Reboot the Blog

Emma where I found her

I am working on restarting my blogging. My current plan is to stay in Michigan until the fall, helping Dad get his bearings after we lost Mom in April. I have a small sailboat on Muskegon Lake as a part of my own reboot and recovery.

First, before I start sailing, I need to thank some amazing friends - two couples in Florida and a friend in Michigan who made my day - nay, my month - a couple months ago.

Emma waiting for me

All the way back before the first of the year, between the holidays and within a week of each other, Brenda and Gary as well as Carla and Tim, bothered to stop in at Riverside Marina, trudge back to where Emma lies and snap a few photos just to reassure me. It was a wonderful relief to see her sitting where I left her, waiting for my return, with tarps that were still in pretty good shape. Thanks all of y’all, you’re the best.


Despite my plan to stay in Michigan, I am taking a trip down to see Emma and all those special people in July or so. I can assess how the boat is doing, perhaps clean her up a little, and replace the tarps.

Not a good picture, but I was moved

A couple months ago, I visited a friend at his new office. Another friend and I actually used his conference space to touch up my vagabond, handpoke tattoos. Dave has renovated a beautiful, old building in Grand Rapids. His new office is open and spacious with a new wood floor, a cluster of desks in the front with a conference table toward the back in a corner full of windows. Out front, a couple of his degrees were hung with a small pile of other professional stuff in frames ready to hang. Dave was eager to show me a large frame hung on its own in the conference area.

Bella rounding the Muskegon Channel jetty

You see, Dave had been my crew bringing a sailboat, Bella, across Lake Michigan from Milwaukee, Wi to Muskegon, Mi, without a working engine. I could never have pulled it off without his help or that of my ground crew, Nancy. I had brought them both a crew certificate in appreciation of their help - mostly on a lark.  Nodding to the frame, he said that’s a better story than all those frames up front. It was humbling but also so good for my vagabond sailor heart to feel how special the trip, and therefore the certificate, was for Dave. It was an incredible trip for me too. Read about it in three parts starting here.

I realized immediately I needed to purchase another certificate. Pete, another sailing buddy, had helped me move my current big boat, Emma, from Miami to Fort Pierce -- with no engine (apparently that’s a thing of mine). Back when we did that second trip, I was pretty broke with a pickup truck that was falling apart; and that was broken into the night Pete and I sailed north. I got online right away and ordered a crew certificate for Pete. The story of that trip starts here.

Pete at the helm on Emma

Dave and I will have a reunion cruise sometime this summer. I’ll have to let Pete know that if he’s near Lake Michigan, we could go sailing too. I am keeping Lola, the Gulf Coast 18 I bought, at a dock in the same marina where Dave and I arrived five years ago next week aboard Bella, an Albin Vega. As for Brenda and Gary or Carla and Tim, I will be bringing Lola with me when I return to Florida in the fall. We’ll definitely do some sailing down there before Emma, my Westsail 32, is back in the water.

Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Pete.

Cheers everybody. Life is OK. 

Hiatus

I am in Michigan for several months, helping the family. Emma is buttoned up and waiting for me in Ft. Pierce. Here's hoping that there are no major storms through the end of the hurricane season.

Thanks for your support. See you soon.

Suspiciously Superstitious

I am not a superstitious guy, but it has been really hard to not think the universe is sending me some kind of message this past week. I started driving again for a company where I had been before. The first truck I was assigned lasted two and a half days before I took into the shop and it didn’t come back out. Then I drove 350 miles in a second truck only to have it die under me. I've always seemed to have had bad luck with International trucks.

On Tuesday, July 3rd, I picked up a load at a Savannah, GA warehouse. I took the back roads around to a small Pilot Truckstop to weigh the load. The fuel desk lady said, “Just a minute” over the intercom, so I turned the truck off because idling is discouraged. After she came back on and we did the scaling routine, the truck never started again. I spent a couple hours stuck right on the scale itself, in everybody’s way. Eventually, I got towed off the scale and to the International Trucks dealer in Savannah. It was mid afternoon the day before the July Fourth holiday when I arrived, and despite being plenty busy already, they ran the computer diagnostics right away. Their computer told them the same thing that the truck’s computer had been telling me; there was an electrical fault somewhere, perhaps near the ABS module. There was a short, somewhere, but all the fancy computers were not equipped to say exactly where. There was no simple fix or replacement. This, the latest in my troubles with International Trucks, is pretty bad timing for trying to get ahead on the money for Emma’s refit.

It was the winter of either 2014 or 2015, I was delivering truckloads of office furniture which often went to the Northeast; especially New York City and New Jersey. Whenever I had a load to Brooklyn or the southside of Manhattan, my load back to Michigan was usually huge rolls of paper from a mill on Staten Island. Many times before I had spent the night at the end of a cul de sac on Staten Island surrounded by the papermill, a defunct landfill and a power plant. That night it was about eight degrees and the bunk heater was just not keeping up. I started idling the truck, turned the heat up and fell asleep. About 3:00 AM, the truck woke me by dying. It would not start again. I called our road service people and they began looking for a roadside technician in New York City on a Saturday night.

The mechanic finally showed up, took a look under the hood and declared that the truck could not be fixed on the street but needed to get to a shop. Now my company had to find me a tow truck and another tractor to take the load home. Eventually, after I had been stuck with the whimpy bunk heater for eleven or twelve hours, a tow truck showed up towing a day cab. He dropped the cab, and pulled the dead truck out from under my trailer. I dragged the paper load back to Michigan with a motel stop because I didn’t have a sleeper. A month or so later, I came into Ohio from Pennsylvania in another International trailing a long line of grey smoke like a skywriter. That one couldn't be fixed outside a shop either.

After four days, me in a hotel and the truck in a shop, road service declared my truck dead for now. Parts are on order, but it will be out of service a good while. This morning I await a ride from another driver back to Florida to get a third truck -- third truck in 8 days! He just called to tell me that his truck won’t start and is waiting on a road technician. Our company has Macks, Internationals and a few Freightliners. I have my suspicions what kind of truck he drives.

I Can't Do This Anymore!

Well … I can't do it *this*way* anymore.

I got off the road last October and took what I thought was a part-time job. Turns out that we weren’t using the phrase ‘part-time’ in the same way. They called me PT because they couldn’t guarantee me 40 hours. However, if they needed 50 hours, they expected that I should be able to do that for them. They needed that a lot. That story is here.

