Soon

We have been busy this week.

The solar panels are mounted above the davits and the dingy is now hanging from the davits. Normally when we make a passage the dingy is deflated and stowed on the foredeck but since we will be on inland waters (Puget Sound, San Juans, Straits of Georgia, etc) for a while we will hang it from the davits.

The refrigeration is complete for now. We are starting to put the fiddles on. This helps keep things from sliding onto the floor in the galley when we are sailing.

Rich had taken the old hatch from the forward head shower a few months ago and we had plastic covering. This was not sufficient for passagemaking. Since we have been so busy with other projects, we had Dave install the new hatch. It looks great.

Rich installed the new watermaker. It is not connected yet so it will not process sea water. That will be a project for some anchorage in the future. We carry 140 gallons in tanks below the settees in the main salon so we will be okay for a while.

I am starting to vacuum pack spares and storing them, such a engine fuel and oil filters which are stowed below the settee in the aft stateroom. I have a Foodsaver vacuum packer that we got at Costco before we left in 2001. It is still going strong. I use it for lots of things, spare parts, food stuffs, paper goods, clothing, etc. Toilet paper takes a lot less space when it is vacuum packed!

We went through some items in the storage unit today to bring back onto the boat such as paper charts of the west coast of Canada and from Neah Bay to San Francisco. Other items included the storm sail, Galerider, genicker plus some spare parts.

We have been waiting for our batteries. They finally arrived at the trucking depot. Instead of waiting for them to be delivered to the place where we bought them (Tuesday at the earliest, since it is a holiday weekend), Rich and I drove down to the depot and they used a forklift to load them in the back of our Subaru. We purchased 2 batteries, 270 amphours each and each one weighs 140 or so pounds. The rear end of the car definitely went down when the batteries and the pallet they were on were loaded. Tomorrow we will take the bed apart in the aft stateroom, remove the old batteries, and replace them with the new ones. It is not easy getting these heavy, awkward items out and into the salon, then up the gangway and out onto the dock and then reversing the process for the new batteries.

Thursday nights the liveaboards get together for BBQs. Everyone brings their own main dish plus a side to share. There was quite a crowd on the main dock by Windarra. Some friends, Linda and Brad, left last year to go cruising. While they were in New Zealand, they had a mishap on an unmarked reef near Doubtless Bay and their boat went down. Luckily they were able to get out and launch their life rift with no injury. They fired some flares and someone on shore saw them and rescued them. The fellow that rescued them was from a nearby Maori village. They were able to stay there and collect the items that washed onshore from their boat. They had insurance and they have already bought another sailboat in New Zealand and will be working here for a bit before going back and cruising again. Cruisers are hearty folks.

Now if we can just get the batteries in and get everything stowed.....

Open boat and dock party

Yesterday we had an 'open boat' and a dock party. An 'open boat' is like an open house but of course it is for our sailboat, Windarra. Since we invited more people than can fit on the boat at one time, it spilled onto the dock, hence it was a dock party as well.

It is great to be able to show everyone what we have been doing to Windarra the last 6 years and especially the last 5 months. We get excited about our new refrigeration, charter/plotter, radar, LED lighting, new bulkhead in the v-berth, etc. Of course we also just like being with our friends! I am sorry I did not get pictures of all of you but here are a few:

We are mentally ready to go. Unfortunately Windarra is not quite ready. The new batteries for under the aft stateroom are not arriving until Thursday, so we will have to wait. In the mean time we have other items to work on. Today Rich installed some of the hardware for our new boom brake. For you novices, this allows us to control the speed of the boom as we tack or gybe. This is very important when you have heavy winds.

Graduation at Reed and other news

This past weekend we went to Portland, Oregon to attend graduation at Reed College. Rae, Jesse's girlfriend, was graduating.

Rae graduated with a dual degree in chemistry and biology. All seniors at Reed write a thesis which is published and a copy is put in the thesis room in the library. Rae's thesis title is, "A study on the Effects of Small Conductance Ca2+ -activated K+ Channel Type 2 on Dendritic and Spinal Morphology". I am afraid you will have to ask her what this means.

I also got a chance to meet more of Rae's family. I have met her mother, Louise and her husband, Michael as well as Rae's twin sister Jenny. This time I also met Louise's mother, Ruth, Rae's brother, Gregory as well as Rae's father Peter. You can see us all in the picture below (from left to right: Gregory, Ruth, Jesse, Rae, Sarah, myself, Peter, Rich, Michael and Louise.

Here is the happy graduate with her brother and sister. Notice the resemblance.

We also cheered on other graduates including Jess Dennis, a good friend of Sarah's. Jess received a degree in psychology. Her thesis was "Metacognition in Rats". She invited us to attend a gathering that the Psychology department had for the graduating seniors. The thesis advisors wrote a limerick for each senior's thesis. The limerick for Jess' thesis was:

Jess made it her thesis ambition

To instill in rats, metacognition.

The rats, now self-aware,

Ask, "how do you dare

Study us without our permission!"

Jess and Sarah will be sharing an apartment in the fall when Sarah returned to Reed to do her senior year.

We had a great time and the weather cooperated.

And, by the way, the other news, Jesse and Rae are now engaged....