The next several days passed through like a hurricane. I'd seen them gathering on the horizon, so knew their bluster was coming my way and had contrived to meet it. Survival was probable, but success was dubious. Regardless, the calm winds and confused seas in the eye of the storm were met with a party attitude, even knowing that the next day would break with a gale of final departure activity.

The Portland Pudgy people had delayed delivery of the life boat canopy for the new dinghy due to supplier troubles and, in large part, their own disorganization. I'd arranged to have it shipped to me at Marine Servicenter just a mile or so down the road from the marina. This is where we'd had our Coho Ho Ho diesel engine maintenance seminar and I hesitated only a little to take those nice folks up on their offer to help us Hos out in any way possible.

I only had to install the canopy on the dinghy, but there were a couple of other jobs yet to do. Most seriously, I had to make a last ditch run to trouble shoot the hydraulics for the autopilot steering ram and commission the system, but also to make the lee cloths for our bunks. In addition, the VHF radio display was going blank, although the radio itself seemed to be functioning just fine.

The Cap Sante Marina staff seemed to be emptying Dock C of boats to make way for the influx of wannabe pirates expected to show up for the Pacific Northwest Cruiser's Party that would descend upon the weekend. I felt like I was walking down the naked spine of a boned fish as I went ashore for errands and returned to Mabrouka at the seaward-most slip with bagfuls of boat stuff. There were only a few tidbits of flesh stuck between the gaping rib lets that made up the slips, ...early arrivals like me, unwelcome non-party boats soon to be banished, and miscreant commercial fishing vessels that seemed to come and go at will. A couple of mobile docks sporting party canopies and barbecues were moored mid-pier, their translucent side curtains hinting at raucous private activities for the coming weekend.

Still, as much as I had to do in the little time I had to do it, I am dedicated to the cruising life now, so mornings started early and slow. I chose to fill mine with the search for a good coffee house that offered espresso drinks and fresh pastry, but this quest stymied me in Anacortes. There were drive-thru coffee kiosks, Safeway Starbuck's bars, and nice coffee shops, but none where you could sink into a big comfy-chair with your laptop blazing and the hiss and gurgle of the espresso machine as background music. I could only console myself with fantastic, hearty breakfast fare at Dad's, a really good restaurant a couple of blocks away. Freshly made roast beef hash and unlimited drip coffee isn't altogether a bad substitute.

Having failed in my several Seattle attempts at getting the hydraulics functioning properly for the autopilot steering ram, I'd pre-arranged for Marine Servicenter to send a technician to Mabrouka that Thursday. They obliged my early arrival with an early visit, so Wednesday morning I met one of their guys on the boat. He was really an electrician, but they thought he might be savvy enough to uncover my problem. Not so. Several fruitless hours later, he put his tools away, tucked tail, and went back to the shop in search of MSC's real expert. I was very pleased to have him show up that afternoon.

Unless you're a fan of thumb-wrestling tournaments, sharing the details of how this diagnostic and repair process went might bore you even more than it bored me and you wouldn't have the benefit of extreme frustration to keep your attention. Hours of pumping the steering ram back and forth, both manually with the wheel and electronically with the autopilot remote, while loosening fittings and watching endless bubbles of air percolate through jugs of hydraulic fluid is a version of entertainment that occupies only the witless or the dedicated.

MSC's technician was dedicated. A couple of hours into it he declared my skills at installing copper tubing inadequate, though he graciously attributed the primary problem to lack of professional equipment. The next morning he arrived with the proper tools and some replacement parts he'd foraged from his stores. After a couple of hours he'd replaced and rearranged tubing and fittings into something that wouldn't leak and was less amenable to trapping stubborn pockets of air, so we commenced pumping and bleeding and percolating once again. A lunch break came and went, after which we invested more time in this seemingly endless contest against wily hydraulic thumbs. At last, we declared a draw and left the system to prove itself, if it would, at sea.

Somewhere during this great struggle, I managed to purchase and install a new VHF radio. Although we could have gotten by with the nominally functional unit I had, I took the opportunity to upgrade to one that has an integrated AIS receiver. Most commercial shipping is required to participate in the Automatic Identification System in which they broadcast a radio signal that informs nearby vessels with the proper receivers of their location, speed, heading, vessel type, ID numbers, etc. and even provides for immediate direct radio contact if need be. I gather fishing vessels have succeeded in convincing the authorities that they give too much away to the competition when they broadcast their locations, so they don't have to have it. This would become a dangerous irritant for some of us Hos further down the coast. The system is not required for private craft either, but is increasing in popularity. As my radio incorporated an AIS receiver only (no transmitter), installing the new radio turned out to be pretty much plug-and-play that I managed to do while the hydraulics were being rebuilt.