So, I quit and went back to a small company that I had driven for in the past. I knew how they ran, so I asked beforehand, quite specifically, if they were on electronic logs yet. Oh, yes, they assured me. Their drivers use a logging app on their phone. I took that at face value, but after a couple weeks on the road, and a hundred dollar ticket, I figured out that they didn’t actually have the app properly hooked up to the truck. My initial hopes for this new gig is here.

A Paper Log Example

When I drove for them back in the paper log days, they ran my ass off and expected me to make it look legal afterward in my logs. That was exactly what I was trying to avoid, but the temptation of a flexible part time schedule clouded my judgement. Their drivers are doing the same fix-it-later thing as before; now with a sexy phone app to give the appearance of compliance. Many of the drivers probably appreciate that they can run as many miles as they’d like, but I can make plenty of money and do it legally. I don’t mind running hard; I’ve done it. I just don’t want to have to think so hard to cover my tracks. In addition, there are so many crazy drivers out there. Even a minor fender bender with one of those crazies would be a massive, expensive hassle if I was found to be running outside my legal hours.

I have run on electronic logs for a long time and can squeeze every drop, every mile out of my available legal hours. In fact, when I inquired about going back to the last bigger company where I’d been, my former dispatcher immediately and unequivocally wanted me back in his fleet.

Which brings me back to the "this way" part of “I can’t do it *this*way* anymore." My holy quest to find a lucrative part-time position has failed. I was already living hand to mouth, paycheck to boat parts, when I got the large bill for my engine installation. Money was tight by design but had become a constriction. Summer is upon us here in Florida; August and September can be brutally hot especially working inside the boat. If I was working part-time, it would be August before my cashflow recovered. All of these factors have led me to make yet another change; third time since October I’ve quit a trucking job. It sucks but I'm going to concentrate on getting ahead financially. Instead of trying to do both at the same time, I'm going to earn the money and concentrate on boatwork later. 

Boatyard Basin

One of the dangers of living in a boatyard in Florida, is getting bogged down in the boatyard lifestyle. It is easy enough to live this way. In an out-of-the-way place like Riverside Marina, you can exist in this purgatory of almost being ready to re-launch your boat -- for decades. These boat projects can be a bit like a tide. The tide of positive energy and forward motion comes in sometimes with great strength, but diminishes as it approaches slackwater. Just at the turn of the tide there is almost no energy before it ebbs and starts to go back out; backward motion. The boatyard trap is that slack moment when it is so quiet that you don’t realize the tide has turned against you. In the yard right near Emma, guys and their boats who have been *almost*ready* so long that they don’t even know they are getting less ready every week. They are drifting further and further away from being ready. I consider this job change a preemptive strike against the boatyard life. In order to make it to the Sailing Life I aspire, I must not get caught up in the boatyard life.

Most of last year, and a good part of 2016, I had a pretty stress-free trucking gig. If it wasn’t for my ill-conceived quest for less hours, I’d still be there. So, I’m going back

because I need the money. I’m going to cover the boat up, work full-time for 6 ot 7 months, scrimp and save and then get back to boatwork in cooler weather. Come January or February, I will have a good nest egg and I can concentrate on boatwork. This way I can drop all my current stress about miles, eLogs and the little time or money I have for the boat. Emma and I are stuck where we are for this hurricane season, but we can get back in the water before the next.

I can do just what I want and still get what I need. Why should I accept someone else’s BS?

Oof - Breaking Free is Hard.

Sometimes I have to re-read my “I Really Don't Give A …” manifesto just to keep doing what I do. Some people may suppose that I have some kind of tenacity to still be working on this project after all this time. The truth is that I am a bit too stubborn, but mostly too dumb to quit at this point. And yet some days are not so easy.

When I started this journey I came up with a slogan. It began a bit of a joke, but solidified into the underlying philosophy of my vagabond life.

“Eat When You’re Hungry.
Work When You’re Broke.”

I haven’t fully escaped on a boat yet, so the slogan hasn’t been fully implemented. It has, however, guided my life. Even now, where I thought I was going, and where I wanted to be are subject to changes wrought by this guiding philosophy. After months of wrangling at one job and ultimately switching jobs just to get to a part time schedule, last week I negotiated to become less part time already. My vagabond philosophy turned me around and changed what I thought I was doing.

It will help to start at the beginning of my current situation. In January 2016, I bought my boat, s/v Emma, sight unseen from Michigan because she was exactly the boat I wanted. She was also one that I could afford because she had been neglected ... and had no engine. Buying the boat and moving to Florida took most of the money I had at the time. I went to straight to work near the boat to get back to flush. Soon after, I found a lovingly rebuilt engine at a great price and was able to jump on the opportunity. It was several thousand dollars and most of the boat money I had accumulated by then. I am basically earning the funds to refit Emma as I go along.

My poor engine sat in a shed at the marina for 14 months and through two hurricanes; not exactly Plan A. It came together last month for the normally-very-busy marina mechanic to have time to align and install my engine. I am doing as much of my own work as I can, but the prospect of aligning the engine was keeping me up at night. It was a critical project that was not going to be easy and -- today --  I am still not a very good diesel mechanic. When it became possible to have a pro do it, I jumped at the chance. Walton came up with a project plan which I approved without a formal quote. I know … I know. But the work had to be done and a window opened to have it done professionally. Not to mention that the meter had been running all along and I was paying for engine storage in the shed.

My boat had a couple metal rails in the engine space where an engine had been. The engine I bought was not the same as whatever engine had been there. The work that needed to be done included lowering the engine into the boat, marking and then removing the rails, modifying, strengthening, and re-installing those rails, aligning the engine and driveshaft, replacing the cutlass bearing and then bolting everything down. Even if I had been able to successfully complete all those steps, it would have taken me months of trial and error and learning by doing to accomplish.

After I said ‘do it', in a moment of panic, I ran to talk to the ladies in the office and made my bargain. I had said, “I’ve approved Walton’s plan, but I don’t have any idea how much it’s going to cost, it may take me a couple months to pay for it all. If that’s not OK, then we need to slow him down and run some numbers.” Beside the normal interruptions of being the one on-site mechanic, Walton's work never stopped.

