December 31, 2015

It's been another eventful week.  In addition to the normal holiday festivities, which I celebrated with Carol in Los Angeles, a wild fire broke out in the hills just north of town.  With the strong winds and dry brush, I was worried I might have to rush back to Ventura.  Fortunately they were able to control and contain the fire.  The blustery weather also brought big skies, one of my favorite things about winter in Ventura!  In addition to working on the usual projects once I got back, I rewired a couple of old nautical style lamps that I was given as presents.  I felt good that even with the holiday distractions and a short week, I managed to get a few things done.  Looking forward to celebrating tonight.  Happy New Year everyone!

 

December 24, 2015

An eventful week that included a full gale in the harbor (Harbor Patrol measured one gust at 57 mph!), plenty of holiday partying and cheer, some shit shifting, and even a bit of boat work.  I finished the varnishing of the handrails in the v-berth and they look (and feel) great.  The new veneer around the door is about done, but I will probably have to do some hand rubbing to get the sheen right.  I also did a bit of tuning up the shore power system that included sanding the contacts for the shore power cord and protecting them with waterproof dielectric grease.  I also changed the plug in the aft cabin to a GFI outlet.  That little project turned out to be a classic example of my old friend Tom’s theorem of completion time for a boat project:  Estimate the time needed, double the number and change to the next higher unit of time.  In this case, the ½ hour project took 1 full day.  The devil is indeed in the details.  The GFI outlet is deeper than a standard, so the existing junction box was now too shallow.  The GFI outlet is designed for house wiring, so had to modified for use with marine ring connectors, etc, etc.  Good thing there was a lot of holiday cheer around to compensate!  Happy holidays all!

December 17, 2015

A mixed week.  Continued to work on finishing the handrails and new veneer in the v-berth and it’s almost done now.  On the radar issue, given that repairing the old antenna array was fully half the cost of a whole new system, I decided to bite the bullet and get a new one.  That way I get a spare display, spare magnetron (which has a limited life), spare cable and a new warranty.  The new (and old) systems arrived this week, but I wasn’t able to install the new antenna yet.  So, I needed a place to store the two big boxes.  I was planning to get a larger storage unit anyway, so the arrival of the radar meant this was the week for shit-shifting.  And, if you haven’t noticed, the holidays are coming up fast, so some time was spent getting and wrapping gifts.  The extreme weather was the big event of the week though.  I experienced the strongest wind gusts in the slip ever, with Circadian heeling over significantly in a gust that was at least 40 mph.  The high surf and king tides combined to cause damage to the pier and beaches, waves came over the breakwater, and the normally placid “kiddy beach” where the outriggers are launched had three-foot surf.  My club’s boats were safe,  but we helped another club move their boats further up the beach as they came close to being washed out to sea!  If this is a preview of the coming el nino weather, it could be trouble!

 

Photo: Ventura County Star