The Only Thing Holding Me Down is Velcro
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Preparations

I've spent the last few weeks loading and unloading the boat with gear and personal belongings I think I'll need while on the hook. I closed out a substantial storage unit and placed a lot of audio visual gear on the 24' Del Rey sailboat. I even raced it with all of that gear and boy, did it tracked well in a blow! I sold it to a young guy for $500.00 and unloaded the boat onto the dock next to Shearwater. It took me three days to stow it all. I finally had to rent another storage unit for most of the AV gear. As Jimmy Buffet said, "I got too much stuff".

Just had a childhood flash of me at four years old in Santa Monica. I was in an alley-way behind our house holding a mostly empty suitcase. I told my mother I was running away to Mexico. She told me, "OK" and let me walk down a ways and then I soon turned back. Another time, while living in an apartment complex in a corner of Playa Del Rey called "The Jungle", we kids wandered south outside the limits of the neighborhood. Upon returning I claimed to my mother that "We went to Mexico". Just one trip in the back of my Father's produce truck to Mexico's border town, Tijuana made a big impression on me. At least I knew which way was south. I've been there many times since and will return again someday but much further south.

Incidently, that same stretch along The Jungle is where I'll be parking my car for free while I'm offshore. It's just a hop over Ballona Creek from Marina Del Rey to get to the car. Every other place has street-sweeping days where you have to move your car or get a ticket. You can spend $60.00 a month to securely park your car. There's no free parking in Los Angeles.

I sold enough gear to buy a great hard dinghy, a solid little nine-footer with built in flotation, a storage locker, two sets of bronze oarlocks, a riding bit in the bow, a built-in centerboard and a complete lateen sail rig, all for $250.00. It's registered as a Fisher-Price which happens to be the early brand-name of Boston Whaler. Think I'll name her PLAYSKOOL, with the letters placed all askew on the transom and then add in smaller letters, "Made by Fisher-Price". It's got the look of a miniature 11' or 13' Whaler. The centerboard trunk protrudes into the water for about four inches, so the boat tracks real well when rowing. I need to pry out the centerboard which is stuck in the well. For now, I'm glad it's stuck up in there. I've got a regular Marconi-type, two piece mast with a luff groove/halyard set-up for which I'll only need to find a small sail to be in business. The big triangular lateen rig is too cumbersome for efficient sailing. I like to sail back and forth to the dinghy docks in Catalina. There's so many rubber boats with expensive motors, it's nice to do something different, plus it's not noisy or polluting.

I acquired three 8HD gel batteries that are only a year old. There were used to power a Duffy Electric boat. The owner switched over to a new battery type and let these go. They list for about $395.00 new. I got all three for $150.00 total. They're about 148 lbs. each, but yield about 265 amp hours each when new. I can barely lift them. I installed one on the starter bank along with a 70 amp hour type 27 battery. It rides in a well that used to hold four smaller batteries. I put another on the house bank, stored under my studio desk on the starboard side. The third one is installed in the port-side cockpit locker in a space forward that is usually impossible to reach unless you empty the whole locker. I ran heavy cable back to the starter battery in order to be able to charge it. I'll disconnect it and leave it in reserve. I figure I've now got about 900 amps hours of DC juice to work with. The grumpy little 21 hps Universal diesel is quite happy to start now. What he doesn't know is that for now he is going to have to run an awful lot to put all that electricity back into those big batteries or at least until I can install a wind generator/solar panel combo.

Why so much power? Well, I do run a complete video editing bay in two computers, mixer, two monitors, printer, etc. I'm able to run it all without any ill effects off of one little 250 watt inverter. The only measurements of current draw I can make for now is in voltage. I can see a drop in a hundredth of point per ten minutes. An amp meter is in order. Possibly a small generator? We'll see how fast it drains in use once I start computing without the shore-power charger on.

I'll be without Internet access (accept for the Blackberry: email and limited browsing) for a while until I can get an 802.11b wi-fi card in one of my towers. I can't afford a laptop just yet for use at wi-fi hotspots in town. http://www.catalinas.net in Avalon on Catalina Island has created a super wi-fi hotspot in town. They have antennas aimed from the Green Pier and from the Casino across the water to give any boat with a vertical antenna wireless coverage. They are splitting up a T1 connection between five email kiosks in town that the tourists can use and whoever else is on the line. They say I can expect 300 kbps on the water. For $36.00 a month I can do live, wireless webcasts from the boat while I'm on a mooring in Avalon. The mooring rates drop in mid-September and make Avalon affordable. Most of the summer boaters have gone home, making more moorings available. I think I'll be spending a lot of time in Avalon this winter.

Velcro? Well, yes, a lot of the preparations for cruising require using the Velcro that has the peel-away adhesive on one side. So, I spent a day cutting small pieces of both the hook side and the nappy side and sticking them on the bottom of TVs, video decks, printer, accessory bowls, picture frames and the microwave. We have sailed in recent years, but we always stow things low in soft berths or dog them with books so they are wedged in their spot. At some point in the sail something always goes flying with a bang that we missed or didn't secure well enough. I bolted the VGA monitor's base down and strapped down the top. The computers and big battery are held in place by a teak strip screwed in securely at the foot. I'm ready for 6-8' seas and 15 degrees of heel.
Velcro is great in that it becomes even more secure as the little hooks work their way into the fuzzy side. It takes both arms to wrest a TV from a boxed, four-sided Velcro application. If only I could use Velcro for anchoring....????

Noel

Getting Ready To Move Offshore
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Goin' Cruisin'
After 15 years of living aboard Shearwater with wife, Diane and dog, Holli I am now about to be "Alone Again....Naturally" (Thanks, Gilbert). The plan had been for me to get a smaller boat (which I did....Frodo) and cruise south, starting with Baja. The wife, now my ex, wanted to stay here and work and live on the boat, but, instead decided to buy a big power boat to live on and hopefully invite her aging mother to live on as well. I give her points for her 12 years of living on Shearwater and for at least staying on the water. Also, big points to her for seeing and facing reality, taking care of herself and being a real friend. It really is the nicest gift you have ever given me, my Dear Girl. Sincerely. Thanks. So, now I push out old Shearwater into the Pacific with older sails, rigging and aged mechanical systems, to live "on the hook" along the coast and possibly find a home on Catalina Island. I look forward to clean water and many ocean passages & adventures up & down the Southern California coast. The Journey begins Monday, August 2, 2004.