Christmas!

...and just like that, Eolian is decorated!

Merry Christmas!

 As in the last couple of years, we aren't going to decorate the outside - the winter storms out here at the far end of D-dock are just too destructive.

Christmas!

A Tale of Two Marinas

If you are a liveaboard (or near-liveaboard, as we are now), then your marina is your neighborhood.  When we moved Eolian from Shilshole Bay Marina in Ballard (Seattle) to Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes, we changed neighborhoods.

We love having Eolian at Cap Sante Marina in Anacortes!  There are no locked gates at the marina, nor are they needed.  The docks are new, and the space for mooring Eolian is eight feet wider(!) than our space on G-Dock at Shilshole.  There is WiFi in the marina, and it is free.  Just about anything you might want is within easy walking distance of the dock (restaurants, pubs, West Marine, grocery, pharmacy, NAPA, etc, and even driver's license bureau).  And it is a hop skip and jump from the San Juan Islands.

But.

But I miss the community at Shilshole.  At Shilshole, 300 slips are (arbitrarily...) designated by management as liveaboard slips.  Of course, this creates an artificial shortage, with a wait list, additional fees, etc.  But it also means that somewhere between 300-500 people live in the neighborhood, creating an ever-changing community of like-minded souls.  Tho we have made friends at Cap Sante (Hi Ed & Lisa!  Hi Parker & Carol!  Hi Jonathan & Sarah!), the atmosphere is very different.  Instead of liveaboards, many (most?) of the boats on our dock have "boat managers", who make sure that there are fresh flowers on the saloon table when the owners arrive - not at all like the liveaboard/DIY group at Shilshole.

A picture is worth a thousand words...  Here's a comparison of the night views of the two marinas this Christmas season:

Shilshole Bay marina

Cap Sante marina

Now, in fairness, I must note that there is one boat whose lights didn't show up in the Cap Sante picture because they were obscured by another boat.  Here it is:

So why is it that one marina has a vibrant liveaboard community and the other does not?  Part of it is simply numbers - Shilshole is a much larger marina, with approximately 1500 slips, and as I mentioned earlier, 300 liveaboard slips.

Part of it is due to the actions of one very special individual at Shilshole, Angela Brosius, whose dynamic personality has helped to create and foster a community there.

Part of it is location.  Shilshole is located in a very high rent housing area - I am certain that living aboard is an economical alternative to the high rents ashore for some (but by no means all) of Shilshole's residents.

Neither marina encourages liveaboards.  Few marinas do.  I do not know all the reasons for this position, but I suppose one might be that it is very difficult for a marina to encourage responsible liveaboards while discouraging the hoarders with near-derelict boats that barely float.  For more on this subject, I refer you to an article which recently appeared in the Victoria, BC Times Colonist.

Maybe we need an Angela here...

A Tale of Two Marinas

Merry Christmas!

May the peace and quiet joy of Christmas be with you and your loved ones. Merry Christmas from the crew of Eolian!

Merry Christmas!

Hung By The Chimney With Care

No stockings, but Santa's hat is hung by the chimney with care, hoping to dry out in time for the overnight deliveries.

And by the way, notice that the glass in the Dickenson is nice and clear - for a nominal price I replaced the old one.  It had become a little cloudy and frosted over the decades, I assume by the reaction between ash, glass and high temperatures.





Merry Christmas to all!  May visions of AIS transponders, chart plotters and new sails dance in your heads!

Hung By The Chimney With Care

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas in Anacortes

With a population of 16,000, Anacortes has less than a third of the population of Ballard, our old stomping grounds when we had Eolian berthed at Shilshole.  But 16,000 folks is plenty to create a complete community.  With the emphasis on community.

The way Anacortes celebrates Christmas is an example of that community.  The first event that we attended was the lighting of the town Christmas tree, scheduled to happen at 18:30.  But it was delayed somewhat because of the cat-herding needed to get the elementary and junior high school choirs into place and organized.  

Of course the event was well-attended.  It seemed like the whole town was occupying (but in a nice way!) the intersection of 8th & Commercial streets.  The choirs sang, there were bands, and dignitaries, and of course, Santa Claus!

