Back to Work

I start work on the Wilderness Explorer, a boat from Un-Cruise Adventures, this coming Monday.  I'll be working as a Licensed Deckhand again, but not on the same boat as last year.  The boat is in Shipyard for the first two months, so I'll be doing all sorts of projects to prepare for the season, but will not sail out until May. 
This means I'll move off Altair, and head to Seattle.  Its been a long time since last I lived in Seattle.  Nearly 5 years!
My plan is to work over the summer, make a small pile of funds and then when the boat finishes in September, take Altair out for a spin and then down the coast.  I figure I will make it to the Channel Islands, spend a little time, and then continue on through to Mexico.  The last trip down to Tumbleweed really made me miss the place and I'd like to bring Altair there again.
I've got a few projects to work out the kinks, however... 
Lindsay is keen on going along, (as am I on bringing her) but the boat is a bit small for two.  I've been trying to figure out a way of making the boat bigger, and come up with a few solutions.


1)   Cut the walls down:
I decided to make the main berth bigger, and decided to see how much room I got when I remove the wall between the liner and the hull.  I found about 8 inches of dead space!  I first cut into this zone when Altair went on the rocks in Alaska in 2009 , where the hull was breached but the liner was not.  I had to get to the inside of the hull and so I tore into the liner in one spot and found a large amount of unused space.  I hid my untidy hole once the repair was done by replacing the seat back, but it is high time I used it for something useful.  Here is another shot, but closer to the gap.  I put some of my 4 inch foam cushion up against the wall as insulation, but I'll find a more elegant solution soon, something that adds insulation and a little softness against the wall. 
I also need to finish the edge of the fiberglass so it isn't sharp anymore.
In the photos you can also see that I added shelves over the berth for plastic boxes.  I'm working on more of those shelves, so I can have a bunch of plastic boxes full of clothes and stuff. 

2) make the boat wider!
I made a rack on the side of the boat for the kayak, and this brought about the intriguing idea of making "wings" for Altair.  Small skiffs and catamarans have wings that you can sit on while operating the boat, mostly to get your weight out for ballast, and some mega-yachts have them too.  Imagine a trimaran that has only one hull!  So I might make some strong wing arms that stick out on either side of the boat and can hold things or maybe have a trampoline mesh that I can lie on while sailing. 
Right now with the kayak on the wing, I have both sides of the boat free for walking down, which is a nice thing.  I won't leave the kayak on this spot for oceanic voyages, but for short trips in places with small waves, it seems to work out well.  Here is a shot where I was testing it out, going upwind with the kayak on the lee side.  It remains about two feet above the water even when the boat heels fairly far over.  I find that it doesn't even interfere with the operation of the jib sheets, once I added a spacer to keep the kayak out a bit, and when the kayak is on the upwind side it blocks the breeze nicely.  The only problem is while on the upwind side it makes it hard to see, and I have to stand up to see over it.




3) Make the boat into a Trimaran!

What if Altair was a trimaran?  In a not so extensive study of the lines of the boat, I concluded that I could lift her out of the water, cut off the bottom about a foot below the waterline, and then make a new hull that glues on to the existing structure.  I would make it longer, skinny, and since I am removing 2900 lbs of lead, I could make the entire boat weigh about 5000 lbs, which my thin trimaran hull would float.  (I have a few different ideas with the bow, you can see)  Supposing I could cut the keel off Altair (would she still be Altair without her keel?)  and replace it with a different soul (I mean keel), and have that one stick and be strong enough, I would still need to make a new rudder, and a daggerboard, and I would also lose the use of my engine.  I'd have to throw the inboard out and maybe stick an outboard on.  (say that ten times fast). 
Without a keel, I would also need to make wings and two extra small hulls (or amas, as they are called) and attach those to strong points.  I can imagine the work on this would be quite an undertaking, but at least I wouldn't have to install an interior!  I'd gain extra room on deck for toys and some extra room in the hull down below the waterline, and also in the amas.
What kind of performance could I expect?  Since the keel and rudder are already terribly designed as is, I think the balance of the boat might actually improve, depending my my design skill.  I would be nearly tripling my wetted surface area, so I probably would go slower in light air, but since I normally sail the boat overpowered, I could possibly up my top speeds to near 10 knots when sailing with lots of wind, possibly more than that. 
I am also raising the boat's center of gravity substantially, so the possibility of pitch-poling is significant, and I probably should make the nose of the boat longer than it shows in the drawing, and maybe much longer.  Pitch-poling is where you stick the nose in and flip the boat head over tail, and usually destroy the craft completely.

