This picture was taken on the one day of snow we've had this year. It's only an inch or two, so does not constitute a plea for sympathy. It lends a slightly magical tone to the scene, though. The marina, Lee's Landing, is a cozy little place. So cozy, as a matter of fact, that getting Mabrouka in and out of her slip is akin to walking a camel through the eye of a needle. (Sorry for the comparison, Mabrouka. You're NOT a camel.) You can see the Aurora Bridge looming above and the Freemont Bridge is just off the picture to the left.

I've been "ashore" for four months now and tension is starting to build for this year's cruising. My original plans were to circumnavigate (that's a fancy word for sail around) Vancouver Island before heading south in August, but I've been thinking of adding a more northward destination to the itinerary, Glacier Bay. That's up near Juneau, Alaska. The April start that would allow that itinerary is looking tenuous, since my To Do list grows longer at a breakneck pace.

Wrapping up last summer's cruising in mid-October, I made plans to hide out for the winter in the cozy confines of Lake Union. Occasional conversations with my friend, Seaton Gras, over the summer concluded with arrangements for him to pay my slip rent for as long as I was working with him on the restoration of his '47 Rhodes ketch, Merry Maiden. The various projects restoring Merry Maiden are deserving of a completely separate story, so I won't burden you with that discussion here. For now, suffice it to say that Seaton has kept me busy enough that I think I'm giving him a fair return on his investment. (Some pictures with brief explanations have been posted in the Merry Maiden sub-folder of Projects in the picture gallery.)

As far as my own projects, I mostly put them off until after the first of the year. The only significant one completed so far is to add a new Dickinson diesel heater in the main salon. Living off of my retirement fund, I have been watching my withdrawals so that I keep my income down for 2013 and stay within the bounds of a lower tax bracket. Boat projects energy has been elevated by the Seattle Boat Show, though, so things are accelerating. I volunteered for Tyee Yacht Club duties manning their booth and the Kiddie's Paddle Boat Pond. That gave me the unanticipated benefit of an exhibitor's pass to the show, including free entry as often and for as long as I wished. This led to an inordinate amount of time spent browsing the aisles and chatting with various systems vendors, most importantly for refrigeration and single-sideband (SSB) radio.

I put a deposit down on the refrigeration, but my number one investment so far has been in an SSB "kit" from SeaTech Systems. The SSB radio is basically a HAM radio for boats. That simplification may display my ignorance on the subject, but I think it's a good enough parallel for casual conversation. I already have VHF marine radio on Mabrouka, but its frequencies are really only good for coastal sailing as their range is limited to line-of-sight, or only about 20 miles. Besides that SSB is much more powerful, it operates in a frequency range that has the potential to go hundreds, if not thousands of miles. It also provides the capability for email and weather fax at sea, so becomes a real plus for off shore cruising.

Two out of four of the SSB kit packages have arrived so far, one a business-sized shipping envelope and the other a box big enough for a stereo amp, for those of you who remember the old, pre-iPod days. The envelope contained only a coil of wire, but unpacking the box led to an explosion of components. I spread them over my main salon yesterday as I checked them off against the packing slip. Reading through the introductory chapters of Captain Marti Brown's book "M802 Radio for Idi-Yachts" that was included in the package, I sorted through and identified the various components. Two antennas are yet to arrive, both in separate parcels.

Yesterday afternoon was invested in siting and making room for the main SSB components, the antenna tuner and the transceiver itself. Each are about the size of a large shoe box. Along the way I finally made the fateful decision to rip out my old Alpha autopilots, ...both of them. Replacing them is another project on my spring list. That initiated the chore of opening up, emptying, then restowing virtually all of the lockers along the starboard side of the salon so that I could pull out old components and cabling. It ended up with a tangle of wiring, electronics, and disused cabinetry piled in my galley.

Right now doing justice to the SSB investment is high on my priority list, but I fear the long pole in my tent of boat work plans will be my masts. I had the rigging inspected back in October and it was judged to be in excellent shape except for some paint deterioration at the mast heads and on top of the spreaders. I can rationalize putting a paint job off until I get to Mexico late in the year where the weather is dry and the labor is cheap, but another concern has arisen that makes me a little nervous. Aside from painting, the rigging surveyor recommended that the masts and fittings be given a thorough structural inspection before going off shore. He couldn't do that in place, so the masts have to be pulled.

Since then I have also been reading about the tendency of my chain plates to hide threats of breakage. All the shrouds and stays (i.e. the cables that hold up the masts, stays being fore and aft and shrouds being port and starboard) were replaced when I moved up to Seattle back in '03, so I'm confident in their integrity. The chain plates are the stainless steel straps that attach the shrouds and stays to the hull. Although the chain plates for the main backstays and the mizzen shrouds are external, the ones for the main mast shrouds are imbedded in the fiberglass of the hull. That configuration can trap water and cause corrosion to secretly eat away at the metal, ...yes, even at "stainless" steel. I've never had a good look at those and have no idea what shape they're in. Obviously if they break, the whole rig can tumble into the sea. That would make for a very bad day, especially since it would probably occur at the very worst of times.

So, culling the list to show only the "major" items I'd like to do, here's what's competing for my attention and finances, generally in order of priority with links (hi-lited) to appropriate web pages:

install the new SSB
purchase and install new refrigeration machinery
purchase and install a new autopilot
design, machine, and fit a double-pulley to drive the high-output alternator
pull and paint the masts and inspect structural components
sell one or both existing dinghies and replace with a new Portland Pudgy
add a second house battery to double available amp-hours
test fit and, if necessary, reconfigure the emergency steering tiller
add a Forespar whisker pole for the genoa and gennaker
add another set of reefing points on the mizzen sail
replace the staysail and rig new sheets
add a storm jib.

Would you be intimidated? I am. One thing at at time, though.

PS - I have posted a for sale ad for the Grandy skiff with Pocket Yachters and with Wooden Boat Magazine. A similar ad should show up soon on a web site for Grandy boat fans.