Last week, I came home from the new gig on the road and saw the driveshaft sticking out Emma’s stern tube. This is great news … and not so great. When I paid my boatyard rent for June, I got the bill for all of Walton’s work. I really never had any idea what it might cost. Occasionally, I thought it would be fairly inexpensive; other times I just didn’t want to think about it. The bill was actually almost twice the highest number I had worried about. Oh, boy. 

That brings us back to “less part time already” from above. My new trucking gig is with a small company that I had briefly driven for before. My new schedule was going to be one week on, one week off. I had visions of huge numbers of boat projects getting crossed off my list. That schedule lasted exactly one month. To pay the marina off in a reasonable time, most of each paycheck would have to go to them for a while. I’ve had a couple weeks like that and it isn’t much fun to have to lay low without the funds to do much boatwork. I decided to take the initiative and pick up some more time at work. So, I went from every other week to three weeks out and one week home. I’ll still get a little bit done in the short term, but more importantly I’ll be able to pay my bill and keep the marina fairly happy.

I don’t mean to be coy about financial numbers, I just felt they would be clumsy in the narrative above. I am doing this project on practically no money, but that was the basic plan anyway. I want to show that a big dream can be accomplished with small cashflow. I bought my boat for $6000; and then moved to Florida. The engine I found was $4000 and the storage, plus labor and miscellaneous parts to install the engine was another $5000. Beside this $15,000, I have about $2000 in other parts that I had previously purchased. By the time I dress up the interior and get some electronics and other equipment, I will probably spend another $8000. Importantly, I will have done so much of the work myself that when I’m done I will have an intimate knowledge of my boat and her systems. This will help me keep future maintenance costs down.

The week I moved to Florida back in 2016, a Westsail 32 only a couple years younger than Emma, but painted, polished and ready to sail, was listed near me for $52,000. Now, they weren’t going to get their initial asking price, but they likely got between 25 and 30 thousand for her.

Even if we get in the water and I hate it, I can sell her without losing my shirt.

Don’t worry, I won’t.

Oriental to Charleston, Part II

Aletheia in her glory

This is Part Two of the Carolina Trip. Part One is here.

When we last left our heroes, they were having an epic dinner aboard Aletheia lying at anchor at Wrightsville Beach.

Both the captain and I really wanted to do some offshore sailing and yet among our many compatible aspects -- we are both fairly conservative sailors. Neither of us would make the jump offshore in adverse conditions just to say we had done it. In addition, though we spent the night right at the Masonboro Inlet, the Frying Pan Shoals extended well out into the Atlantic between us and Charleston. We would have had to sail fairly far offshore before we could turn to the southwest and make for our destination. In fact, many sailors traversing the East Coast will come inside between Masonboro and Cape Fear just to avoid having to go out and around those shoals.

As keen as we both were, it didn’t make a lot of sense for us to go offshore from Wrightsville. We

Wrightsville Beach Anchorage

hatched a plan to run inside down to the Cape Fear River in the morning, and if the weather and the tides were on our side by then, we’d jump offshore from there to Charleston. We had to have the outgoing to tide with us at Cape Fear River and then the in-going tide at Charleston. Otherwise, it would be dangerous to creep along against the flow with the potential for traffic; especially ship traffic.

We left Wrightsville Beach early on Sunday morning and ran down to Snows Cut. The Cut crosses over to the Cape Fear River and is often a difficult stretch. At one narrow point, again against the tide flow, we were maxed out and creeping along barely more than a knot over the ground. We had a little help from the sails and got through it - ever so slowly. After the cut, the ICW angles across some shallows to join the Cape Fear River. On the river, midday Sunday, there were no ships in sight, but we finally sailed through ship infrastructure; range marks, bigger bouys, and a large natural gas terminal.

One of the last bouys outbound

At Cape Fear, the ICW goes most of the way out toward the ocean before it turns to starboard at Southport. Approaching that intersection, we already knew the tide with us and we were going offshore! My vagabond heart soared and called from the clouds like the many osprey we had seen along the way. I was … we were …  going to get some sea time!!

It would be twenty five hours or so across to Charleston, we set the auto pilot and decided to take three hour watches once it got dark. Often an auto pilot won’t steer a sailing course because it can’t read or react to the wind. Our wind held steady though, and the autopilot steered all night. Our timing was tight and the Captain wanted us to stay within a half mile of the rhumb line to avoid a bunch of extra sea miles. Holding close to the rhumb line though precluded sailing for comfort and my watch at dusk was really rolly. For three hours the boat never stopped moving for a second. We were rolling heavily from side to side plus the normal forward and back motion. I began to feel a little green around the gills. When Wade relieved me, I went below to nap and was down there about 15 seconds when I climbed right back up and leaned over the rail. I don’t remember ever being sick on a boat before. Any way, bless the fish, here’s my supper. I posted 4 mini videos on YouTube of our time at sea here.

The sea moderated and it was a beautiful sail overnight to Charleston. Somehow all along the entire trip, our timing had always been good; just when we needed it most. We hit Charleston Harbor just as the tide turned in our favor. We sailed dead downwind up the channel as the Monrovia-flagged Primavera container ship passed us. We had talked with someone on the ship’s bridge, and promised to stay well to starboard as she past.

All along our trip we were often stared at and photographed. Aletheia is a distinctive beauty. Her junk

The Primavera

rig is curious with it’s batwing sails and two unstayed masts; one of which is nearly in the bow. People in passing boats waved, called to us, and took pictures. It was amazing and hilarious to be a part of such a spectacle. Even the crew of the Primavera must have been watching for someone stepped out on the small deck adjacent the huge ship’s bridge and snapped some pictures. Later, @zhirov_sergey ‘liked’ my picture of the ship on Instagram. I like to imagine he was the guy on the deck that day.

Once in the harbor, we had to make for Elliot Cut to get over to the Stono River and the St. Johns Yacht Harbor, Aletheia’s new home. One bridge on Elliot Cut doesn’t open for boats during rush hour for commuters. To wait it out, we anchored across from the City Marina, the very marina where Wade and I had met three years ago on another boat. After waiting, we hauled anchor and slogged our way through another channel with a squeeze point and a current against us. The marina had closed before we could get there, so we anchored just down river from them, under another bridge. The sun was just going down Monday evening as we made supper and anticipated our formal arrival the next day.

