Memorial Day Weekend

Update in Photos! Please feel free to browse through our Gallery and comment on the photos…

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There she is! On the hard

Seabird on the hard at Ferry Beach, Peaks Island Maine

Sleepy Bella rests after chasing a toy on the beach all day

Bella helping out the new friends she made

The tide is almost out enough to start working!

There she is, with New Bottom Paint

Travis has his celebratory drink after the bottom was painted

We dinghied ashore for a gorgeous beach-walk

The sun shines on the granite cliff shores

Mike and Herve are too slow for Bella’s liking

Family picture minus the cat

The swirling ocean does neat stuff to rocks

Travis lifts Bella over a particularly high rock

Looking back towards the mainland

Sunset silhouetting the leaves of the trees

There is nothing better

Sorry there are so many pictures, it’s just SO PRETTY

View from up on the island

Engines and Self Steering

This blog was written almost a month ago but never got published… Whoops! So far, so good on the sailing department.

We have been able to sail every weekend in May so far and are hoping the next few will be no different. The weather has not been cooperating recently and we have had about 10 days of rainy weather, but if its not raining we are sailing!

Today however I would like to talk about and Aries wind vane I found while looking at a boat with a friend. Our friends Adam and Meghan have been coming over to the boat and playing cards and having fun now for most of the winter and feel they would like to own and live on a boat. Sophi spotted a a boat with some potential in the Rockland area, so the 4 of us went out for a look. The Boat, a C&C 42 was almost a complete wreck and would need a ton of work just to make her float but the $3k price tag made the idea tempting, at least to look at.

While Sophi and I weren’t really interested in buying the boat we rummaged around plenty and saw a few bright spots among the wreckage one of which was 80% of an Aries wind vane. The vane was in grate shape but missing a few critical components i.e. the servo ruder and the wind vane holder. I offered the seller $150 for what she had and I’m still hoping that it wasn’t a bad investment. I found a website were you could get parts that are located in Denmark so talking to anyone would have to be done early in the morning but via emails I have found out who to call and what parts I need. This is progress.

Our "new" wind vane

Aries Wind vane

On a sad note our engine hour meter stopped working as well as the temp gauge and now the engine is making odd squeaks. I will have to call Nanni direct to ask about the gauges but have some leads as to solving the squeak problem for PYS. nothing in the engine will make such a noise said a technician and asked me to put a tiny amount of WD-40 on all the bearings the belt turns, hopefully one issue will be resolved tomorrow. [Note: For the rest of May and so far in June, the hour meter has turned on and run normally. Oh, the mysterious ways of a boat…]

Careening Seabird

Last weekend we decided to inspect our under-the-water hull. We had prepared for weeks, and found a spot where the tide would leave us high and dry for a few hours. Even better, it was right around the corner from our “normal” slip. In the middle of the night, we snuck away and motored down the long, narrow piece of water between two wharves, finally meeting a seawall, which we tied up to. I put one piling near the mast and let the others fall where they might, hanging a fender on the two that touched our hull. We set our spring lines and secured our baby with care and waited for the tide to drop. I set my alarm for four hours later. When it rang, I hopped out of my pilot berth to see what the tide was doing. Once on deck, I tied a line from our mast to the piling and cinched it tight, helping us lean into the pier. Over the next ten minutes, I stood on our cap-rail, ultimately stepping onto the land to check for movement. When finally there wasn’t any, I knew our keel was on the ground and we were beginning to stop floating. Hopefully, now I could rest.

My next alarm was set for two hours later, a.k.a. 6am. I barely caught a wink of sleep the entire night in anticipation of what might happen and what I might see. I would think of all possibilities, one being the entire hull is one blister, and many other extremes including nothing being wrong. Every time I would turn over in bed, I would think of something else. what if someone tried to steal my boat? We were right in the middle of a sketchy part of town. “How are they going to steal it, Travis? It’s not even floating!” I kept telling myself this was nonsense, I needed to sleep, and was surprised when I was awoken by my alarm clock. My blanket and sheets didn’t stand a chance as I flung them off of me to go look at the boat. Oh man, the water was mere inches from the bottom of our keel! I couldn’t act fast enough and the water took too long to boil as I made my coffee. I was in a big rush but needlessly so, as it took another half an hour for the water to come down to a level where my boots wouldn’t sink. While I sipped my coffee I screwed on a brush to my boat hook and while dunking and scrubbing I worked my way down the starboard side of my hull. To my surprise, the entire process took about half an hour. No fuss, no muss. No issues were found, not one blister, not one scratch, not even one barnacle was attached! Relief.

The scrubbing process went so quickly that I had aspirations of painting, too. Unfortunately, Maine has been under a cloud for the past who-knows-how-long, and our paint wouldn’t have dried, anyways. But it was good practice, free and we got lots of attention. The sun is supposed to make an appearance towards the end of this coming week, and we hope to be able to careen again and paint the bottom. We decided to change locations as having the solid wall on one side of you has its disadvantages. Luckily, we know of an alternate location: Peaks Island.