Quite possibly it is impossible to get high performance out of this idea because the connection point to the boat is too wide, so either the hull has to be far down (and have a super strong lever arm) or when sailing in waves, the old hull section will hit the water and slow the craft down a lot, but I love Altair and I also want a trimaran.  

I am not planning on any radical changes just yet, but who knows what might happen in a few years...  I do plan on reporting on my travels on this blog, so stay tuned!

Another trip to Mexico

I'm a snowbird, I guess.  I like going south during the wintertime, so I went back to Bandaras Bay, in Mexico (Puerto Vallarta area) for two weeks. 
It all began when I sailed to that area long ago, and Altair liked the place so much we spent quite a few months puttering around happily.  Every day the winds come up gently from the ocean and breathe a warm wash of air across the sails and the shores, while any swell from far away storms laps and curls upon the beaches.
Bandaras Bay has the wonderful feature of having surfing breaks that are accessible by boat, in that you can anchor a sailboat right in front of the break, then hop into the water and swim in and surf.  I didn't go to many other surf breaks with Altair because the afternoon winds would make the breeze onshore and rough for the boat, but at a number of places in Bandaras Bay, the wind is offshore or from the side during the day, making it a great place to spend time surfing. 
So, when I emailed my friend Wes about going down to visit, surfing was on my mind.  It just so happened that record breaking swells were rolling past Hawaii and towards Mexico while I was there.  How nice!
The first picture is me surfing, and the others are Wes.

The trip didn't go all simple, however.  Wes' boat was impounded by the Mexican Government when I got there.  The government apparently came around and checked a bunch of boats in lots of marinas, looking to see if they had the proper paperwork, and in the event that nobody was on board, they assumed that they didn't have the proper papers.  Wes was not aboard, so even though he has the proper papers, he was impounded.  We eventually figured out a way to get out of the marina and go sailing, but the bureaucracy there is frustrating, so there is still some more to be figured out and solved.

There are some racing boats in the bay, and Wes asked me if I was interested in crewing on one for a saturday race, so I got to crew twice, which was a great time.  The boat was very fast and fun to sail, and we had lots of crew.   I think I could get into racing, except that I don't have the boat for it and in order to have that boat I would need to throw huge amounts of money away.   Still, it was fun.







 Here's a shot of me cranking on a winch...

 And a shot of the boat under the spinnaker.  Jibing the kite was neat, and I was on the foredeck, handling the pole and bringing it across, so I had an important role in it. 

 One of the guys had a dog onboard, and it was a cute little thing...

 Wes' boat, Tumbleweed, is a bit slower of a boat, but still lots of fun to sail.  We had a bit of a race ourselves, against Shamaness, but in the process, Shamaness got her mizzen halyard caught up in the top of the mizzen mast, so I jumped in and swam over and climbed the mast to retrieve it.  Here I am diving off to swim back to Tumbleweed.  It's neat to jump off a boat in full sail. 

Tumbleweed is a Tayana 37 Ketch, which is an unusual boat, since most of the Tayana 37s are Cutter rigged, but quite a joy to sail.  The mizzen provides an easy way to balance the boat and she will cruise along quite nicely given enough wind.  We had, however, not enough wind for most of the time while sailing, so we went slow. 
While in race mode we got out the spinnaker to try and kick some butt, and here is a picture of that said spinnaker.  It is a beautiful sail and fun to fly.

We spent a fair amount of time anchored at Punta Mita, one of the most picturesque places in the world.  A great place for a tropical sunset.
I am really considering taking Altair back to this beautiful bay to play around some more, possibly next winter.  It is a place I like to return to year after year.

Hawaii Video

I made a video of the Hawaii trip, and here it is!

