More Preparation
01 August 2008
• At the Dock
by Mike
We are getting stuff done in dribs and drabs.
The Admiral and I are going through clothes at this point and making momentous decisions such as just how many T-shirts do you actually need on a cruise; how many underpants; whose stuff goes in which drawer; and things like that.
We have also made a really usefull addition to the anchor system. NELLEKE came with a Simpson-Lawrence electric windlass, but it only winched up. Lowering the anchor was done by gravityand by hand, which worked, but not always under the best control. The final straw come when Barb very nearly got badly injured by some mackeral hooks that had been fouled in the chain and that we were unaware of. Some guardian angel made her step back from the windlass just as they came flying out of the chain locker.
Whew!
Yesterday we added a switch to change the polarity of the DC current going to the electric motor so now we can lower the anchor completely under control and under power. We have also added a trip line and buoy to the anchor so that we'll know not only where the anchor is when it's set but also when it's on the bottom (the trip line stops playing out).
We have plugged a leak in our cabin that has been a small but anoying feature of past cruises and we have installed the 3.5kW genset. My plan is to eventually build a soundbox around it to minimize the noise and that will double as a seat, but for the immediate future it is simply fastened down. On rainy days, it will supliment the solar pannel and wind generator to provide power to the battery banks.
This weekend, in spite of damp weather forcasts, we will be heading out to the annual AYC McGrath's Cove raft up. This is a BBQ weekend at a coastal community about 30 miles down the shore from Halifax. A couple of the members have their home there and the community has a party on the long weekend in Aug and has graciously opened it to include "yachties". Barb and I have always wanted to join in but have always had something else to do on that weekend. This could be our last chance before heading south. There could be as many as 30 boats rafted up in the Cove and since this sort of crowd is not totally our scene, we will probably anchor apart and dingy in to join the rest of the gang. We won't be completely anti-social as we will have the company of our friends in NOONAN KNIGHT who plan to join us where we anchor.
Today is Friday. We will leave the yacht club as soon as possible after work and head out to the Sambro docks. It's a great spot to overnight and will put us in a good spot to get a start to McGrath's Cove in the morning.
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