Up the creek...errrr, mast

The view from our bunk - one of my favorite spots for reading, dreaming and watching the clouds - the 65' mast. Probably the tallest in the marina and possibly the most slender and possibly the most difficult to get a sail up because of the running backs. We either have to pull the sail up fast and trust we miss the running backs or there is a lot of yelling and adjusting. The person on the helm has to be accurate into the wind. Sunday the sail went up like gangbusters - Robert had put Sailkote on the track and we had a new crew on board that was not exactly king kong, but he made it effortless. Then we tried out the furler for the first time. It stuck 1/3 the way out as we were heading down the Estuary. Another new crew went up the mast - Robert's 5/1 climber zooms him up and we see people taking pictures from the tour boat, cruise boats, dinghys. What the hell? We were so focussed on fixing the problem that we didn't realize we were putting on a show. A large boat going down the Estuary, sails out, sort of, people at the helm, and someone up the mast.
Jeff and I put Robert up the mast to set the sail cradle a few days before and we were astonished at how easy it was to run Robert up. But that was in the slip. Young John was up the the mast with the boat underway, trying to fix the jammed furler with an audience. Not possible. After my phone call to the rigger, who called Robert back, saying, "I understand the sky is falling" (A little sexism, there?) he will repair his work in the morning. In the meantime, Robert went up 2x and diagnose the problem and took photos of our deck with all the projects spread around. The sail cradle did work, sort of, but when we tried to douse the main - it was stuck, too. No one panicked as we could send young John all the way up - beyond the jib (fractional rig, not easy to get to the top) and get the main unstuck. But wait. We couldn't get the jib unstuck, but did manage to furl it back. All of a sudden the main dropped, the side of the cradle failed and there was a bemused silence from all the new crew. Robert and I didn't say anything and started flaking the main. Ok. The boat is intimidating to some, but these new crew knew what they were doing and pitched in and kept talking about going up the mast again. Enough already. We had fresh peach smoothies from Dave's ice cream after the jungle gym and sat around in the slip talking sailing stories. Not a bad day at all.

More help from our friends......

Life is tough for these fellows: they now wear harnesses and get training about "doing their thing" on command. They did that in the past, but not as specific as now. We will have a poop deck with fake grass on it - but they like to do their thing on bushes. We don't have a clue how to handle that.

Another friend we can't do without is Phil Chin - a Chinese rocket engineer. In fact we were in Cape Canaveral when one of his rockets went up successfully. He, along with Emma, the skipper's daughter, was my watch mate on a trip to Hawaii and we played cut throat Scrabble getting to scores of plus or minus one. He and Robert crawl back to the stern and the dialogue between one who deals in minuscule tolerances and the other, who dealt in bandwidths, and such, is enough to send me to the front bunk with ear plugs. They are trying to design the "arm" of the auto pilot. They think they have it - and I can hardly wait to test it out - but still, have to install the thing. Phil is very verbal and extremely funny, and Robert is quiet and with a dry wit and work well with each other. The Phil and Robert show is pretty inspiring and funny.I thought you could just call Raymarine and get the stuff and put it in and take off. No way - it has been three weeks of off and on visits and confabs and drawings and test builds and options explored and options rejected. What was I thinking?

A little help from our friends......

That's five spinnakers, a "shadetree", two sewing machines and Robert in the backyard of Linda's house - it is the new stitch and bitch society. Robert did the wand holders for the shade fabric while I stitched what felt like endless seams. This, we can remember when in warm tropical places and are cooled by this structure. It stands with the help of the wands from the lifelines and allows the wind to come through - we hope - also is tent fabric and in a pinch, we could use it to collect water. We are blessed to have a friend such as Linda who opens her house and heart to the hooligan family - hair all over the place from Koa and Shaash,

who allows us to work on the big projects in her space. The next photo is of Jack, who has had a shoulder replacement, two knee replacements, a hip replacement and has prostate cancer. He was delighted when he found he could still climb masts. He is going deer hunting in Idaho before his prostate surg. - very quiet, unassuming guy. yet he went up our 60' mast with us winching. Well, Robert and a neighbor. And then there is Jeff, who took a diagram, made another and installed a work of art for the head, so we don't have to go two blocks to save SFO Bay. And Bridget and Dave, who put up the sail cradle and screwed brass closers - we are blessed. So, we get by, with a little help from our friends.