St. Johns Yacht Harbor under the bridge

In the morning we contacted the marina, casually motored back under the bridge and tossed our docklines to the helpful staff. Wade checked in and we straightened up the boat. The Captain is a bit like me -- once we’re moving we’d rather just keep going to get things done. We had had a good night’s sleep the night before at anchor. Wade’s truck was up in Oriental, where we had started. I had made a lunch date with a former suite-mate from Michigan State for Wednesday, the next day, but had also offered to help Wade retrieve his truck. We decided to rent a car right then, Tuesday afternoon, and go get it. Road Trip! Five hours up and a few more than that back.

We had made an epic run from early Sunday morning to sundown Monday: left Wrightsville Beach; down to Cape Fear; out into the ocean; sailed all night; arrived at Charleston Monday afternoon; waited for a bridge; and finally anchored right near the marina. Then Tuesday settled in at the marina before an eleven or twelve hour road trip into the wee hours Wednesday morning. After a nap, we took the rental car back and had returned to Aletheia about an hour before my buddy, Brian, called to say he had arrived for lunch.     Badass.

Wednesday evening I had a pleasant dinner with Wade and his Charleston friend, Nat, whom I had first met with Wade when they stopped by s/v Eleanor three years before. Thursday, we ran some errands around town and Wade dropped me off at the Greyhound station for my trip back to Florida and my boat, s/v Emma. The trip was just what I needed to recharge my vagabond soul. I am working my to-do list with increased vigor. My new trucking gig is seven days on, seven days off; good for getting on with the boatwork. In addition, while I was away, the marina’s mechanic was aligning and installing my engine! My boat project is way ahead of where it was when I left! What a time! Good sailing with a good friend on the good ship, Aletheia. Life is good; so good. How many good’s can fit into one paragraph?

That good. Thanks, Wade.

Aboard Emma with my Aletheia Hat! 

Oriental to Charleston, Part I

The creek at Sea Harbour Yacht Club

Note: This is Part One of Two Parts. Part Two is here.

I was crewing on a delivery of a Westsail 42 down the East Coast when I met Wade. He had crewed on the famous W42, Fiona, and was keen to join us for a time. The boat wasn’t departing for a couple days and he was spending some time in the city, but he stopped by with a Charleston friend at the City Marina to introduce himself. Wade is a very interesting guy. We became fast friends between Charleston and Melbourne, FL, where the trip ended prematurely.

sv Aletheia

In the time since that voyage, Wade had purchased Aletheia, a 36 foot Allied Princess that was converted to a junk rig and repowered with an electric drive. He had found her in St. Petersburg, FL and subsequently moved her to Oriental, NC. I was busy on the road saving money for my own boat project and could not help during that move. However, as Wade prepared to move Aletheia from Oriental down to Charleston, he asked if I could help. I happened to be changing jobs and it worked out that I could sneak two weeks off between them to join him.  Basically the fourth time I quit a job for a sailboat. Two days after leaving the first job, I was on a Greyhound bus excited to be headed North Carolina to go sailing!

After a day and a half of minor boat projects, prepping and provisioning, all was well, hale and hearty. We departed early on a Wednesday morning, silently pushed by the electric motor out of the marina creek and into the Neuse River. Gosh, it was such a pleasure to be back on the water. My boat and I are stranded on the gravel of a Florida boatyard for several more months. The Neuese is a wide enough river I could get used to the versatile junk rig sails and learn the details of the electric motor, the battery bank and power generation. I had seriously considered an electric motor for my Emma, but had found a great deal on an impressively rebuilt Perkins diesel.

It was a pleasant leg up and across the Neuse to Adams Creek. At the creek, we were greeted by stronger than expected wind and current. The inlets and outlets between the sea, the rivers and the ICW prevented me from ever being able to predict the direction or strength of the tide flow. Suddenly, Aletheia was having trouble holding her own. We were making very little way and I was having trouble tacking her; really feeling out of control. I can’t remember why I was steering just then, but poor Aletheia was going back and forth across the channel in the midst of some powerboat traffic. As I tried to tack I only got blown over the other way. I called from help from Wade! The captain may have noted in the logbook that his crew was having a pucker at the lower end of his alimentary canal.

The junk rig is elegantly simple but just different enough from the fore and aft rigs that I have sailed that it took some time to get used to working those beautiful batwing sails. Aletheia has two masts each with a similarly shaped sail. As different as the sailing was, when trying to tack -- turning into the wind for you land lubbers -- I needed to think of the forward sail like a jib on a sloop anyway. Once Wade had me releasing the sheet of the forward sail as I came about, I could manage a proper tack.

Sunset on Adams Creek

The sailing handling was straightened out but we still could not make any headway against the wind and current; something else was wrong. The Captain decided we should backtrack to an  anchorage he knew. Perhaps in an hour or two we could try again. Soon, however, we realized that we would miss time the tides at Beaufort. The original plan had been to go out into the Atlantic at the Beaufort Inlet and anchor at Cape Lookout, supposedly one of the most beautiful anchorages on the East Coast. From there we could decide to continue offshore or duck back into the ICW, the Intracoastal Waterway. We ended up staying the night at the anchorage at the north end of Adams Creek.

The next morning, we were up with the sun and started down the creek in the stillness of the morning. And … we still couldn’t make much way.  There was no wind and very little current, but we were struggling to creep along. After circling back the the anchorage, we decided the propellor must be fouled. Wade prepped to jump into Adams Creek … in April. I changed into my swim trunks as well, just in case. Luckily for me, after his initial shock, the Captain, a regular resident of Alaska, decided the water wasn’t so bad. He quickly found the prop was, in fact, fouled -- not fish line or rope on the shaft -- but barnacles on the blades. I dug out a putty knife and the Captain had our prop clean after several dives. We raised the anchor a second time and headed south. The clean prop made all the difference! We later learned that the marina we’d left had suffered a barnacle bloom.

That second day, even with a false start, was a good run. It was so easy to motorsail with the junk rig.

Sailfie

The full length battens and the unique parrell rigging kept the sails from flogging. When the sails weren’t much help we simply snugged up the sheets and ignored them. When they could help, the sails were already up and ready for adjustment. With a fore and aft rig like mine, the sails would have gone up, come down, gone up again, come down etc. Chances are, rather than fool with them, my sails would have stayed down and I’d have just motored the whole way without getting the occasional help from the sails.

We motorsailed down to Beaufort and then stayed on the ICW as the forecast and the tides precluded us from going offshore. We were near enough to civilization that we usually had cellular data and could check the marine forecasts and tide info, or download GRIB files. We anchored for the night off the ICW just above Swansboro.

