The End of February

This will be one of those rare Friday nights we spend at home!  It is supposed to be close to freezing tonight and might even snow (hasn't snowed at sea level here since 1976!) so we decided to stay home and maybe do some house cleaning and laundry and exciting stuff like that versus burn a bunch of diesel trying to keep the boat warm.  I'm sure we'll head over to the boat tomorrow.  We have a couple of small project we want to knock out (mounting our USCG documentation number board is one) that will provide opportunities for more blood and gore aboard Pineapple Girl II.

I forgot to mention that the harbormaster at Treasure Island last weekend asked if we knew a particular person from Coyote Point.  The person he asked about just so happened to be the fellow that bought the original Pineapple Girl from us.  Another interesting coincidence that weekend was that the original Ada Helen is berthed at TI!  Our good friend Joe, pictured a couple of posts down, has owned three Catalinas of increasing size, all named Ada Helen for his mom.  He thought the original Ada Helen (a 27) was still in the Bay Area but he did not know where.  Ada Helen II (a 36) is now owned by one of Matt's brothers and is called Seabiscuit and Joe still has Ada Helen III (a 42) and is the slip across from us at Coyote Point.  The boating world can be even smaller than the "regular" world!

President's Day Weekend

First of all, I heard on the news today that the holiday is officially WASHINGTON'S BIRTHDAY and NOT President's Day at all!  Wikipedia agrees.

In any case, we took advantage of the three day weekend to take the boat to Treasure Island.  We had originally planned to go to Angel Island but between the forecast of rain and the original instigator's of the trip backing out, we decided to go somewhere with docks so we did not have to use the dinghy to get back and forth.  Using the dinghy is fun, but less so in the rain.  We'd never been to Treasure Island, it is only two hours away, they had dock space... so, off we went Saturday morning. 

Our first stop was the pump out station.  However, things did not go well.  We inserted the ...mmmm.. wand (?? for want of a better term) flipped the valve and ... nothing much happened.  We could see some liquid flowing but nothing like the fast suction it usually has.  After fiddling with it for about ten minutes we decided that we had plenty of space in the holding tank for a three day weekend (YAY 30 gallon holding tank) so we took off.  Over the weekend we did some research and determined that the vent line to the holding tank might be clogged.  We thoroughly checked it out and it seemed fine.  Matt had another opportunity to cut himself in the process.  There are lots of sharp things in the engine room.  We called the marina on our way back Monday and told him our issue.  We went straight to pump out when we got back and Peter from the marina office came down and reported he's removed a clog and pretty much asked us if we were responsible for the item that he found clogging the pipe.  I can assure you, on our boat we do not flush ANYTHING that has not been through the human digestive system. The item he came across is not something we would flush on land either!  Come on people, use some common sense!  The good news is, we were able to empty our tank; the bad news, Matt cut his elbow for no reason (trying to fix the vent that was not, in fact, broken).

OK, on to the trip report.  For those not familiar with it, Treasure Island was built in the late 1930s to house the World's Fair (Golden Gate International Exposition) of 1939.  It was also meant to be the San Francisco terminal for the China Clippers, seaplanes which flew a six day route (with over night stops) from SF to, you guessed it, China!  The island was meant to remain as an airport after the expo but the military took it over as WWII broke out.  The island today is rather a strange juxtaposition of business and boarded up buildings.  Supposedly there are residences out there but we did not see them. We mainly explored the south and east sides and we did not see the raised walkway referenced in this article. 

It rained the entire way up Saturday but really it was not that bad as there was no wind and the seas were flat.  Once we arrived we realized we were right next to The Winery with wine tasting so we went over and did a full flight tastings (we shared one flight of eight wines).  We were really looking forward to being toasty and warm inside the winery but it was actually really cold.  It was inside one of the old airplane hangars so I guess I can see why heating it was probably a lost cause.  After we finished the tasting flight we each got a glass of the one we liked best and set off to explore the hangar.  I have a feeling we were in parts of it we REALLY weren't supposed to be in, but in any case it was quite interesting in a creepy kind of way.