The very next day there was a Christmas parade!  Most of Commercial street was blocked off and despite the blustery weather, became lined with folks - and lots of little kids.  There were floats, fire trucks, bands (some of the same ones), and of course Santa!  Actually, there were four Santas (including a blue/green one, dressed in Seahawk colors), so I assume parents had some difficult questions to answer.

All the kids lining the parade route got to harvest candy thrown by every vehicle, float, etc that made the route.  The best prepared kids had grocery bags to carry their haul.  The rest had to make do with overflowing pockets.

Some kids did not brave the weather (and missed out on the candy!)

Christmas in Anacortes is a real community experience.  We love it!

Christmas in Anacortes

Merry Christmas!

The old curmudgeon down at the end of G Dock extends his hand, and we grasp it. He
covers our hand with his other one and shakes twice, firmly.

And he says, “Merry Christmas t'ye and t'yer family.  Keep 'em close.  And let's all pray for peace.”

Merry Christmas!

Waterproof??

New addition!

There's a new addition to Eolian's Christmas decorations this year:  that Christmas tree on the bow pulpit!   We got it a couple of years ago in the after-Christmas clearance sales for $5, I think.  There was a surprise when I turned it on for the first time... It slowly (or quickly!  adjustable!) changes from white to blue and back again.  Cool!  Goes with the blue lites strung up the forestay, across the triatic and down to the mizzen boom.

Waterproof??

And that brings us to the frustration.

Before I strung those blue lites up again this year, I plugged them in to check them.  There was only one segment in the first strand that was lit - all but one of the segments were dark.  And there were dark segments in the second and third strands as well.  So I painstakingly went thru, LED by LED, to look for problems.  What I found was discouraging. 

It seems that these particular LEDs have leads made of iron.  I am not familiar with the manufacturing process for LEDs, but one would suspect that those intended for use in an outdoor environment would not use tiny, fine, iron wires.  Nevertheless, these did.  That pile of bulbs represents hours of fingernail-tearing work in the cold, pulling hundreds of bulbs.  The failures all had leads which had disintegrated into rust powder.  And perhaps not surprisingly, the fixtures themselves are only vaguely waterproof.  I suppose I am getting my just deserts for buying the cheapest lite strands I could find.

So, after I finally had all the segments glowing once more, I strung them up.

Rats.

One segment went out (it's near the mizzen mast). 

Waterproof??

Merry Christmas!

All is well here on Eolian, in this Christmas season, tho there is no snow here at sea level like there was in 2004. A blessing perhaps, but the snow makes everything prettier, the blanket of white reducing everything to the basics.

But really, isn't that a good thing - reduction to the basics? To shed all the chaff of everyday life - all those things that seem so important when we are in the midst of our self-created chaos? And to focus on those things that really matter.

This is relatively easy for liveaboards, since they simply do not have room for all those things - things that eventually own you. Cruisers have an even easier job of it.

And so for this holiday season, it is our wish to you that you can cast off the lines which bind you up and find Peace.

Peace to you, and Peace on Earth.

Merry Christmas!

Bob & Jane
s/v Eolian

Merry Christmas!

A sixty foot tree

(From 2010, when the lites were new)

Every year, the Marina sponsors a Christmas lighting contest. This year, we put up our 125' strand of deep blue LED's (2 - 50' strands and 1 - 25' strand) as usual, running from the bowsprit, to the top of the mainmast, roughly paralleling the triatic stay to the top of the mizzenmast, and then down to the end of the mizzen boom. But this year, the winds have been horrific. At this moment, we have one segment (however many LED's it takes to add up to 120 volts) that is just plain out and two more segments that drift in and out of illumination, depending on wind and rain.

But it is this Christmas tree over on F dock that should win the prize. It's hard enough getting our simple display of lites up - I wonder how he does it?

A sixty foot tree

Merry Christmas!

From the crew of Eolian to you and yours,

May the joy and hope of

Christmas fill your hearts the

whole year through

Merry Christmas!

Lighted dinghies and engine foibles

The first time, a few years back, there were maybe four or five dinghies.  And if I remember correctly, only one was lit up - the rest of us waved flashlights or something.  But that was several years ago, and my memory is not known for its accuracy (maybe we were all balanced on floating logs, paddling along and waving flaming torches).