The next morning we were off early and continued down the ICW. After some time, silently, electrically plying the ICW, the channel had turned and we decided to raise the sails to take advantage of our new angle on the wind. Unfortunately, we were approaching the New River Inlet, a confused delta below Camp Lejuene. The occasional roar of military jets added to the milieu as I worked to raise the sails. Just as we were moving into an area of bouys that are regularly moved to mark the shifting sands, Wade was steering as I was hauling lines and halyards. Every time he leaned one way to check the position of the channel, I would move to block his view; oblivious of the scattered bouys he was trying to decipher. Where the main part of the New River crosses the ICW, the channel had not simply shifted -- it had changed dramatically. Suddenly a bouy we needed to keep to our right was well to our left … and we ran aground.

If you go down the ICW without running aground once, you’re lying. We lost about an hour, calling Towboat/US and waiting on their arrival. They were super nice guys and had us off in no time. The tow captain said, “Yep, you’re right in the middle of where the channel used to be.” Even with the grounding, we made a good distance Friday. The last few miles, however, were a mighty slog into the wind and current. We were creepping along only a knot or two over the ground and fought our way into a ‘V’ between two channels to anchor for the night near Sloop Point.

I must say it was a luxury cruise for me. The last delivery I crewed on, I cooked about ⅔ the meals (I was happy to do so, cooking is one of my pleasures). This time, however, Wade cooked and fed me like a king. We had steaks for dinner and with our eggs a couple mornings. There were wonderful lunches - often cold cuts and cheese with whole grain bread. I cooked one meal the whole time -- mostly because I wanted to at least once.

In hindsight, trying to make time on a delivery run on the stretch of ICW between the Figure Eight Bridge and Wrightsville Beach -- on a weekend day -- was a strategic mistake. Not only were we fighting the wind and current, and the limited manueverability of a large sailboat, we also had the weekend crowd and their swarming powerboats. No one aboard those little buzzing boats seemed to know why we were making slow circles in front of a closed bridge. They wouldn’t have undertood that we were not only limited by our height but the channel for our four and half foot keel was a lot narrower than it appeared on the surface.

All the while we were calling Wrightsville marinas wanting to tie up for some fuel and a run to the grocery store. Nobody wanted to accomodate our provisioning on a weekend. And once we got under the Wrightsville Beach Bridge and near those marinas, we didn’t want to try and make our way through the maddening crowds just to get some fuel anyway. We decided to anchor at Wrightsville and go ashore in the dinghy.

Wade made contact with a resort hotel and gained permission to use their dock. For some reason, I was steering again, but I got us off the ICW, down toward the Masonboro Inlet and into the anchorage just fine. As we piled into the dinghy we joked about two big lunks, our trash, and four jerry jugs fitting aboard. Just then we realized that three years before, in an identical dinghy, he and I had rowed ashore at Melbourne, FL for fried chicken.

We made it across the choppy bay and pulled up to the dock at the Blockade Runner Resort. The guy

Sunset at Wrightsville Beach Anchorage

Wade had talked to was not around, but since we knew a name, everyone was very nice and accomodating. We tied up, grabbed our jugs and trash, and hailed an Uber ride. Jeanette was super nice and turned her Uber off to concentrate on escorting us to the Harris Teeter grocery and then a gas station. She was as patient as a saint as the ethanol-free gas just trickled out of the gas pump.

Once we got back to the resort, we had four full jerry jugs of gasoline and several bags of groceries to fit, with us, in the dinghy. Nevertheless, we made it back out to Aletheia. Even if we hadn’t been famished from all the day’s activities, dinner would have been epic; ribeyes on the grill, baked yams, and a huge salad from our leftover lettuce, fresh veggies and chopped fresh cabbage.

Stay tuned for Part Two. It will be available in a few days right here.

Gratitude with the Stars and Moon

Note: Many of you know that I recently spent some time in the Carolinas helping a friend move his boat.  I am working on a full report of this epic trip. In the meantime, here is a reflection on life in the boatyard. 

Gratitude runs in surplus aboard sv Emma. Even as I lay a bit low this week, not wanting to spend much money for I have a bill of some unknown heft coming from the marina. Still, I sleep every night under Emma’s forward hatch. The stars peak from behind clouds in a nightly game of hide and seek with the moon. The summer heat and humidity have not yet come and each night a soft, cool seabreeze caresses my cheek. It is lovely. It is relaxing in a way that I cannot begin to describe. 

One of my favorite things is to leave the hatch open even as rain is due to approach overnight. I can’t

remember a single instance of an abrupt downpour soaking me. Little, shy drops of rain, who seem embarassed to have to wake me, will drop one by one ahead of the storm. It only takes a few and I awake to the coming rain. There seems to always be time enough to rise, close the hatch, check the rest of the portlights and the companionway. Crawling back into my still warm berth to resume my rest seems a decadence for which I couldn’t possibly qualify. 

Last night most all the above procedure went off without a hitch. A few discreet drops on my forehead and I arose. The forward hatch came down -- I set the little bracket that allows me to leave open just a crack. I walked aft to make sure that my portlights were closed and checked if the wind was pushing rain into the companionway. I don’t have dropboards yet, just a piece of plywood cut to fit. Many nights this board is not closed; just leaning against the opening to allow a bit of air to flow. 

A fan was running so I squinted to check the amps left in my battery bank. The amps are displayed on the charge controller which is mounted in a cabinet next to the companionway. As I leaned a bit over the counter to make out the unlit display, something wasn’t quite right about the board in the companionway. It was one of those all-too-human moments when you’ve seen something but it takes a bit longer than usual for the perception, or a clear enough perception of that thing to soak into your brain. Simultaneously, I realized both that something was sticking up on what should have been the flat top of the board AND that I was being watched!  

Florida has lizards. Even if you’ve only vacationed here once, you've probably seen our little lizards scurrying around. They seem to thrive at the edges of landscaping and in other shady spots. Here, they run around among the shadows of boats on the rocks and the cement of the boatyard. For some reason, one of these ubiquitous lizards was checking me out in the middle of the night. The lizards have a pulsing stance. I suspect it’s their breathing, but it might just be a tense awareness. I could just see the top of this lizard’s head, bobbing slightly. He seemed larger than his local brethen I’ve seen. We stared at each other a moment; his head bobbing slowly as the gears of my brain rattled and ground.  Then I gently bumped the board and he or she ran off. I’m not sure what their intentions are but I’m not really looking for a summer roommate. 

