the counter what we were looking for and were met with the kind of blank stare we have come to both expect and fear. Mike and I exchanged a look; the look that says ‘We’re screwed.’ .  As one we went to observe the offerings on display in the air conditioning section. Then we went to some other section and hung around some more, coming to terms with the inevitable. I kind of felt bad for the O’Reilly lady. She seemed genuinely  that sorry she couldn’t help us. As we silently lumped back to the counter, she noticed a retrofit kit hanging on the vertical display by the coolant. This kit was specifically designed to  make the manufacturers more money  allow you to bridge from the old size valve to the new. Saved! We were in business.

The adapter kit.

The Hawaiian Chieftain was in dry dock. This is why we love this boat yard so much.

As is our custom, we celebrated the successful outcome of our emotional roller coaster with food. After a walk through our favorite Port Townsend boatyard, we had a big breakfast at the always-delightful and delicious Blue Moose Cafe. Cash or check only, and bring your appetite. This is a popular place and the food gods smiled on us as we were granted the last possible place to sit outside on a strangely hot day. By the time we were seated, there was a line of people waiting for seats.

Back at Galapagos, all systems were ‘go’.  The elixir of life was eased into the copper vein of the Cool Blue system. Our new fitting worked perfectly and Mike kept the little gauge in the green zone as he filled the system. It was all guesswork, though, because we really didn’t know how much freon was still left in system. One is supposed to be able to look into a tiny viewing window and see bubbles of some kind forming to assess the freon-flow situation, but frankly this is a viewing window for ants. We could never see a thing.

The viewing window for ants.

The only way to be sure would be to drain the entire system and then add exactly two cans of the freon.  Simply put, we didn’t want to go that route. We had two extra cans if Plan A didn’t work. Draining the system would require that we take everything out of the fridge, let the fridge get to room temperature, which was about 90F,  and then start over.

Putting the new size valve on the old one.

The transfusion process. We have no idea what that green zone meant, if anything regarding this system. We just figured green=good. Red=bad, just like in nature.

By this time it was 2:00 in the afternoon and we were anxious to get going, which was kind of dumb because we totally would have enjoyed more time in Port Townsend. Another day, perhaps. We were so ready to go that we forgot to check the current/tide charts. Whoopsie! Rounding Pt. Wilson we quickly realized our mistake as we lost speed against the current. Whatever. In for a penny, as the saying goes. We hoisted the sails and tried with minimum success to tack across the current. About this time Alex and Christina Marie Kimball on their beautiful Nonsuch 30 S/V Gypsy Wind, spotted us and hailed us on the radio to say hello. They, of course, were skidding into Port Townsend with the current behind them. It’s kind of hard to explain over the radio why people who should know better are trying to sail against the current around Pt. Wilson. So we didn’t even try. We got about 10 minutes of decent sailing in, then fired up Hiram as usual. And off we went toward Dungeness Spit.

Walking by the marina, we spotted this.

The refrigerator performed very well the rest of the time we were out. The missing freon continues to be a mystery. We are still considering tweaking the system a little bit as Mike has split the box into part freezer, part fridge and we are not sure this is really working as well as theory would suggest.  Still, we had cold food and most of the food in the freezer stayed frozen except for the stuff at the very top. And we did notice that the less food we had in there, the better the unit worked. Hmmmm. That is not what we are looking for. So Mike is going to contact the Cool Blue folks, who do offer really good customer service, and have another chat.

The only true failure was our idea of using that bottom compartment as a crisper. It just doesn’t stay cool enough. If we had a small hole in the bottom of the cold box, cool air would filter down and keep that area cooler. But that’s a decision we’ll make after other tweaks are done.

Update on August 8: Mike got a lengthy email from Rich from Cool Blue (really, this guy is uber-responsive to any and all questions and very helpful).  Turns out, the reason the valve on the Cool Blue is not the right one is because the laws regarding refrigeration are variable based on the state you live in. You know, that figures. He agreed with reader Steve Yoder that if the fridge was too packed it wouldn’t cool efficiently. He also sent more detailed information about what to look for in that little viewing chamber if we every go ahead and empty the system and refill it with exactly two cans of freon. Mike and I want to be sure that people know that we do like this unit and that the issues are issues with us, not with the Cool Blue unit. We’ve retrofit a large capacity box and then attached this unit to it. Probably it would have been easier in some ways to just rip out the old and put a prefab unit in place, but that would have required a level of galley destroying we were not ready to undertake. He’ll do another Reefer Madness post as we get the final tweaks done.

This was a failure. It just wasn’t cool enough down there. Maybe we’ll tweak that, maybe not.  All this stuff ended up in the fridge.

 

D’arcy Island, Haunted Jewel of the Southern Gulf Islands

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When it was time to leave Clayoquot Sound and turn towards home, Mike and I were both a bit sad that the trip was coming to an end. We had found a good groove aboard Galapagos. Life was simple on the boat.  We were not quite ready to get back into the fast life of suburbia and jobs. So we decided to do an overnight passage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and hightail it to the Gulf Islands of the Salish Sea to spend a couple of days soaking in the vibe of that area before the long trek home. I’m so glad we did.

With Vancouver Island in the background.

We chose to anchor at D’arcy Island, well poised to cross the strait back to Washington. We love D’arcy Island and always wonder why it is never crowded like, say, Portland Island (which we also love). Perhaps it has something to do with one of the popular cruising guides saying there are not “good anchorages” there. The implication is that you can do a brief stopover in good weather, but don’t expect to stay long.  We beg to differ, at least in the summer when we’re likely to be traveling.  We have anchored at D’arcy Island every year for many years now and we never grow tired of it. I suppose if your definition of “good anchorage” is that it is surrounded by land on all but one side, you will not like anchoring there. But we anchor between D’arcy Island and Sidney Island in about 20 feet of water, in good holding, and we’ve always been happy. If the wind is out of the northeast, it may get a little choppy but it would have to be a good blow for there to be a problem. You can anchor well away from the shore and still be in less than 30 feet of water. We’re happy with that.