Rudolph leads the way

But this year, all the dinghies had some kind of lighting, and the lead dinghy even had a sound system (along with Rudolph) so that we didn't have to sing.  Wait!  No singing?  Well, with the dinghies strung out over perhaps a quarter-mile, singing was always a little problematic - getting us all to sing in time with each other, or even the same song, was not easy.  But aside from being practical, the electronic form took some of the folksiness and charm out of it, I think.

Wanting to be full participants, we rigged Eolian's dinghy with the handle from our deck brush as a mast, and strung a string of lites from the stern, over the mast and down to the bow.  These were battery-operated LED lites, and were full-on kitsch because they blinked and changed colors.

Of course, the final bit is that the dinghy outboard, our not-so-trusty 2 HP motor, should run so that we could stay in the conga line.  So yesterday afternoon I put the dinghy down and started the engine, just to make sure.  Well tried to start the engine.  In the end, I had to take the spark plug out and heat it on the stove to burn off the oil and water on it.  And then when the engine did start, it would never get anywhere near full power output - and believe me, when you only have 2 HP, you need all 2 HP.  The smell of the exhaust told me that the gas was old.

So I drove the dinghy up and down the waterway, trying to heat up the motor to dry out any condensation in the ignition system, and trying to burn off the old gas.

I give Brent & Jill the prize
for the most lights

But last nite, at the moment of truth when everyone was leaving to go over to A Dock to form up, it wouldn't start.  And so once again, we were participants, but we were ignominiously towed participants, towed by Brent & Jill, our slip-mates.  But even that turned out great.  As luck would have it, Brent's warming libation unexpectedly ran out just before we got to the F/G Dock waterway, and so we had to stop at our home slip for a refill.  And then we got invited below, and...

The end of G Dock, and Eolian's
interrupted strand of blue lites

Well, we sipped and gabbed while the second half of the parade went on, down below in the warm.  And we later walked down to the yacht club which was the designated endpoint for the parade, where drinks and goodies were to be had.  In fact, we got there on foot just as the water-borne parade contingent arrived.

So maybe having an unreliable engine can be a good thing after all...

---

Postscript: a new sparkplug cured the engine woes. Well actually two new sparkplugs.  I discovered that sparkplugs do not float.

Lighted dinghies and engine foibles

Cover girls

Look what was posted on the dock-head bulletin board...

Recognize a boat there?  The three lit-up boats are Ghost (on the left), Eolian (blue lites, on the right), and Ambition (multi-color, on the right).

Cover girls

Joyous Christmas!

From the crew of Eolian to you and yours,

Joyous Christmas!

(And let's all pray for peace on Earth)

Joyous Christmas!

Lighted dinghies, 2010

Ghost's lit up dinghy
(picture shamelessly lifted from Angela's Facebook)

The run-up to Christmas continues here at the marina.  Sunday nite was our third (?) annual lighted dinghy parade.  In this event, we tie a bunch of dinghies together in a line and putt up and down the waterways between the docks singing Christmas carols.  Well, we try to sing carols.  If we can remember the words.  And if the front of the line and the back of the line can keep synchronized.  That is harder than you might imagine, because we are strung out so far (there were 10 dinghies in the line this year).

Of course, the lights are a big part of this.  Sadly, the only light we had was a red LED flashlight, but we waved it merrily (lites on Eolian this year, lites on the dinghy next year).  Scott and Angela get the prize (from me anyway) for the best lit dinghy - they even rigged a bowsprit so that they could show more lights!  And adding to the display, the battery Scott put into the dinghy to run the lites was kind of low on charge - the little inverter he used to power the lights kept kicking off due to low voltage, making Ghost's dinghy the one with the flashing lites!  I think it added a great note to the celebration.

And amazingly, it didn't rain!

Lighted dinghies, 2010

It's beginning to look...

I am guilty of committing a holiday faux pas. And I feel shame.

Last weekend, I was so excited to see our first-time ever Christmas lites on Eolian that I turned them on. Before December 1 (can you imagine?).

Lonely lights

It was a lonely set of lites that greeted you out there at the end of G Dock. But I thought they looked great!