Sistership

The Westsail Sistership next door

They parked a nice looking Westsail 32 right next to Emma and me last week. Today a marine surveyor showed up to do an inspection for the new owner's insurance.

“I don’t know if they set it right there to inspire me or to taunt me,” I said.

“Well, yes, she’s a pretty boat,” he replied, “She’s a Westsail 32.”

“Yeah,” I smiled, gesturing toward Emma, “ … same hull.”

“Oh my goodness! Would you look at that.”

Emma was neglected enough that I could afford her and lately I've been sanding 3 or 4 mysterious

layers of paint off her hull. I don’t blame him for not recognizing her. He went on to tell me what a solid ocean-capable design I had - very rugged boats he said. I explained that I had found her in Miami with no engine and brought her here because I knew the marina and the people who ran it.

“How did you get her up here,” he asked.

“We sailed her -- about 120 miles; overnight. It was a glorious sail.”

“With no engine! Gosh, that’s brave,” he exclaimed, “You’ve got to have a certain confidence in yourself and your boat. Well done.”

I didn’t tell him that it was the first time I had ever sailed her. It is only unusual to sail a boat with no engine because most skippers wouldn’t do it. It is not so brave; not some heroic endeavor. People were sailing boats without engines for thousands of years. It had to be done and Pete and I did it.

He inquired what engine I had bought for her and raved when I told him it was an old Perkins 4.108.

“That’s perfect; a wonderful engine for her,” he said.

And as if by magic, just as we were talking, the marina guys pulled up with my Perkins engine to drop it in the boat for a dry fit. The surveyor had a couple Westsail questions for me during the afternoon and we chatted a few more times. I helped him find the other boat’s fuel tank and took a good overhead picture from up on my boat for his report.

I can’t wait to get Emma back in the water. We are going to be one hell of a team.

The venerable Perkins 4.108

Aveling & Porter Steamroller

Frank Perkins and Charles Chapman were working on a high speed, lightweight diesel engine at Aveling and Porter, a British agricultural engine and steamroller manufacturer when the company went out of business. The two engineers were convinced of the potential for diesel engines - a new technology in the early 1930s -- and started F. Perkins Limited in June 1932. The company became Perkins Engine Company Limited, is still producing diesel engines today and is now a subsidiary of Caterpillar.

After World War II, Perkins found they needed to make smaller engines to fit the smaller post-war cars of Great Britain. They successfully began a period of development and technical advancements in the 1950s that led to their engines running a variety of cars and delivery vans; even an Alfa Romeo. The venerable 4.108 engine came along in the latter part of that decade and found success in the agricultural equipment sector. At one point, a 4.108 was installed in a VW Transporter leading to a three year contract for a slightly larger engine while VW developed their own.

In the 1960s the marine business discovered the 4.108 and the engine’s real legacy was established. Between 1958 & 1992, 500,000 4.108s were made; many tens of thousands found in medium sized sailboats of the era. One Perkins powered Francis Chichester’s round the world Gipsy Moth IV; the first solo

Chichester & Gipsy Moth IV

circumnavigation along the old Clipper Route. The last contract Perkins filled for the 4.108 was for auxiliary power to run the air-conditioning in British Tanks during the Gulf War.

Used everywhere from tractors and agricultural pumps to British tanks and sailboats, the Perkins was known for its rugged durability and reliability. I crewed on a boat where the owner had spent nearly half again as much as he had paid for the boat to resurrect the boat's Perkins engine rather than replace it with a newer one. We pushed that engine hard all the way down the East Coast and it never even hiccuped. I kind of joined a cult on that trip. I now own the same brand sailboat and I found a Perkins 4.108 to power her.

When I found the Perkins it was too early for my project, but it had been lovingly rebuilt as a hobby project. It was torn down, cleaned up, individual parts painted or replaced, and rebuilt with new gaskets and seals. All that and it was only $1500 more than the rusty, dusty Perkins I’d have had to rebuild myself. And I suck as a diesel mechanic. I jumped on the deal and arranged for the engine to be stored here at the marina. At the time, I thought it would only be several weeks before I could get at the installation.

Fourteen months and two hurricanes later, we are measuring the engine bed to finally get my Perkins 4.108 installed. The poor thing started out just in the door of one of the shops here, but was then moved out under a carport-type of shed. We had no direct hits last season, but hurricanes Irma and Maria came close enough to strongly affect our weather. I had been stopping by infrequently to oil any bolts or fittings that had got the stain of rust on them. There was a panic when I had removed the transmission thinking it was best stored onboard Emma for the time. Luckily, I had told one of the ladies in the marina office so when the marina guys started puzzling about the missing trannie she settled them down. My engine hadn’t really been “put up” properly. Life got in the way and circumstances beyond my control caused a much greater delay than I had imagined.

Part of the delay was that Emma’s engine space had been stripped and used for storage. I had to purchase, install and plumb two fuel tanks; purchase and install thruhulls; buy a sea-strainer and all the

plumbing bits for raw water, fuel etc. But Emma and I are nearly ready. Recently, I had tried turning the engine [reminder: I don’t know what I’m doing] and was nearly distraught that it felt stuck. I didn’t [and don’t] have any idea if there is a spectrum between “stuck” and “siezed.” I had gotten a great deal, but had still spent a pretty penny on the engine. Many depressing thoughts of expensive repairs or starting over with a new engine were spinning through my brain. The marina folk had a simple idea: we should start this engine of yours before you spend the money to install it in your boat. Brilliant. However, the marina mechanic was backed up and it took nearly a month to hear from him. Just enough time me to start thinking that the reason I wasn’t hearing from him was that the news was so bad.

The best possible news has come!! This last week, Walton, the engine guru, started my 4.108 just fine and ran it for half an hour. He replaced a couple minor parts and has a plan which I have approved. The projects that were giving me the most nightmares all relate to installing the engine. Walton is going to

Engine Bed

measure the bed for an adapter, install and align the engine, test the driveshaft for length and straightness, and find me a proper propeller. Yes, it’ll cost more money than if I tried to do more of that myself, but it will be way less time. And rather than learning by trial and error, I will be learning by hanging out a bit with Walton as my engine gets installed. I will plumb all the raw water and fuel lines and wire up the control panel, but I’ll have him come check my work.