Return to Hawaii

 I've been off again, having adventures! 
This time I went to Hawaii, to the Big Island, the one that is newest and sort of triangular (in my eye) and full of lava.  Fresh Lava.  Oh, that one, to the east! 
I'd been to Hawaii before, to Hilo, and from there I hitchhiked around the island a bit, but this trip was to be a more thorough expedition.  I brought along my trusty companion, Lindsay, and we were set to explore.
Hawaii has a big ridge of sorts that runs north to the south, and consequently there are two sides, the wet side (where Hilo is) and the dry side, or Kona.  On all sides there are lava beaches with black sand and some nice mosses that grow in the breaking surf.  Since the island is in the middle of the ocean, there is not a lot of calm waters around.  







I like the jungle a lot, but I can't show you pictures from inside it, because it is dark, so I was happy to find a tree that was standing outside in the sun, with its roots grasping around the crumbling lava on the shoreline.  Sadly it was a dead tree. 






The liquid hot magma comes up and out the volcanic vents, and then upon touching the atmosphere it transforms into lava, and flows down the flanks of the mountain.   As it flows downhill and finds the ocean it makes these sharp cliff edges (on the SE side) which crumble away slowly into the storming ocean and churning seas.  We never got to see the hot lava, though we wanted to badly and set about making plans, but it was too far away.  The lava is really interesting in the shape and color, as every flow is different and as the lava ages and weathers it changes a lot. 








We found some cool snails that slide around slickly on their slime.  Later we found out that they are not a native species.  Hardly anything is a native species here.  The Polynesians brought over a lot of plants and also some tasty food animals, then let them loose.  This was just the beginning.  As white people arrived they brought countless new life to the island, and it is still arriving.  We learned that Yellow Jackets are a recent addition, brought over by Walmart Christmas Trees.  They shipped the trees over and some Yellow Jackets came along with.   

 I went to this road closed sign once before.  It is in the National Park, where the lava flowed over the road and shut it down.

 There are a few neat animals on the islands, one of them is the Nene.  They are like Canada Gooses, and they honk a little and fly around and eat grass.  They are also quite protective of their territory, and this one came charging up to us as we were parked to look at them.  He (I think it was a he) then posted a sharp lookout and kept his beady eyes on us.  This is not unlike the hawaiian surfers, who are quite protective of the territory, and sometimes will charge or punish the howlies they find invading upon it.  We in fact, came into a primary contact with someone who found our car unsuited and perhaps invasive.  I don't know what it was we were doing wrong, but as we were camped at a spot near the north part of the island, we camped near another tent in a place where camping is allowed, but with a permit.  We of course did not have the permit, but were told by a local that the officials did not check the area.  The next morning, of course, someone came around to check on us, but after I told them that we didn't have a permit, he said it was our lucky day and let us be.  He then proceeded over to the other tent and asked loudly for the guy to come out and show his permit. 

Nobody came out of the tent, so he was rude for a bit more, loudly, then left.  We went snorkeling and came back to find the tent gone and our windshield wiper bent all out of shape, by an angry hawaiian (I think) bent on destruction from the annoyance of earlier.  I am suspecting the tent-sleeper in the matter, but I have no proof. 
Along with the Nene, there is another type of goose, a Mongoose!  Here is a picture of one up nice and close.  I think they are quite curious creatures, and possibly related to cats.  They are fast, however, fast enough to dodge cobras and other snakes (which they like to eat) so possibly their curiosity will not kill them.
As we were tromping around in the damp jungle of the Hilo side, we found a decaying smell brought to our noses and the drip of mildew upon our upper lips.  We did not, however, find many mushrooms.  Here is a small sample of some of the ones we did find:  A slime mold and a mushroom.  Luckily, we were able to make friends with a mycologist, who was able to identify the both for us, but I cannot remember the name.

There are Banyans all over the place, one of my most favoritist of trees.  I climbed a bit in this one.

 We found a lava tube to go spelunking in, but sadly the name has changed to "caving," but the fun is still the same.  It is dark and sharp corners await, and in this one there were a lot of cool colors from the lava flowing through it.  We didn't see the monster, but in the photo you can see it, so watch out!

 It rains nearly every day in Hilo, and we were caught unprepared one of the days, but luckily Lindsay found a big leaf to use.  It works nicely.

 This other leaf, however, would be a bad choice. 

 On North Point, or the northern point of the island, we found a great place with a dirt road in the middle of nowhere to camp and then played around in the wind.  It was blowing so hard it chopped my arms clean off!  I was able to get them back later. 

