A January to Remember

One down, one to go

January was quite the month!  In no particular order:

• Eolian's heat pump quit delivering heat.  It didn't take too long to determine why...  Tho the Freon pressure was acceptable when the compressor wasn't running, the suction side dropped to 0 psi when the compressor started.  We're nearly out of Freon!
  Clearly there is a leak, otherwise the Freon would still be in there.  The operative question is:  Is this a recent, big leak, or is this a long-term tiny leak?  The heat pump is about 5 years old, so I guess either is possible.
  I have ordered and have been delivered of a 5 lb container of the proper refrigerant, and a syringe full of leak-stop.  Now all I need is the opportunity to load those into the system.  But...
• Tho I am still recovering from the near-paralysis event I experienced late this summer, I had cataract surgery scheduled for January.  If you're not interested in this, skip ahead...
  A most interesting operation - takes about 15-20 minutes, and you are semi-conscious for the duration.  The room is darkened and you are staring into a bright light - you never really see the surgeon open your cornea, slide in an ultrasound probe that destroys your old lens and sucks out the pieces, and then slide in a new lens.  The anticipation is far worse than the operation.
  Here I am the day following - vision still a little cloudy and blurry - I was told to expect that.  But surprisingly, the view thru my new eye is quite different from my old one!  It is as if everything in my old eye is being viewed thru an amber/brownish filter.  Colors are much truer thru my new eye!  A huge and unanticipated advantage! 
  Other eye later in the month.  No more prescription sunglasses!  I can have Polaroid sunglasses!
• The heat exchanger in our gas furnace at our log cabin developed a leak - we could smell combustion products in the house when the wind blew.  It was under warranty, but the labor was going to be $1700.  Thankfully, the technician that confirmed the perforation of the heat exchanger assigned the cause to under-sized ductwork - ductwork that the technician's company had installed.  They agreed to eat the labor charges, as well as to modify the ductwork at their cost.  That was completed this week.
• Eolian's TV crapped out.  While we were watching it, it started to cycle thru red screen, blue screen, white screen, green screen, etc.  Nothing would break the cycle, including a last ditch bit of percussive maintenance.
  New TV ordered and installed last week.
• Tho it has less than 50,000 miles on it, the rebuilt engine that our Suburban's Previous Owner installed in it is obviously failing.  Aside from a defective valve lifter that randomly turns it into a 7-cylinder engine, it consumes a half a gallon of water for every tank of gasoline.  I have found and fixed all the leaks (there were many), but the water consumption continues.  I presume that the intake manifold is leaking into an intake runner (there's no water in the oil).  I have the receipts from the Previous Owner's engine - he got a Chevy long block for $1000 - that is an amazingly low price - apparently too low in fact.
  So the Suburban goes into the auto hospital for a new engine.  My son convinced me that I should save myself for working on the classics in the shop:  65 Mustang, 68 GTO, and the current project, 1959 Impala. So somebody else gets to wrangle this one.
• Oh, and I figured out how to make my Sailrite LSZ-1 sew successfully with Tenara thread...

And it's worth remembering, the month isn't over yet...

A January to Remember

The Storms of November

(from a couple of years ago)

The Storms of November* - Our fiercest winds usually come in November.  But not this year - November was a lamb...  a chilly lamb, but a lamb.

But we were not spared.  Instead, it seems that the storms were only delayed, until December.

As my physical condition slowly improves, we have been spending the occasional night aboard Eolian - This weekend we had planned to spend two successive nites, Sunday and Monday.

(Now I must digress slightly.  When we have strong winds in Anacortes, they almost invariably come in from the southeast.  With our slip, this means that Eolian is pushed back and away from the dock.  Normally this is a good thing, because we are not grinding the fenders between the hull and the dock.)

When we arrived on Sunday, the winds were in the teens, gusting into the 20s.  With some difficulty, we were able to pull Eolian over to the dock so that we could load our stuff and board.  But we made it.  The nite was windy, but we both slept well, knowing that the boat was safe.

On Monday we planned to drive to Bellingham.  But the winds were up even higher, gusting into the low 30s.  It was everything I could do to get her over to the dock so we could debark.

We did our thing in Bellingham, as the wind continued to rise.

By the time we got back to the marina in the late afternoon it was literally screaming.  Out at the end of the dock, I estimate that it was steadily in the upper 30 kt range, with gusts into well the 40s.  The gap between Eolian and the dock was as wide as ever, but there was simply no way that we could have moved her close enough to board, especially given my enfeebled condition.

So with discretion being the better part of valor, we retreated back to our Camano Island home, and left Eolian to fend for herself, alone.  We built a fire and enjoyed a glass of wind.  And I felt guilty for having left our girl to fend for herself.

The wind laid this morning, and we drove back up to Anacortes.  Eolian was fine with no damage.  We were able to board, perform our normal shutdown duties, and retrieve our "stuff".

And the weather forecast says another storm is coming this evening...

---

* Apologies to Gordon Lightfoot

The Storms of November 

Aboard Again!

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny, calm day - a good day to reboard Eolian for the first time because the wind wasn't holding her way off the dock...  she was snuggled right up against the fenders.

And we spent the night aboard, ending the longest hiatus away from her since we acquired her way back in 1997.

I still have quite a ways to go before we could consider taking her off the dock, but that's ok - we normally wouldn't do that this time of year anyway.

So...  its good and getting better!

Here I want to say thanks to the boating community for all the support, concern and help I’ve received over the past months.  It is wonderful to be a part of this community!

bob

Aboard Again!

Magnets, Again

Swallows are such graceful and skilled fliers - they are a joy to watch.

But when we kept our O'Day 25 in a marina on the Chesapeake it was too much of a good thing.  The marina was host to a huge flock of swallows who, it must be admitted, feasted on the clouds of mosquitos, keeping them at least somewhat in check.

But all that consumption had a resulting consequence...  Each time we visited the boat, it was absolutely completely covered with swallow exhaust.  For us, that meant that after driving the entire width of the state of Pennsylvania, with two tired kids and carts full of food, etc...  Dad had to get aboard the boat and spend two hours hosing off the swallow exhaust.  It was discouraging for all involved, to say the least.

At Shilshole Bay Marina, there was a big flock of some kind of small black bird that pretty much left the boats alone.  Well except in late summer and fall when there was some kind of purple berry ripening on the bluffs above the marina.  Then they would migrate en masse to some boat out in the marina, presumably randomly chosen, to dump their combined loads of purple exhaust.  Like everyone out on G-dock, we were the occasional recipients of this largesse.

Wait... weren't  we supposed to be talking about magnets, somehow... right?

Bird exhaust on boats is not a problem constrained to the Salish Sea.  Even half way around the world, in New Zealand, the problem exists.  With a world-wide problem, you'd think that someone would have come up with a solution by now.

Well, it just may be that someone has.  The list of things that seem like they should work, but actually do not is long and varied. And, it seems that Viki on s/v Wildwood in New Zealand has tried most of them, to little or no effect.

Until she hit on magnets.  Yes, magnets.

I'm not going to steal her thunder; it's her story to tell - read it here..  My purpose is to make her story known, and to ask whether others have tried her solution, or are willing to.  But as a teaser, here are two pictures I linked to from her blog post:

One week after cleaning; no magnets

One week after cleaning, with magnets

Magnets, Again