My #svEmma project has felt like it was caught it in the doldrums, not moving forward, but now with some positive news and proper forward motion I am super excited and just feel much better about everything. Life is frikkin good.

Positive Friction

My former self would just not understand. I used to be a Live Music Addict. My life was coordinated for maximum enjoyment of watching good people play good music. Many times, my pursuit of that rush of watching music made came at the expense of most everything else in my life -- budget, health, etc. I don’t regret any of it; it was almost always fantastic.

I had a ticket to see Donna the Buffalo last Friday night but decided not to go. DtB is on my see-before-you-die list, but I chose to go to bed early in order to get up Saturday morning and get back to my boatwork. My former self would be pissed.

The money I spent on the ticket was long gone; didn’t matter. I actually bought it months ago when the show was first announced (It was a band on my list playing just 45 minutes away). Yet, I had work to do and decided to keep at it. Surely, I didn’t need to spend more money on drinks and food at the venue.

Boatwork on Saturday was a little frustrating as I knew it would be. Part of my motivation to stay in and get to work was to finish investigating the strange patches I had started to uncover the weekend before. As I was sanding on Emma’s starboard side before, I had run in to a couple spots that appeared to be some kind of repair using expanding spray foam.

This weekend, I sanded the stretch of topsides that included those two patches. They must be some old storm damage -- poorly repaired. In fact, what looked like foam was a layer of some kind of caulk that had reacted strangely with the paint over it. This layer was a couple millimeters thick and peeled right off as it had not bonded to the layer below it. The lower layer is more solid but had not been sanded before the mystery layer was applied over it. I believe neither repair is structural, just really bad cosmetic repairs hidden, probably purposefully, under the thick, cheap ass paint I’ve been sanding off for two weeks.

I bought the boat from a Miami lawyer. I bought her sight unseen, as is, where is. Even if I had an issue with this latest find -- and I don’t -- I’m sure the lawyer covered his bases well. It's even possible that he was not aware. I've come to disbelieve two-thirds of the legend he told about the boat. I bought Emma for $6000 and expected some surprises; even a heartache or two. Nevertheless, these two spots are really the first ugly surprise. Indeed, there have even been several very pleasant surprises. I got a hard dinghy in the deal and many sails in decent condition. Further, I knew she had no engine, but I didn’t know what was done where the driveshaft exits the boat. Whoever took care of this did a wonderful job, saving me a lot of frustration and even more money.

Emma is my girl. We’ve already been through a lot together. I’m still working on keeping all the promises I've made her. No one should expect that a relatively minor setback would change my mind or give me second thoughts. Emma is a Westsail 32, exactly the boat I wanted. For whatever reason, I found this W32, she found me, and I’m committed to her. She’ll soon be a lovely girl again, all by my own hand.

Now for the cynics out there who read that last paragraph and chuckled, this is not bluster, not some overly romanticized prattle just to cover my ass for regretting my purchase. For those cynics, here are some practical facts: I found a strong, ocean-capable vessel that needed some love -- and an engine. I have already done a lot of the work needed and I have an engine. In fact, the marina engine guru is working right now to adapt Emma’s engine bed to my engine and begin the installation. I have only some body-work type repairs to do, some painting, the inspection and replacement of rigging components and a few minor projects before Emma can splash back in the water. Emma and I will be sailing sooner than I could start over with another boat.

I could sell the running engine, put Emma on the market as a half done project and go back to work. “Back to work,” however, means slipping back into the matrix; modern wage slavery. The more time you spend in the system, the harder it is to see how stuck you really are. I am not yet totally free, but I’ve spent the last eleven years taking the red pills. I see the system for what it is and want no part of it. Emma is my third “escape” boat. I know that starting over would mean a minimum of two more years. Even with this minor setback of a couple new spots to repair, I will have Emma back in the water and sailing in less than a year. I'm not saying that she will be perfect and pretty by then, but she will be safe and seaworthy and we will be off.

Life is good; as good as before.

===
Epilogue: For those of you keeping track, “in less than a year” is way past the May 1, 2018 that I had ‘committed’ to last year. For some time now, I have not been using that date in my own plans. The lucrative, so-called part-time job that I’ve had since October was no where near part-time. This has cost me a couple months, at least, which means I can't get out of Florida before hurricane season; too much yet to be done. To fix that problem, I am switching to a 7 days on, 7 off trucking gig this month.

The good is that rather than rushing toward a goal that I naively foisted upon myself, I have downshifted and will have time to do what I'm doing well and complete a few additional projects between now and sometime after hurricane season. Emma and I will both be in better shape for it. I no longer speak in terms of dates on the calendar. Emma will let me know when she’s ready. She’s as impatient to get back to sea as I am.

===

In the meantime, enjoy 'Positive Friction' by Donna the Buffalo: 

Better Than Homeless

Riverside Marina is really a boatyard. That sentence could have ended -- ‘really just a boatyard,’ but boatyards are important to sailors. For a vagabond like me, Riverside is an inexpensive place where I can do my own work. Often at a capital-M marina, there is only a small category of work that a skipper can do on his own. Most boatwork must be done by hiring marina staff or approved contractors.

There are a couple hundred boats here. Many are here for major refits like my Emma. Some, on a schedule, are here for a few short weeks of intense work and then go right back in the water. Many Canadians spend winters in the Bahamas and store their boats here each year for the summer hurricane season. The property used to be a cement plant and boats languish in the back of the lot, in the gravel, with fading For Sale signs swinging hopelessly from the lifelines. Many more poor, neglected boats here will never get back into the water. Some are literally rotting into the ground.

The “marina” part of Riverside is a man-made cut into the mainland north of Fort Pierce. This cut is lined with docks and, before hurricanes Irma and Maria, docks extended out into the water on each side

Before the storms

of the privately maintained channel. The remaining docks are occupied by a hodge-podge of boats, power and sail, in varying degrees of seaworthiness. Deep in the marina are a couple rough boats tied to the wall. Each day I walk by and marvel that they are still afloat.

Both boats are occupied by gentleman who would probably otherwise be homeless. Apparently, however, they are paying the slip fees and have enough to eat (and drink). One boat appears to be a Dreadnaught, a first cousin of the Westsail 32 like Emma. I actually haven’t seen that guy in some time. The other boat is a 1970s production boat with some curious modifications and no mast. I’ll call the guy that lives on the second boat Dan. I used to park just above Dan’s boat in the lot. At the time, I was coming and going at all hours of the night. I’m not sure he always appreciated that, but whenever I saw him during the day we would wave. I’d say “Good Morning” and he’d answer “It’s a beautiful morning” with special emphasis on the ‘bee’ of beautiful. I never heard many other words from Dan.

