April 12, 2010

I was up at 4:30 am Saturday to make a pilgrimmage to Alameda to do some bargain-hunting at the Encinal Yacht Club's annual marine swapmeet. By 7 am I had made my only scores: two big orange round buoy/fenders and one conventional fender the same as the other three on Circadian, but new.I thought I might have been really lucky and found some stainless chimney pipe for the Dickinson stove I bought on ebay, but it was the wrong size. I did get a good book for Carol, "Tips From Women Onboard." Lots of good ideas and infomation, much of which wouldn't occur to men. By 8:15 I was sure that I had seen it all, and headed over to Emeryville where there was to be another swap meet at 9 am. It turned out no one showed up, so I had a nice breakfast at the Can't Fail Cafe and hit the road.

I arrived in Napa by 11, and hoped to get the windlass installed and running. Alas, it was not to be. It turned out I had failed to allow for the thickness of the windlass's rubber gasket and mounting plate when determining the length of bolts I needed. Damn! The bolts were half an inch shy! I'll now have to go online again and order what I hope will be the right size. Measure twice, buy once! Since I couldn't complete the mounting of the windlass, I finished the windlass wiring (except the final connections to the windlass motor and the battery) and secured and tidied up the rest of the wiring in the engine room.


Next, I tackled the big aft lazarette. I straightened out all the lines that had been hastily tossed there in South Carolina, dug out the shore power cord and water hoses, and generally cleaned up. I used an old and leaky Guzzler bilge pump to pump out two inches of water in the bottom and salvaged a thick piece of hardwood that had been soaking in water and diesel fuel for who knows how long. I offloaded one of the two totally inadequate 33lb Bruce anchors on Circadian so I could bring it home and add it to my "swap meet" sales inventory. I like to sleep, so when it comes to anchors I like the biggest I can handle and the best I can find. I bought a new Rocna 55 pounder for Circadian, which should be good for anything less than a hurricane...and maybe even that! The picture tells it all.... I just hope it fits on the bow roller! By 4 pm I was done in more ways than one and headed home.

During the week I had drilled holes in the bubbles in the heavy roving on top of the new engine compartment hatch cover and successfully filled the gaps by injecting resin. So I spent Sunday adding two more layers of fiberglass cloth and resin and then applying a tan textured final coat of surfacing resin. While I waited for the various layers to cure, I did laundry, polished brass oil lamps, cleaned up the recently arrived old Dickinson cabin heater, and drank excessive quantities of Cabernet.