The landlord (Wayne?) spends very little money on keeping the marina safe for boaters. If a finger dock sinks, he'll refloat it, but that's it. Most docks that have sunk have just been pulled out of the water and shipped to the scrap yard. The yard crew struggles with what they have to work with and are doing a wonderful job. But this is hardly a safe place for children to go boating at.

2019 Season! First on the Lake.

I think this is one of the more common mistakes that a seasoned sailor will make. I made it.
Last fall in Canada, I expected winter to follow appropriately. It did obediently. I knew that boats need to be winterized, as they say, to cut down on winter inactivity and winter activity.

The Shirley Anne's motor was fully purged of fuel and drained of any water. The water lines inside the boat still had water in them and the only way I could think of to purge those lines was to blow air through them. I had a 1/20th horsepower air compressor to do that with. No, not a machine; me. I ridiculously put my mouth over the line and using just my lungs, I blew air through the lines until I heard the hiss.

Well, it didn't work. I'm not sure WHERE the water came from, but there was water in the sink faucet. And, as the title of this post indicates, when the water froze, it expanded enough to rip solid metal apart. The photo shows the result.

Last fall, when hauling Shirley Anne out for the winter, I accidentally kicked the port viewport (window) with my foot and broke the plexiglas. So, I bought some new plexiglas from Plastic World in Toronto to replace both salon viewports, starboard and port. But this plexiglas purchase gave me an idea.

I went to Google Earth and found a location with a 100 meter depth

N43.44954° W79.44109°
N43° 26.972' W79°26.465'
N43° 26' 58.34" W79° 26' 27.92"

100 m = 328 ft
981 kPa = 142.282 psi
From Port Credit to here: 135°T
8.45 nmi

Now, you may ask why. So I shall tell you that I plan to lower my Samsung Galaxy S8+ to the bottom of Lake Ontario at that location, 100 meters down, and take a video of what's down there. I assume it will just be a large, flat plain of mud, but that's fine. I just want to accomplish the dive and get my precious cellphone back in working order.

I have two pieces of 3/4" plexiglas. To act as a frame offset, I got 1 piece of 1/2" plexiglas that will be cut out to fit the cellphone into. The, using the two 3/4" pieces as top and bottom pressure plates to keep the water and pressure out, I'll bolt everything together with the cellphone inside.

I have already tested the camera's ability to see through 3/4" of pressure plate plexiglas clearly. The only problem I discovered was the camera had trouble auto-focusing from far to near. I may have to force the focus to far focus. Not sure yet.

The next thing to do is to find a suitable material to be pressure gaskets between the top pressure plate and the frame offset. While the plexiglas will easily generate more than the 500 psi pressure on all three pieces, the pressure gasket must also handle that pressure without failing or deforming too much. Simple rubber will not withstand that much so the gasket material can't be rubber. Not sure what I can use yet.

It's all a work in progress and I have several months to get it all right before the empty dive test followed by the actual cellphone dive. It's a fun project I have been planning all winter. A totally useless project that I really want to have in my life right now.

Later, I plan some weekend sails to Hamilton Harbour, Port Dalhousie, Niagara-on-the-lake, and even the Toronto Islands. This summer is going to be full of such great adventures.