Sunrise rainbow at Shilshole

And the giving continues...

A special treat this morning, a sunrise rainbow. It's pink, because the dawn light is pink.

What you can't see is that exactly opposite to the rainbow, the sun had some low-lying fog illuminated with pinkish-golden lite.

What a gorgeous morning!

Sunrise rainbow at Shilshole

It just keeps giving

It's a summer that just keeps on giving.  Here we are at the end of September.  It is late,

with the moon rising over the boom, and yet it is still warm and comfortable - enough so that I have not yet closed up the boat for the nite. 

It is calm and quiet in the marina.  The water is a perfect sheet of black glass.  It is a magical evening.

I feel so very blessed to be able to live like this.

It just keeps giving

Seems easy, right?

 I mean, how hard could it be to keep rain water from running down the mast and into the cabin?  You make a mast boot, and seal it to the mast - probably using one of those jumbo-sized hose clamps as the final measure.  No leaks, right?

(BTW, being able to take this picture with the huge range of brightness between the sun-drenched mast outside and the shadowed mast inside is provided by a function called 'High Dynamic Range', part of the free - or was it 99¢? - iPhone app 'Top Camera' - I recommend the app for this capability as well as many others.)

Well, no. Despite all the measures, a recent rain revealed that I still have work to do here.

The picture is a little vague, but if you squint, you'll see those brown marks that show where water has snuck past the seal somewhere and run down the mast.  The brown stain is coloration leached from the teak wedges which hold the mast in position at the partners.

So I disassembled the seal I had built before.  Here's what I found:

• First, the silicone tape, tho it had bonded very well with the hose clamp, had not bonded well to the mast
• Next, because of the poor seal of the silicone tape, the long duration 3M tape underneath had turned to water-saturated mush.

After removing both, I applied a wrap of adhesive-backed aluminum foil (sold for sealing duct work) over the joint between the boot and the mast.  The thinking here is that the aluminum tape will not turn into mush on contact with water.

Finally, I re-applied the silicone tape, because it looks better.  (I hope I don't regret the decision to do this.  I am concerned about the paint bubbling up where moisture was trapped.  We'll see.)

Seems easy, right?

(not) Marine stores: Ballard Hardware

A while ago, I needed a street el.

No, this is not some kind of elevated train, you folks in Chicago.  A street el is a standard pipe elbow, but with one difference:  one side is male and one side is female.  You'd use one of these in order to eliminate a fitting, and to shorten up the completed assembly.  They are not as common as the common umm..  el.  But in a good hardware store you can usually find one.  Possibly even in the size you need.

But now it becomes difficult:  I needed a stainless steel street el, in order to hook up the water discharge from our new stainless steel exhaust manifold.

Where to go to find one?

I love living in Ballard!  Before it becomes completely gentrified, you can find just about anything marine-related you want (except not swaged wires or LeFiell mast fittings any more - University Swaging is now gone).

If you haven't tried it, you need to:  Ballard Hardware.  It's kind of like a regular hardware store, except they know marine stuff, and its on steroids.  Two examples:

Example 1:  The previous owner of Eolian set up a snubber for the anchor chain - a length of 3/4" line attached to the hull where the bobstay attaches, with a 3/8" chain grab hook on the other end to hook on the anchor chain.  When you hook it up and let out the rode until the snubber is taking the strain, the chain hangs slack at the bowsprit, a wonderful thing for peace and quiet at nite when your are trying to sleep down below at anchor in a blow.

But I digress.

The grab hook the original owner installed was galvanized, and was, by the time we took over caring for Eolian, severely corroded.  I looked high and low, trying to find a stainless version of the grab hook.  And then on a whim, I tried Ballard Hardware.  Sure they had one.  $15.  If West Marine sold them (and they don't), it would be for $65.95.  Wow.  I was an immediate convert.

Example 2:  Not being a slow learner, when I needed that stainless street elbow, I went straight to Ballard Hardware.  "Sure, no problem, " said the counter man.  And he took me back to the rabbit warren (yeah, it's still there, even tho there is a fancy new front end).  "What alloy do you want?"

Huh?

Not only was I going to be able to get a street el, in the size that I wanted, in stainless, but I was presented with a choice of alloys!

Yeah.  Ballard Hardware.

(not) Marine stores: Ballard Hardware