But ah, now. Now the whole end of the dock is lit up in festive splendor! And tonite when I walked down the dock, I felt sorry for those folks who do not live aboard their boats, because they are missing something very special!

Lonely no more!

And down below on Eolian, things are festive too!

There is a wintery garland draped along the starboard side of the saloon,

a poinsetta and Christmas candle grace the saloon table,

stars float above us,









and we have our very own miniature Christmas tree!

This may all look a little minimalist, but don't forget the lite show outside...

It's beginning to look...

And there was light

A week or so ago, I talked with you about getting Eolian gussied up for the Christmas season.  Well, it's done.

It wasn't the cakewalk I had thought it was going to be - getting the lites up there without tangling, without knocking the covers off of the LED's (OK, one went into the water, and Jane reports that they don't float) was not easy at all.

First, tho I had planned to put up one string, then attach the second, and then attach the third, it didn't work out that way.  It turned out that I had to deal with the whole 100' of twisted Christmas lites all in one go.  Not only did they desperately want to tangle with themselves, they also reached out and grabbed onto anything they touched.

Eolian is a ketch - why not stretch the lites over the whole rig?  The plan was to have the lites go up the forestay to the top of the mainmast, across to the top of the mizzenmast, and then down the topping lift to the aft end of the mizzen boom.  Conceptually simple, but tricky to execute.  The hardest part was getting the lite string around the ends of the spreaders.

But they're up, and they look great!  Indeed, they are the deep, DEEP blue, the blue that you can't quite focus your eyes on.  And strung over Eolian's spars they make an impressive display!

Now if only they'll survive until Christmas.

And there was light

Sterile? Or gaudy?

Some people think all-white lites are sterile.  Some people think multi-colored lites are gaudy.  I fall somewhere between these two viewpoints... and I confess that I have been influenced by the Christmas lites we have seen at Whistler, BC. For some reason that probably doesn't bear too close an examination, I like the blue ones, the ones which seem almost too deep blue to really see well.

We've never decorated Eolian with lites for the Christmas season.  See, there is this problem with living on 30 amps - there was no power to spare.

This year, things will be different.  This year, LED Christmas lites have gotten inexpensive enough to be a financially practical alternative.

And why LED's you ask?  Well, because all three of these strands draw only 0.2 amps... combined!  Our electrical budget can afford that (I am ignoring the power consumed by that cute little $4 timer).

These three strands stretch a total of 100 feet, which should be enough to go up our forestay, across the triatic stay, and down the mizzen topping lift.  I know that I am going to have to rig some kind of reinforcement where the main and mizzen halyards hoist the lite strands...  it'll be an interesting problem to solve.

I'll post pictures when they are up and lit.

But that won't be until after Thanksgiving.

Sterile? Or gaudy?

Joyous Christmas!

"Unto you this day was born a Savior"

Rejoice!

Merry Christmas to you blog readers!

(photo from 2004 Seattle snowstorm)

Joyous Christmas!

Christmas Lights, 2009

I promised you this, and now here it is!

The view of the marina from the bluff above is beautiful on any evening, but this time of year, it is festive too!

For sailboats, there are two main lighting schemes which appear, sometimes in concert:

• Around the lifelines
• Up the forestay and down the backstay (if a ketch or schooner, then also along the triatic stay)

Here, Black Opal did both.

These sailboats on E Dock nicely filled the frame with lights.

Lacking a mast to create the tall sweep of lites, power boats get creative in other ways.  Here is an amazing Jimmy Buffet parrot (on Last Mango, I think.  But it was dark and hard to tell) I apologize that the picture is so crummy - taking 1 second exposures without anything moving is really hard when you stand on a floating dock, and the subject is a boat floating at another dock.

Those fan-inflated creatures were popular too.  This boat has three of 'em, completely covering (and more) his swim platform.

Even the Port of Seattle got into the action this year, decorating their snag scow (complete with a Red Tag flagging their non-compliance with their own policy for marine extension cords!)

Finally, tonight was the Christmas light boat parade, led off by two big Argosy tour boats, and followed by a host of smaller boats.

Santa was waving at us from the first boat as they went by!

Christmas Lights, 2009