01/31/2008, Shoreline Marina, Long Beach, CA
Don't let this happen to you. Notice that there is no zinc on the end of our prop and the zinc on the strut (top left) has withered away to about the size of a quarter. The zinc on the shaft (not in the photo) was in sad shape as well. Bad diver!!!!!
We finally got the boat back last Thursday, 1/24. We literally had to jump on the boat and go in order to make it under the Commodore Heim Bridge before it closed for the afternoon rush hour. The alternative would have been to go the long way home which is about 3 to 4 times as far. Since it was cold (by California standards) and blowing a steady 23 knots with gusts over 30, we weren't really interested in spending 4 to 5 hours motoring around the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
So as is typical of a trip to the boat yard, our budget was blown. We had budgeted $5,000 thinking that was at least $1,000 more than the bill was going to be, considering the work we planned to have done. Of course, that was before we had to have the stainless steel strut repaired and a new drive shaft made. Add to that a couple of other small projects I had the yard do just because we were there and it end up costing us a little over $7,000... Ouch! Oh well, it could have been worse. We could have broken the shaft (which was nearly corroded in half inside the cutlass bearing) and lost our prop which would have cost us another $2500 to $3000 to replace. So I think I'm happy. Oh wait, if the diver had been doing the job we paid him to do, we wouldn't have had the problem in the first place... so I guess I'm not happy after all. We are both glad that its over and we are ready to move on with our preparations.
The trip home was uneventful save a little spray here and there and some uncomfortable (mostly for the dogs) rolling from the swell as we transited in front of the Long Beach harbor entrance. The wind was blowing out of the south and directly into the entrance which is normally quite calm.
We looked like we knew what we were doing as we pulled right into the slip like it was nothing in a 25 knot cross wind. Some days everything goes your way.
Our docking routine is that I drive, Mel preps the dock lines (on the port side if we are pulling in as the up wind dock finger is on that side) and as we come into the slip, she steps off via our little Edson step suspended from the shrouds and secures the spring and bow lines. I stop the boat and use the stern line to lasso the cleat on the end of the finger and stand by until Mel comes to secure it. We find this process works best as it keeps Mel from literally having to run back to get the stern line or me having to jump off the boat with it. Our boat has a pretty high freeboard so making the leap, especially if there's a cross wind pushing us off the dock is a risk not worth taking. It's much easier to throw the line around the cleat, pull us up close and let Mel take her time with the other lines.
We have been getting back into our routine of getting projects done on the boat and trying to liquidate the remaining things that we have that we don't need so we can clear out our storage unit. It's a regular ebay festival around here lately.
We spent some time yesterday planning our lives between now and our launch date of 9/25. I'm suddenly in a panic over all of the things that have to be done, the trip home to visit our families before we leave, and all of the stick time we need to log prior to that date. Yikes!
I'll try to post status reports at least a couple of times per week. Right now, I've got to get to work!!!
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01/21/2008, The boat is still on the hard...
Melinda and I are both from Northern Indiana. I'm from Michigan City / South Bend and Mel is from Elkhart.
I first caught the sailing bug by going out on a day sail in Key West, FL around 1989. Later, I learned to sail by racing with my good friend George Bock on Lake Michigan on his San Juan 30. Mel did her first sailing on dinghies, before joining the crew on George's boat.
We got our first boat together, a Catalina 22 that we named Gertrude, and sailed her on Lake Michigan for a couple of seasons before relocating to sunny Southern California, home of year-round sailing.
Our next boat was a John Alden designed Fuji 35, that we named Maloos (a very loose translation of the Farsi word being Sea Kindly) She was a great sailing boat and would have been great for cruising had we been able to leave right away. Alas, having to continue working and living on the boat while we built up our cruising kitty, she was just too small. I know this is a violation of Lin & Larry's first rule of boat size - don't buy for living aboard at the dock while working a day job - but it was either that or get an apartment. The apartment, we both agreed, was out of the question. So just when the re-fit was complete on Maloos, we decided we needed something a little roomier...
Needless to say, that's how we came to find our current and last boat, Ibiza. We purchased her in 2002 and we have spent the last 5 years rehabilitating her in preparation for the grand voyage.
We can never get another boat because we are both totally burned out on the re-fit thing. It was exciting to take little neglected Gertrude and fix her up and so too Maloos as she was a real full-keel cruiser with real systems and provided lots of learning opportunities. By the time we got to Ibiza, all of that stuff had lost much of its charm. So, when we are done with Ibiza we are done... no more new (to us) boats. And yes, I know that one is never done with boat projects. We are just done with starting on new boats. We will keep this one and treat here with TLC until we can't any more. Hopefully that will be a long time.
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01/21/2008, Us - San Pedro, CA Boat - Wilmington, CA
chron·i·cle (krn-kl)
n.
1. An extended account in prose or verse of historical events, sometimes including legendary material, presented in chronological order and without authorial interpretation or comment.
Greetings and welcome to our blog! We hope that you will find the entries to come both informative and entertaining.
The first thing you must know is that this blog has no spell check function so I'm sure that a typo or even a gross spelling error is going to sneak through every now and then.
So let's get to it! Mel and I are at long last in the final stages of our preparation to cast off the dock lines and live while we still can. The start up of our blog is another step toward that end as we establish a means for our friends and family to keep up with our travels and adventures.
We hope to fill these pages with an extended account in prose or verse of historical events, sometimes including legendary material, presented in chronological order. We cannot, however, promise that it will be without authorial interpretation or comment.
The boat is currently on the hard, getting a fresh coat of bottom paint and some other below-the-water-line maintenance and we are roughing it at the Double Tree Hotel in San Pedro, CA.
You might think that we would be loving the leisurely life of maid service and a king size bed but we are both very anxious to get back on the boat. We even drove by the yard today to have a look at her through the fence because we miss her. I think that's a sign that we have made the correct life choice...
So here we go, have fun browsing the photos and let us know if you have questions, comments, complaints or threats.
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