Foggy San Francisco Bay and 93 degrees

We came home to 93 degrees and these photos wouldn't prove it. We could not believe the heat here on the Bay. This morning was fog and we were lucky to get 74 degrees. But that is a good thing as we are unloading the Alameda locker,(three storage units is too much junk!) and sorting and resorting and we didn't need the heat to do it. We have been collecting boat parts for so long that we don't have a clue as to what some of these misc. twetchels, pipes, screws, etc. are and are donating them to Dave and Bridget for their boat. Let them figure out what to do with this stuff. One person's treasure, etc. Robert weas concerned that there would not be any room - but we had built all sorts of storage and surprise, we can fit things in. The big surprise/shock is the foldaboat that has some pretty hefty seats and parts that have to be stowed. The boat folds to 4" wide and the seats are a heavy plastic that will slide around under one of the rear bunks. So much for saving space! The seats also serve to keep the boat from folding up on us when we are putting around. Supposedly it goes through surf better than the inflatable. We shall see, in Turtle Bay, Mexico in November. Now that could be a scene: two German Shepherds crying to get out of the dink, us counting waves and yelling go now, and , and.....getting swamped. We did this off the Mokuluas in the inflatable one day, with me swimming the boat out, passengers rowing like mad and Robert trying to get the engine started. One of the passengers was our priest, and he was was oaring with such vigor that he didn't see that he was oaring across my chest while staring straight ahead as if we were after Moby Dick. I was laughing so hard that I had to swim out once the boat was started. And those were little waves. But great memories. How do you tell the parish priest he was messing with private body parts...although with an oar?

We took a short weekend off of working on the boat - and went to Placerville to do some work for Jeff, then to Lodi to kayak with Bridget and Dave. Jeff is the fellow who drove for hours to work on I'O because he likes to do boat work - well, we like to work on houses, so we drove up to his beautiful part of the country and did drywall and insulated heater ducts. Placerville is probably named for placer mining and is in the fooothills of the Sierras, full of hills and valleys and fruit stands. It had the name Hangtown as it was built on some steep hills. Beautiful place. Lodi, is in the central valley with parks, lakes and the Mokulumne River running through it. Some pretty big fish splashed around us with some pretty big idiots on Seadoos, but the peace and beauty of he place was barely disturbed. A huge turtle sat on a log to watch us glide by - at the end of the day I felt something that had been missing for awhile: relaxed. It was an unusual feeling - but one we are going to find a lot in the future. Living for the now is tough when you are peparing for a long trip, but I muttered something about finding out how the"real America" lives - sitting around a table, outside, under trees and talking with friends. People do it in summer all over the place, except we used to run from an air conditioned car, to air conditioned houses, to air conditioned restaurants. Some of the best parties that I remember at our house in Az. were outside, sitting around under the trees. Strange how perspective is created by where we live.

Boatyard bootcamp

This is the good, bad and the ugly in reverse of the normal progression of work - the bottom shows the liftout, then what is not shown is hours and hours of sanding the bottom, after cleaning strange and horrible critters off the bottom. Then more sanding, then painting with stuff that costs the same as a small city in Montana per gallon, then taping, more sanding, and smoothing with foul smelling putties, washing, and more sanding....good fun. At the end of each day we are so sore from stretching, painting, climbing the scaffolds, the ladder, the lower stands, that we reach for the ibuprofen and fall into bed. We will be fit at the end of this week. Sort of - although we have discovered new aches and pains that we didn't know were possible in the human body. Aching toenails? Right. The new green stripe at the gunwhales is to cover up a lot of bumps from water getting under the fairing - a great guy, Jeff, came down from the mountains and spent three days grinding and sanding, driving two hours each way, just to help out. He smoothed the bumps. We couldn't have done it without him! Launch is tomorrow and we will be in Monterey, vegging out for a few days. After this week : sleeping alternately at Motel 6, nice and on the water as it is, and/or sleeping in the van, eating whatever and whenever, it will be luxury to just be zombies in front of a tv. But, after this week of hard work and pushing ourselves, I can safely say that old farts rule!

Boatwork

Back at Linda's after a flying visit around the country to organize storage and sell boat stuff at Minney's in Costa Mesa. It was 85 degrees there, and for the coast, hot, hot, hot. And here we plan to cruise south...but the chores remain before that. We make manageable lists: cancel the haul out - move it to later this month; get help on the electronics; set up the Electrasan so we don't have to walk two blocks to use the marina head; and throw things away. Or donate. Things we thought were important for the boat get stored in Linda's garage for use later and the rest gets examined very hard. If we put something interesting at the dumpsters in the marina, it disappears immediately. We also had to resew the sail cover due to the new slides added - the sail coverlooks like a patchwork quilt with all the sunbrella fabrics, but we would know it as our's anywhere. We sat in Linda's garage area and unstitched seams, looking over the beautiful eucalyptus trees. So, the real fun part begins this week at Svendsen's Boatyard, and then the even more fun part, the sailing, begins sometime in early August. We have sails, we have electronics, we have charts, we are ready for adventure.