September 24, 2015

I finished the holder for the binoculars, air horn and drink, but the week was really all about the dinghy.  Mounting the new BeachMaster beaching wheels turned out to be a long, tough job.  Yes, figuring out the exact positioning was tricky, and it took a bit of time to get backing plates made and find the right-size access hatch.  The real bugaboo, however, was that when I cut the hole for the access hatch, I found that the entire under-seat space was filled with foam.  Digging it all out was a long, miserable, bruising job.  But I did it and eventually got the wheels neatly and securely mounted.  The wheels are a great product, definitely worth the money.  The engineering is brilliant:  easy one-handed deployment and folding up.  Unfortunately, the dinghy is still VERY heavy, so hauling it up the beach is still tough, even with the wheels.  In soft sand or mud, the wheels sink in so much they are useless, even though the tires are good-sized.  Sigh.......

September 17, 2015

The firehose gunnel guard for the dinghy is just about done.  Only the stern corners need attaching, which will be done after the new beaching wheels are mounted.  The wheels arrived this afternoon from New Zealand, so I've got my work cut out for me for next week.  I also made good progress on a holder for the binoculars, air horn and drinks; just need to varnish and glue next week.  In addition to new projects, I topped off the water in the batteries and did a little research on the intermittent failure of the engine hour meter.  Looks like the easiest and cheapest solution is to add a separate new meter.  No progress on the radar diagnostics yet.  Still haven't found someone with the same model to check the display.  No more surfing this week either, but I did do some lap swimming, waxed the board and picked up a couple of little necessaries for going.  Also scoped out Mondo's, the local spot for the inexperienced and inept like me.

September 10, 2015

The heat wave, the three-day weekend and some surfing shopping all conspired to limit my project progress.  There was some consolation in the nice sunsets that came with the heat and humidity and I did manage to complete the hard part of mounting the big firehose around the dinghy gunnels.  It works great, but needs more bolts closer together to improve the look.  I also need to finish the small sections that go around the transom corners, but I can’t do that until I get new dinghy wheels mounted, and that will be a while.

After buying an old surfboard from a dockmate, I spent most of the rest of the day being wisked around by my surfer friend Tom who thought it was just the right board for me, but needed a ding professionally repaired, a new leash and a new cover.  So we went to the secret board repair guru who works out of his garage.  He has a reputation for being a bit of a curmudgeon, so of course we hit it off fine.  He fixed the ding, polished the board and completed the job in less than 24 hours for $20!!!  I didn’t think people like that existed any more!  After leaving the board off for repair, it was a trip to the surf shop and then over to Surfer’s Point to check the state of the surf.  How’s a guy supposed to get anything done?  Oh, amazingly, the board JUST fits inside the Mini!

September 3, 2015

After doing the usual post-cruise clean-up, I started on the list of new projects I brought back with me. The davit lines were getting pretty chafed, so I replaced them.   I also realized I wanted to be able to deploy a second heavy anchor quickly if needed, and that meant connecting the rode to my 50 lb cast stainless Danforth.  The reason I hadn't already done it was because I didn't want the chain wrecking my newly refurbished deck and cabin.  I decided to try putting the chain inside some firehose.  It seems to have worked fine.  Shouldn't be a problem in use, but I won't really know until I try it.I also got some larger hose to use to pad the gunnels around the dinghy so I won't have to worry about banging up Circadian or someone else's boat when I come alongside.  That will have to wait til next week.
Forgot to mention: I went surfing for the first time.  So far I can pearl and wipe out without even standing up.  The good news:  I've almost recovered completely.