 South Point is another story, and many people go there and jump off the cliff edge to the waters below.  Here's a shot of the jumping place, and this is the landing zone.  Its a long ways down, something like 40-50 ft. 

 On the last day there we went up to the Mountains.  There are two main ones, Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.  Mauna Kea is a little taller, at 13,796 ft tall, and Mauna Loa is something like 200 ft shorter.  The main difference is in the build.  I am pretty sure that the most of Hawaii is actually based on Mauna Loa, because it is a true shield volcano, with really slowly sloping sides and the most gentle of grade.  This makes it gigantic, which fits in the name.  Mauna Loa means Long mountian.  It is huge.  In fact, as the people say, it is apparently 50,000 ft tall because it descends down to the sea floor, and then it has pushed the crust down another 10,000 ft beyond the ocean floor by the enormous weight.  So, Big.  Sprouting off to the north side (in my eyes) is a cinder cone, with steeper slopes and few lava flows.  This is Mauna Kea.  There are a lot of very expensive telescopes on Mauna Kea, while the heights of the Long Mountain hold up the atmospheric observatories.  We got to go up there and explore the observatories guided by an excellent astronomer, who was looking at the solar atmosphere through telescopes.  There are collection sites for various particle assessments there and most famous, the Keeling building is where they collect the CO2 measurements for the famous Keeling Curve, where they first found the global CO2 levels to be rising.  This is sort of the birthplace of Climate Science, or at least the birthplace to Global warming, I think. 

It began to snow while we were on the top, so we headed back, and discovered a very cold bicyclist coming down the hill.  He was in the severe stages of hypothermia, and we got him into the car and fed him sugar, warm water and finally quesadillas.  I think the mexican style food made the difference in warming his heart at the end, so he was fine.  As he got picked up by his wife in their van, I took this shot of the place the bikes had been lying in the gravel in the rain.

We went over to Mauna Kea to look at the telescopes, but the snow had shut down the road to the top, and we had to content ourselves with the view from the visitors center.  It was a nice night with a near full moon on the rise and a good end to a great trip. 

A tale of two Tables

I've driven, then thanks-given, and kept on livin', then thanksgiven again. 
After the road trip, but before being allowed to go back to Bellingham, I was invited over to my brother's girlfriend's parents for a turkey toasting.  They live in Bellevue, up in a fantastic tower, with clean-ness all over it.  I was surprised they let me in, but they are kind hearted souls, and not afraid of the dirty, I guess.  Abe had brought venison, smoked salmon, wild rice, and nettles; basically the whole meal, though there was a turkey looking mighty tasty sitting on the table as well. Katrina's family was there, so I took a family shot.  They have a very proper dog, with immaculate etiquette and good floor manners.  

 Abe and Katrina also made some pies, which were all delicious. 

 The table, which of course this whole blog is about, was set white and clean, with three sets of plates.  I only used one set, but that just showed my ignorance.  Everyone knows that to properly thank sgiving you have to have at least three plates.  Here is a shot of the venison sitting proudly and prettily in the midst of civilization.  

 We came back to Bellingham on Friday (and a very Black Friday it was), and I got to see my precious Altair for a little bit, to check her spirits and bilge level, then on Sunday I got to give thanks again at my mother's place, around a less square table, with my family. 

 After all this delicious feasting and fattening up of my fatted calves (on my legs) I've been doing a bit more wondering about where the food comes from, and just today I had an excellent lesson from my brother Abe about how to prepare wild rice for consumption.  It is a lengthy process to go from stalking the stalks in the wading ponds to pulling the husks and turning golden into black.  The good parts are black like mini mouse terds, while the husks are a beautiful golden fluffy color, but they blow away nicely in the winds, like so much chaff.

 The rice is hard to separate completely, so it takes a lot of work on the machine abe has set up, then finally hand picking out the golden pellets at the end. 

 Its been really cold lately, and as a result water is getting pulled up from the earth and freezing into little pillars of ice.  They go crunch when you walk and it is great.  The light is really pretty when the skies are clear and the sun is setting, so since I had my camera out, I took a few shots near my dad's place.

Tomorrow I fly out to Hawaii, to the Big Island, for a two week trip out there with my friend Lindsay.  I hope to have lots of cool pictures and maybe a story or two and even a scar, or a tattoo on my face, or some wild Hawaiian thing.