I’m new to the art of careening. It seems like no one does it, but I don’t know why because it’s so easy and free. If you’re in an area with at least a 7′ tide it’s definitely an option if you find the right location. Look for a tall, solid structure with at least enough water to float you at high and that dries out at low. It also helps to have a full keeled boat, or at least one that you trust not to push up into your hull.

1/2 hour before low tide

close-up

shiny, clean prop. Text reads 6 76 15RH12, which we think means made in June 76, 15 degree pitch, right hand twist, 12″.

Bella wonders what we’re doing down there

view of the bow, after a good cleaning

view from stern, after being cleaned

bow picture, before. Note all the seaweed along the waterline.

the bottom before cleaning, covered in muck

about two hours after we had stopped floating

Spring Is Here

Spring finally came last weekend! While I was sleeping off a cold, Sophi was busy ripping our plastic bubble off the boat. She was kind enough however to at least let me take down the wood members. Now the Marina dumpster is full and Seabird has shed her cocoon to reveal her true self…. a boat with a ton of stuff on deck….

Now that I can walk around the boat I have spent almost 3 days doing just that. After mounting the grills and stowing the anchors I started sweeping the cabin top onto the deck then into a dust pan, I am a true homemaker, anything that can’t get wet is inside because the forecast is for rain till 2012.

On Monday night some friends came over and hoisted me up the mast so I could rig our halyards properly. All I really want to say about that is… It was difficult and I want mast steps for my birthday!!

It was supposed to rain Tuesday but we got lucky with temps in the 60’s and a burning disk above, I took advantage and bent on the stay-sail and our working jib. In doing so I realized that roller furlers are a pain in the butt when not working properly, but I won in the end with a little help from Sophi

Now it’s back to rain again but when the sun pokes out this boat may actually be ready to sail!

Jost van Dyke to Culebra via St Thomas

We had planned to leave early in the morning from Jost van Dyke and sail downwind to the Isla De Culebrita. We planned on cashing in our chips  that we had earned while motor sailing 40 miles to windward a week before… one small problem was in the way, because of our previous engine issues Albert lifted a floor hatch to check on his Perkins to see engine blood sprayed all over everywhere. We hadn’t even weighed anchor yet and already had problems. A quick inspection found a broken hose and not enough oil to read on the dipstick.

Suggestions were pouring in from all of us including who needs an engine, it’s all down wind, we could fix it here, it’s not such a bad place, we could treat the wounded hose and cross our fingers that it would be alright.

Albert applied a layer of some tape he bought just incase these exact hoses were to split… that means he knew they were in poor shape,  we were drawing from Vigor’s black box.  Albert taped the hose per the vague directions in the package and we tested by first adding oil then starting the motor, at first we were successful. Then we got a flashlight and saw a little stream of oil soaking through and running into the bilge. After quickly shutting the engine down we added on more layers of the tape and 3 hose clamps… we were ready to circumnavigate!

The first stop on our world tour was to be Culebrita but seeing as how the day was getting short we made a deal with ourselves that we “could,” if we wanted rum, stop and anchor on the lee side of West Cay, St. Thomas. Some world travelers we are! We anchored in 15′ of water on the lee shore right in front of a little beach– we could even see the breakers landing on the other side, sending spray everywhere. We ended up getting some swell sent our way so all night we rolled and listened to the water in Magus’s tanks slosh around. We started a game of hand and foot but Albert was getting sleepy so we let him rest as Sophi and I watched the very large full moon rise in the sky.

Culebra or Bust

We got up bright and early, which to  us meant 8:30 or 9 and to Albert meant 5:30 or 6 and ate breakfast before we looked out to see stronger winds than normal and cloudy skies. After bundling up we hauled up the anchors one at a time and off with the wind we went. Full sail running with 20ish knots makes Magus actually sail. (We knew she had it in her).  We made great time to Culebra and even hit 7.4 knots on the GPS. We would ride up the swells and up the waves then down into the troughs, it seamed that a larger wave would come about every 5 mins and launch us even higher but Magus was a champ, weighing in at a cool 26,000 lbs she ever so gracefully would keep water out of the boat (that’s kind of a big deal).

Not even 3 hours after we started we were rounding the red nuns marking the channel to Ensenada Honda, I held a beam reach just before entering the channel and allowed for drift by keeping the red markers on the first port-side stantchion, I narrowly avoided the first marker but falling off the wind is better than asking the boat to point higher. I was actually aiming for the next marker (secretly hoping not to hit the closer one).

Finally we doused the sails and started the engine to hunt out a good spot to anchor in 21′. We wanted to get out of as much wind as possible so we found a spot closest to shore wich didn’t really help any, but it did make for some wet dinghy rides back from town. On our trip back from Heather’s Pizza, Sophi sat on her knees with a throwable PDF as a shield.

It was hard to leave our boat and Albert but we are also excited to see our friends and animals again too, we said our goodbyes and boarded the ferry to Fajardo.