Category Archives: Sailboats

Weekend Harbor Hopping

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This past weekend found Melissa in Kirkland helping her mother as she recovers from knee surgery. Of course that meant that I, a man unencumbered by wifely restraints, would be free to sit around the house in my underpants, drinking beer. It is a long, honorable tradition that I have solemnly sworn to uphold.

But then I thought, “Hey! I could take Galapagos out for the weekend and sit around in my underpants in new, exotic locations!”

And so it was that on Friday I hurried down to the marina after work, slipped the lines and had a lovely sail to Quartermaster Harbor, located between Vashon and Maury Islands.

quartermaster

Quartermaster Harbor is a nicely protected anchorage with a surrounded by homes on Vashon and Maury Island. There is a large, flat area of in the center with fifteen foot anchoring depths. A perfect location for quiet night.

I enjoy taking the boat out by myself for daysails but I have never spent the weekend at anchor alone on Galapagos.  I was excited to try out our freshly galvanized chain and reinstalled windlass. Setting the anchor by myself really forces you to think through all the steps that Melissa and I would usually do together. Fortunately I had the anchorage pretty much to myself and the wind was light.

After a quiet evening and a leisurely breakfast, I raised anchor and motored over to Gig Harbor.  We used to take Moonrise, our Cal 34 over to Gig Harbor fairly often but I had never taken our much bigger Galapagos through the narrow entrance.  Of course I knew that much larger boats go to Gig Harbor every day but I do admit to being a little nervous.  It can be a busy harbor and it was a beautiful day so I expected lots of traffic.

As usual, my anxiety was for naught.  Once inside the harbor I  found a spot amongst the mooring balls and more or less permanently anchored boats and dropped the hook.

Not too often you see a gondolier rowing through your mooring field.

Not too often you see a gondolier rowing through your mooring field.

I rowed over to the Tides tavern for lunch and walked up to West Marine to visit with an old slip mate. In short, I enjoyed a day doing pretty much nothing at all.

Two Border Collies on a paddle board. Just a normal day in the Pacific Northwest.

Two Border Collies on a paddle board. Just a normal day in the Pacific Northwest.

Sunday morning I raised anchor and headed back to Tacoma.  One little chore that I wanted to take care of was to top off our fuel tanks before the cool weather sets in.  Empty fuel tanks allow excess moisture to collect in the diesel which promotes microbial growth and can clog fuel filters.  Also, diesel is really cheap right now so once at the fuel dock at Foss Harbor Marina I put in 110 gallons. That should keep Galapagos ready for a fast getaway.

Even though Fall is well and truly upon us, I think Melissa and I will be enjoying a few more weekend getaways to nearby harbors.  We love our marina but it can be so noisy. A half dozen railroad tracks run nearby and we are very near the very industrial Tacoma tideflats.  Why hang out there when we can be rocking at anchor in a quiet harbor?

Introducing “Penguin”, Our Newest Addition to the Fleet

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While we were here hemming and hawing about which dinghy we should get, wanting a Portland Pudgy, but not wanting to spend the money on a new one, and wasting time going to see inflatables and Mintos that got sold out from under us, the Universe was busy organizing a big surprise. Low and behold, on July 4, someone named Aaron in Port Townsend listed a white Portland Pudgy on Craigslist for exactly the amount of money I was willing to spend on a used one: way less than 1/2 the price of a new one.  I saw the ad within 2 hours of its listing, got so excited I emailed the guy twice just to be sure he got my message, and the next day I drove up to Port Townsend and put her in the back of my beater truck. I’ve never been so successful at Craigslist scrounging.

She fits in the back of our beater truck like she was made to go home with us!

She fits in the back of our beater truck like she was made to go home with us!

Honestly, we are pretty stoked that we’ve scored a Pudgy without paying retail price for it.  I hear through the grapevine at the marina that ‘all the cool kids have Pudgies’.  I’ve always wanted to be a ‘cool kid’. Who knew that at the ripening age of mid-50’s I might finally belong to a club that I might even want to belong to? Or that would accept me as a member.  Between being gifted charts for the west coast and finding this deal on the Pudgy, it’s been quite a week. I begin to think we might just be pulling this plan off.

So now that we have ‘Penguin’, some decisions that have been hanging like chads on a ballot can be finalized. We will get the life raft kit for her. The boat came with pieces to make our own sail rig. We’ll give that a go. We’d like to have the Pudgy sail kit, but it’s not really a requirement and we should be able to rig something decent from the pieces that came with the boat. We have wanted a sailing dinghy for a long time. This will be fun!

Penguin, not in her natural habitat.

You’ll notice on our new ‘gear to buy‘ list that I’ve left the RIB and engine on that list. That’s because we will likely go ahead and have a RIB on board, but now we aren’t in any hurry to get it. We understand that there are times when really the RIB is the best choice of tenders,  so we haven’t given up on that. To be clear, Universe, that’s a Hypalon RIB with a folding transom,  about 10’ long. If we can get the Achilles HB300FX that stows in its own bag, that would be great!

We’re looking forward to getting this pudgy little Penguin down to the docks to give her a spin and say howdy to the other Pudgies at the marina.

Cheap Boat Tricks (but will they last?)

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During our Christmas break  I had a chance to undertake a few small projects around the boat.  One such project was to try out these nifty LED Strip lights.

Definitely not waterproof

Definitely not waterproof

Two places in particular called out for more lighting; the Nav station and the work shop.  While both locations have nice Alpenglow fluorescent fixtures, sometimes more light is needed for the fine detail on charts or when working with small parts in the shop.

At seven dollars for 300 LEDs on three meters of adhesive film, these lights are incredibly inexpensive. They are not particularly rugged and they certainly are not waterproof but did I mention they were only seven dollars?  For relatively protected interior lighting, I can hardly imagine a more cost effective solution.Cut lines every three LEDs provides great flexibility in installation

Cut lines every three LEDs provides great flexibility in installation

The lights come in a number of colors, red, blue, and both warm and cool white.  I ordered the warm white as it is closest to the incandescent lighting we are used to.  The kit comes with a few connectors for joining multiple strips and there are short leads soldered to both ends to make hookup very easy.  I had hoped that I could solder my own leads to the pads but I think I will need smaller wire and some sacrificial strips to practice with.  As you can see in the photo above, there are marks for cutting the strip every three inches or so. this makes creating the five foot lengths I used in the Nav station and shop easy.

NAV_Dark

Our NAV station without the lights

NAV_Light

And with light. I would have preferred to place the lights just behind the teak trim piece to hide the lights a bit better but the adhesive backing would not stick to the rubber liner. The adhesive sticks well to the teak trim though.

The before and after photos are a little misleading since the camera flash is filling in the unlit areas rather well. Shop_Ahead_Dark

The shop without the LED lighting

Shop Ahead Light

And with the lighting. The difference is less dramatic because of the camera flash.

The light strips come with a 3M adhesive backing which did not want to stick to our rubbery textured headliner.  It did stick well to the teak trim piece however and so that is where it went.  That means the lights are more exposed to damage and I don’t care for the look as much.  I would prefer that they be a bit more hidden, especially at the nav station.  Again some experimentation may be in order to see if I can attach them to the headliner securely.

for seven dollars and a few hours of time, this appears to be the perfect cheap boat trick.  Time will tell if they hold up to the abuse of being on a boat.  Corrosion may slowly do them in but I bet it will be a few years before that happens. In the shop, I am more concerned about physical damage  from my manly exertions with hammers, saws and vices.