Jim and I (mostly Jim) had attempted to make the lee cloths while anchored in Aleck Bay. My old White sewing machine, the powers of which I'd bragged about on many previous occasions, proved, on this occasion of sewing multiple layers of heavy Sunbrella fabric, to be worth only what I'd paid for it. Nothing. Well, not much.

Maybe I need to explain lee cloths. While at sea it's nice not to get thrown out of your bunk by a rolling boat. A nominally sleeping body does, of course, roll to and fro while the boat rolls to and fro. One gets used to that to some extent, but when more violent tos send a body against the hull on one side and fros send it out into open space on the other, it gets more uncomfortable. Lee cloths are panels of canvas that get strung up on the inboard side of the bunks to keep captain and crew from being launched across the boat when the seas get rough.

I'd contemplated buying a SailRite sewing machine for years and our failure with the lee cloths became my final excuse for the investment. The SailRite is made for sewing canvas and other even heavier materials. It has heavy duty innards and outtards, including a powerful motor and a "walking foot" that forcibly drives the fabric along. It doesn't flinch at two or even three layers of leather. This last minute decision cost me another 30% in delivery costs, but if I'd had it earlier it that would have paid for itself in lost time Jim and I had spent struggling to get the inadequate White to do the job.

The new machine showed up less than 24 hours after I'd ordered it from back east. Eva Lombard, wife of Doug Lombard, the Ho-in-Chief, offered to come up to Anacortes early and bring her sewing expertise to the task. What a boon, and arrive she did early on Friday afternoon.

Getting anything accomplished in the heightening party atmosphere of the Hoho departure and the Pacific Northwest Cruiser's Party became like being smeared in molasses, ...sweet but sticky. As fun as they were, it was impossible to work on or walk down the dock without a conversation smeared happily across your face. Eventually, though, we got the job done and, with the hydraulics and VHF radio tasks behind us, could enjoy relatively inhibited partying on Saturday night.

Oh, except crew member Ed showed up on Saturday afternoon and, when I proudly showed him our lee cloth accomplishments, he casually gave them a firm tug and the bolt ropes pulled right out of their slots. With a dang and double-dang, I simultaneously cursed and thanked him. The ropes were too small a diameter to stay in the groove they fit into under load and would simply not do for the trip. Regardless of my ambitions for a happier result, I'd rather have discovered the defect this way than with an unhappy crew member flying across Mabrouka's cabin in a storm. Replacing the bolt ropes with bigger diameter material became a Sunday morning task for Emily and Ed.

The final job on my list, ...at least the last one that was a must before departure, was to fit the canopy on the Portland Pudgy. To review for those who may not have caught earlier posts, the Pudgy is a dinghy that qualifies with the US Coast Guard as a two-person life boat. The dinghy itself is supposedly unsinkable, but it also incorporates a cover supported by inflatable ribs to shelter two people against the sea in an abandon ship emergency. The big selling point for the package I purchased is the sailing rig which, unlike a typical life raft, allows enterprising survivors to actually move in the direction of safety and not just drift at the whim of the sea.

The manufacturer had had two major issues with its canopy component suppliers, back-ordered air canisters and back-ordered bladders for the ribs. It had now been several weeks since they dinghy had been delivered, and the canopy had finally arrived at MSC. False confidence that Pudgy had finally gotten something right led me to leave fitting the canopy until the last minute, and it wasn't until Sunday morning, i.e. departure day, that I found they'd sent the middle section, but two forward sections and no aft section.

I'd been very patient with their incompetent logistics to this point, but my anger showed through when I contacted them that day, especially when their proposed resolution required laying out the various sections they HAD delivered and describing zipper configurations so that they could be sure to REdeliver the right parts. I couldn't believe they hadn't standardized their construction enough to make parts interchangeable. Anyway, I wasn't going to deal with that then, so I put off further conversation until San Francisco with the promise that they'd expedite delivery down there.

That brought my immediate project list to a nominal conclusion, so I was free to depart with some level on confidence. Stay tuned for an episode of partying and departure celebrations in the next edition.