Wherever/Whenever

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One of the great things about not having anyplace special to be is... not having anyplace special to be!

Yesterday I had a couple minor things to attend to on the boat, and we decided to stay an extra day here and do a bit of fishing. The first question of course is where exactly to drop the lines. There are lots of places right around Point Reyes itself that are great spots. But, for better or worse, they are all part of a protected area and fishing is not allowed. The surrounding areas are mostly featureless sand, so off to the charts I went to try to find "fishy" structure.

It quickly became apparent that the modern vector charts, while perfectly suited for navigation, really weren't going to be much help with finding the best fishing spot. The attached image shows what I mean. It compares the image from the paper chart of Drakes Bay with the exact same place on the computer vector chart.

Nothing about this spot on the vector chart would attract my attention, but on the paper chart the extended contour lines and especially the bottom characteristic note "rky" meaning "rocky" did get my hopes up. An isolated rock pile like this in the middle of an otherwise featureless sandy shoreline would surely attract fish.

And... it worked! Five rockfish in an hour. Four of them within 50 yards of the spot I picked based on the chart. Delicious.

Today we had the most glorious sail out of San Francisco Bay and north about 25 miles to Drakes Bay just south of Point Reyes. We left the dock in Richmond at 8:30 AM, and dropped anchor in Drakes Bay almost exactly 13 hours later. I have done this trip several times, and this is the first time I have managed to make the whole trip under wind power alone. Usually there is a light patch that requires a bit of motoring to get through.

It is summer, but summer in the ocean here doesn't mean much. Low overcast is constant, although there is no chance of rain. Temperatures struggle to break 60. The sun sometimes breaks out for a few hours in the afternoon.

It is hard to believe that we are so close to the city here. Being a holiday weekend the anchorage is "crowded" with 5 other boats. We can see the buildings of a dairy farm on a distant hill, there is an abandoned lifeboat station on the beach, and almost no other visible sign of humans. The loudest noise is the calling of the male elephant seals on the beach.

After a very busy couple of days, it is time to take the boat out and shake her up a bit. The plan is to head down to Monterey tomorrow, leaving in the morning. If the weather is fully cooperative, we might go straight on to Monterey, or if we are a bit slow, we might stop an anchor off of Santa Cruz. Stay tuned, I am sure I will have pictures...

All of the major projects are now complete, but there are still a lot of little things that come up. Once we get a bit of sea time on the new systems, we'll be set to go.

Lots of good progress in boat readiness today.

I got the steering system put back together with new bearings and shims. The only problem was I dropped the compass light down the pedestal while getting all the parts assembled. That was about the only setback today.

Fiberglass and epoxy sealed up a gap around a chainplate. It seems like a permanent solution to an annoying leak.

The watermaker has been installed and tested. It works like a champ. What would the old time sailors have given for the magic of making fresh water from the ocean? I have one more part coming to finalize the installation.

I got the cam cleats installed in the cockpit so we can work vangs without having to climb out on the lee deck.

One of the great successful additions to turn Fetchin' Ketch into a self sufficient long range cruising boat has been that addition of a pair of solar panels. They were a bit of a pain to install, taking a bit of clever engineering to have something that was secure, able to be easily folded down in case of bad weather, while still having good exposure to full sun. For several weeks all of the boat's 12 volt supply needs have been met by the panels. In a typical day the batteries are drawn down about 4 or 5 percent in the early morning, and they are fully recharged by noon. Most of the load comes from the refrigerator. The LED lighting that I have installed throughout the boat uses almost no power at all. Everything works great... and who could complain about free power? It is an ideal solution for the boat where other sources of power are expensive, a hassle, or both.

Lets look a bit closer for other applications... Optimistically, on a bright sunny day my panels can make about 1.5 kilowatt-hours of power. Here in northern California I pay $0.14 per kilowatt-hour. So the panels have the potential of making about $0.21 worth of power per day. $6.30 per month. $75.60 per year. Free money!

Oh... wait... the panels and controller are not free. The panels cost about $700, the controller another $300. Wiring and other miscellaneous costs add another $150. I won't count the cost of the batteries, because I need them anyway. Total installation cost: Roughly $1150. I'll make my money back in 15 years. A staggering 6.5% investment return. Unfortunately, I am not eligible for the various tax credits and subsidies that make solar a more lucrative investment. I have to pay the full economic cost of the installation.

So remember when you hear your neighbor bragging about what a great investment his solar panels were, your tax dollars are making it so.

In other news, today was a two steps forward, one step back kind of day. I got several projects in the head complete, toilet plumbing, shower sump pump, and other such fun projects. Then what started out to be a simple adjustment of the drive belt for the auto pilot, turned into a major rebuild of the steering system as I discovered a broken bearing on the shaft of the steering wheel. Sigh. Oh well. Progress over all.