After Irma & Maria

A couple days ago, I was just starting a boatwork day, when I realized that I needed more gloves. There is a fiberglass supply shop very nearby. I grabbed my trash (always multitasking) and hiked out of the boatyard toward the dumpster and then my car; perhaps a hundred yard circuit. The last leg took me along the main driveway and past the two sad derelicts. Dan was sitting in his cockipit in the morning sun. He was the vision of a certain archetype Floridian: boonie hat, nicotine-stained mustache, old t shirt, ragged shorts and flip flops.

“Good Morning.”

“It’s a bee-utiful morning.”  And then unexpectedly, “Are you going by AJ’s?”

I’m not sure I had ever heard two sentences right in a row from him. After the jolt of it, I presumed that he meant the little gas station up the road.

“Sure,” I said, “I’m off to buy some gloves. I can take you that far.”

Just then I stubbed my toe on an uneven board in the dock. With a two-step and a twist, I managed to remain standing. Dan was struggling to stand up and step out of his boat on the same dock.

“I’ve been looking for that nail sticking up.” Dan said.  As he slowly joined me on the dock, I got the

The basin

idea that he was already half in the bag that morning. There was an empty case of Bud Light on the floor of his cockpit, but he was walking, so I assumed that couldn’t have all been from this morning.

At my car, I moved the sunshade to the backseat and grabbed a couple loose bottles off the floor to make room. Dan folded his lanky frame and joined me in the car with an awkward, hesitating motion. As the wind blew through our open doors, I got a pretty strong shot of dry sweat, stale urine and maybe that last beer or two. I had assumed he was living on the edge, but poor Dan was living more roughly than I thought.

On the way toward the store, Dan asked how my boat was coming along. He asked if I was getting gloves for fiberglassing and chuckled when I said I was stripping paint. He knew what that was like from helping friends with their boats.

I took the back way on Old Dixie Highway and drove up the hill toward U.S. 1. Dan corrected my navigation as I wasn’t quite right about where AJ’s was. I use the little gas station across the highway coming home from work, but AJ’s is the party store on the other side; nearer to the boatyard.

Couple hundred boats

Dan climbed out of my car and stood on unsteady legs. “Well, I would wish you a wonderful day,” he said with a smirk, “but with all that paint stripping, I know you’re not going to."

He marched toward the store with a carefully clumsy, day-drinking stumble that kept perfect time with his uneven coughing laughter.

I couldn’t help but smile myself that a guy like Dan, just barely better than homeless, was enjoying a laugh thinking that he was going to have a better day than I.

Out of Gas

One day last week, I had gotten up early enough to make a big breakfast. Dispatch had flipped (flopped?) my schedule to afternoon. My start time was 11:45 AM, eight or ten hours later than usual. Breakfast was going to be one of my favorites; a chickpea scramble with a skillet full of veggies.

Every good day starts with coffee, but especially a big breakfast day. I poured four cups of water into the pot and lit the burner. Next I turned on the inverter and set up to grind my beans. After a couple of buzzing pulses in the coffee grinder (one that I had found on the boat when I bought her), I sloshed some water in the french press and dumped yesterday’s spent grounds into the chopped-open milk jug that serves as my sink -- sink drain actually. Finally the fresh ground beans went into the press to wait on hot water.

I got my veggies organized; onion, mushrooms, zucchini, poblano pepper. For some reason, the sight of a half zucchini on my cutting board prompted me to immediately chop it up -- way out of sequence. Getting back to my routine, I started measuring the chickpea flour for the scramble. I’m really hooked on this simple recipe. It is what I think is proper vegan cooking. The scramble becomes a familiar context but avoids the contradiction of plant-based foods trying to replicate the texture and flavor of an animal-based food. If you’re going to avoid animal products but cling to the forms like scramble eggs or hot dogs or hamburgers -- have you really accomplished the switch?

As I was measuring a quarter cup of chickpea flour, the reverie of my slow-paced, peaceful morning was interrupted by a familiar sound.  The tone of the flame under the coffee water shifted. The slightly more airy, less roaring sound meant that I was running out of propane. There are several boat projects ahead of the galley on my list, so I am still cooking on a two-burner campstove fueled by those little green propane canisters. I can get 8 or 10 days out of each container, depending on how and how often I cook. But when I hear that particular sound, I know I have about three minutes of reduced heat before the flame goes all the way out.

Standing in the galley, in pre-coffee stupor, I remembered that the two gas canisters I had just bought were still in my car. It was late morning but on a morning after a cold snap. Not only was more gas about 100 yards away, I wasn’t dressed yet and it was in the low 50s outside my cozy cabin. The breakfast plan had to change.

I gathered the chunks of zucchini into a container and tossed it in my cooler. It was time for “boatmeal.”

Not mine. 

In about five minutes my bowl was layered with old-fashioned oats, banana slices, cinnamon, flax meal, raisins, apple slices, pepitas and a few dried blueberries. I had just enough coconut milk in the cooler to pour over the bowl and let the oats soak. With some coffee and the soaking oats, I sat down to breakfast.

There is nothing new about boats and interrupted meal plans for me. Twenty-five years ago, I had decided to celebrate a good week while I had been scrimping and scraping starting a business. On the way home from work I picked up a couple cans of beer, some pasta, a jar of sauce, a nice little loaf of bread and even some parmesiano-reggiano and a little grater. I drooled in anticipation as I rowed out to my home, the boat I was living on in the anchorage off downtown Sarasota. It was when I climbed aboard with my provisions and settled in for the evening, that I realized that I didn’t have any water on the boat. My two empty jugs still sat on the floor next to the companionway steps so I would remember to take them to shore with me that morning. I wasn’t going to be making any pasta that night.

Rowing back to shore for water at the end of a long, hard week was just not in the cards for me. I drank my beer, tore chunks off the loaf and dipped them into the sauce in the jar. All the while the sun had been going down over Lido Pass. Before my improvised supper was done, the stars began to twinkle over the lights of downtown as the dusking of the day faded into black. The worst part of the evening was that I could have used one more beer to go with all those stars.

===
Images used without permission.
First image from here.
Second image from here.