Steve/skies were not cloudy
09/19/2010, Two Harbors, Catalina

Where the buffalo (bison) roam. This is taken at Two Harbors on our short walk to the other side of the island. Two Harbors is a great little place of which I will be spending more time in this winter, it has everything a cruiser could want...a grocery store, great showers, and of course a bar....and the skies are not cloudy all day (after the marine layer burns off that is).

Comments [0]

Steve
09/18/2010, Catalina

I convinced my good friends Frank and Jeanette Rogers that we could take the dinghy from White's Landing to Avalon, a distance of 3.5 NM, about 1/2 way there I started to question my decision...it didn't help matters that the dink was poorly inflated even before we left. Once in Avalon we went to one of my favorite places, the Casino Dock Bar which is where this is taken. The trip back went much better after downing a few brewskis....and sipping Jeanette's boat drink.

Comments [0]

Steve
09/01/2010, Catalina

I just returned from my second Catalina trip on Si Bon. Everything went very well, I am feeling very confident on my pencil and paper navigation skills, on picking up a mooring ball skills and as we returned to San Diego Bay after dark on my nighttime navigation skills.
Avalon is an interesting little town, the main mode of transportation is the golf cart...and as you can see they are everywhere. These are not your standard electric clean and quite golf carts...they are gas guzzling noisy, smelly golf carts and on a summer weekend they are everywhere, ridden by mostly obese people visiting from Los Angeles....most of whom would be better off walking the 2-3 blocks that Avalon takes up.

Comments [0]

Steve
08/18/2010, San Diego

It is an amazing feeling when you can say goodbye to the electric company. The solar panels are finally installed...it's been almost a week since I was plugged in to shore power and my 740 amp hour house battery bank is nearly fully charged. I say nearly because it's 0800 and they are down a tiny amount due to night use. Right now under cloudy skies we are running Si Bon and putting 2-3 AMPS back into the batteries. Even as I am writing this my AMPs in is climbing...and by the time I get back from my walk I'll be fully charged.

Comments [0]

Steve
07/22/2010, Catalina

A large bison landed in the dinghy of S/V Si Bon last week off of the small island of Catalina. The skipper, Steve Cook and his crew did not notice the large animal at first as they were busy trimming the sails due to an unexpected slow down of Si Bon. Other than a large bison paddy left behind (no pun intended) there was no damage to Si Bon or her dinghy.

Comments [0]

Steve
07/19/2010, somewhere between Catalina and Mainland

From time to time I will put into my blog some equipment/rigging items that I have been busy working on in order to improve the performance and safety of Si Bon. The latest rigging improvement to Si Bon is a Whisker pole, a whisker pole, once deployed holds the Genoa (AKA; jib, headsail) out on one side of the boat while the Main Sail is put on the other side of the boat and held in place with a preventer. this sail configuration is used when sailing with the wind (downwind). The Sailing term for this is "wing on wing", I believe that my European friends will refer to it as "goosewing".
During our sail back from Catalina we deployed Si Bon's new whisker Pole for the first time, and after much help/advice from the crew we were sailing along at 7 Knots with the auto pilot on, we were able to continue along like this for about 6-7 hours. Everyone on board agreed that is was one of the most pleasant sailing experiences ever.

Comments [0]