So what is our definition of a ‘good anchorage’? We like it to not be crowded with other boats. We like an area to go ashore and explore. We like to watch wildlife and we love beautiful scenery. I don’t think we are different from most other cruisers in that respect. This island has all that and interesting history as well. Maybe it is this history that keeps other boaters away. Fine by me.

Caretaker’s cottage ruin.

In 1891 the city of Victoria established D’arcy Island as where they would send their Chinese lepers to live in isolation from the rest of the world. The fact that the lepers happened to be Chinese may have made that decision easier for the general public to tolerate, as is evidenced by the fact that there was another facilty for ‘white’ lepers in another part of Canada. In that facility there was medical care and the patients were cared for by nuns. Only Chinese lepers were sent to D’arcy Island. The people forced to leave family and community lived without outside contact except for a supply ship that came every three months. The conditions are described as deplorable until 1906, when the government passed the Leprosy Act. This heralded the beginning of this being a medical treatment facility, which must have been some kind of improvement. (Here’s another interesting article about the island’s history.)

With this kind of tragic history, is it any wonder that some people have experienced this island to be haunted? People have reported being overwhelmed with feelings of isolation, fear, and loneliness. So naturally I wanted to see if I could feel those things; if I could somehow be in contact with the spirits of the island’s lepers. I’m just crazy that way. I might be afraid of docking the boat, but I’m not afraid of ghosts pretty much. Having been to D’arcy Island many times, I had never felt those things and I’m known to be ‘sensitive’ to the feelings of places. I needed to go for a walk by myself to see if I could commune with these tortured souls. I set out in the dinghy and rowed to shore.

Looking at San Juan Island. See the otter?

D’arcy Island has a trail that allegedly goes all the way around the island, but it is only half-heartedly marked with plastic tape attached to small trees and branches. Considering there are many deer trails as well, be aware that you are likely to get off the trail easily. If you are not okay with making your own way through the woods and dense patches of tall salal, don’t bother to walk too far. I took off at a brisk pace, enjoying the stretch of a nice stride for once. Leaves rustled, birds called to each other. I felt peaceful and good.

Coming around the corner at the southwest edge I startled three large otters hunting in the swells. We observed each other momentarily as we both got our bearings and recovered from the little surprise. I watched them for awhile then continued on, feeling lucky to have seen them so close up. Otters are shy of people and do not like to have their photo taken. I continued on around the south edge, climbing on the lovely warm rocks, feeling the familiar crunch of dried moss and lichens under my feet, wondering what it would be like to live in such a rich place, looking out at the strait hoping for whales, as always.

I was considering hiking around the entire island because I had not yet felt the loneliness and isolation that would herald the presence of the spirits of the dead lepers. I was about at the halfway point, and knew that the trail on the other side of the island was dense and not very much fun. I was at the point where I had to make the decision: turn back now or keep going. I needed a sign.

Coming to the top of an outcropping of rock, I looked down into the next bay and saw a small motor boat tied up to the shore. There was one man stumbling along the beach there with a can in his hand. He looked like he may be drunk as he wasn’t exactly walking a straight line.  I would rather tangle with ghosts any day than come across a drunk man on a beach when I’m by myself. My finely tuned sense of female survival alerted me that this was a good enough sign to turn back. Suddenly, I felt very alone. Somehow the existence of this other person, far away on a beach down below, put my own presence here on these rocks in perspective.

Evidence of nice people who’ve walked the trail before.

I climbed back down the rocks and made good distance; not exactly hurrying, but not exactly taking my time, either, feeling the vulnerability of being alone in an isolated place with no way to communicate with Mike. (My cell phone was left safely on the boat, so as to not interfere with my experience.) Was this my own loneliness I was feeling? Or something else entirely? I needed to concentrate.

I stopped to listen more closely, closing my eyes, tuning in, as it were, to what was present in that moment.  And then I knew. Yes, the ghosts were there. I could hear/feel them. But I was not overcome with the feelings of abandonment and fear that other people have reported to feel.  I was surprised to find that the spirits were comforting me. Attracted to me by my own feelings of isolation and awareness of being very alone, their messages were clear: “We are here. We are with you in this place. This place is good. You are not alone. You are safe. We will stay with you.”

I stood gobsmacked, struck dumb and grateful in one part of my being; the familiar presence of my own internal skeptic and critic standing with hands on hips in the other part of my being. Was this real? Was I making this up?  Feelings of peace and contentment again washed through me, dispelling all fear, extinguishing all worries. My doubts vanished. A two point buck sprang in front of me and disappeared into the brush.  As I walked the trail I opened my heart to the spirits of these people and felt the peace they had come to in their version of the afterlife. There are many reasons why spirits of the dead may choose to hang close to a physical place. Not all of them are dark and scary. 

The presence of the lepers of D’arcy Island, 5 of them, by the way,  stayed with me until I reached a campsite where a couple had been camping for a few days. Suddenly, I felt them go. I’m not sure why. Maybe they thought I didn’t need them anymore. Maybe the presence of other human beings and a dog interfered with my ‘reception’ of them. But I would have welcomed their company for awhile longer. I will always love returning to peaceful, beautiful, and yes, haunted, D’arcy Island. I know there are helpful spirits waiting to walk the trail with me. We’ll say hello like old friends.

Mt. Baker from our anchorage on D’arcy Island.