Sunday was clear and we set off around the south and east sides of the island to see what we could see.  We walked past the two (!!) other wineries on the island, along with the abandoned gas station and a few dozen other abandoned buildings, three really nice baseball fields and all sorts of other interesting things. 

Monday we left around 11 and found the bay to be a bit choppy.  There was a very strong current bringing water into the bay and the wind was blowing from the opposite direction from usual, which happened to be in the opposing direction to the way the water was flowing.  This causes steep, unpleasant chop.  Leaving TI we were on the East side of the Bay and we needed to be on the West side.  We cut across on a long diagonal to attempt to keep the chop at the best angle to our boat.  It was a slow slog across but once on the West side the bay was smoother and we were able to speed up a bit.  As slow as we had been going, with the current in our direction it sill took us almost the exact same amount of time to get back as it did to get there.

Here are a few photos.

Project Update...

This past weekend we finally took apart and fixed our automatic bilge pump.  This is an extremely important piece of safety equipment.  This bilge pump has a float switch so if water is somehow rising in the bilge the float switch will be tripped and the bilge pump will come on and start pumping the water overboard.  If there is more water coming in than the bilge pump can handle, when the water gets high enough and extremely loud bell will start sounding the "high water alarm."  We were having a bit of water in the bilge from our starboard shaft packing, which we have since replaced, and we were running the bilge pump manually to keep the bilge dry.  We noticed that our primary bilge pump, the one on the float switch, was running but not sucking up any water.  So we ordered the rebuild kit and Saturday was the day to fix it.  Matt originally wanted to work on it in place but quickly decided he'd be better off to remove it and work on it in the comfort of the saloon.  One of the drawbacks of our engine room is it is a bit difficult to clamber in and out of, so Matt grabbed a stool that was in the saloon to use as a seat and a step.  It made a fine seat but wasn't so  great as a step.  I was in the galley getting the cinnamon rolls into the oven when I heard a big clatter followed by some cussing.  There was Matt, sprawled out in the engine room.  He hopped up and said he was fine, then he kind of turned gray and said he had to go lie down.  I was seriously worried he'd broken something.  He had a huge knot under his knee and he'd cut one of his toes and was leaving a bloody trail in the engine room. 

I think it was all a ploy to get me to take the bilge pump apart.  While he was icing his knee I got the old diaphragm out and the new one in.  There appeared to be a small hole in it and there was a piece of zip tie in there that may have been keeping the diaphragm from pumping up and down like it is supposed to.  We also replaced the in and out valves as they were in the kit.  Matt had recovered enough by this point to help get the new valves in and to put the pump back together.  He then went back to the engine room (I'd cleaned up the blood) to put the pump back. He was having a hard time reaching it to put the hose clamps back on the intake and discharge so he got me to climb in there.  I was able to get a lot closer to the pump so I ended up remounting it while he ate most of the cinnamon rolls (?!). 

Also this weekend we replaced our anchor chain with the correct type chain for the windlass.  Hopefully this will take care of our problem with the chain wanting to skip off the windlass.  There are I think three types of chain and the type the rode was made from is not the type the windlass was meant to use.  Here is Matt attaching the new chain in the anchor locker.

A friend gave us an inverter from his old boat (it had failed and he'd sent it back to be rebuilt but meanwhile had bought and installed a new one so he did not need this one).  It will be a job to install but we started planning out where and how we were going to do it.  We have a good friend at the marina who has offered to help and actually seems happy to do it, which is really nice!

Our canvas guy brought the screen covers for the windshield. He has a lot more of the canvas close to done but ran out of thread!  He is making covers for all the exposed wood and as soon as those covers are done we plan to give the wood a fresh coat of varnish then get it under cover.  This should mean that with one touch up coat a year the wood will never have to be stripped and completely redone.  We hope. 

We also finally got mineral oil to oil our countertops.  What a difference it makes.

We plan to go to Angel Island for President's Day weekend.  One of our friends is planning to go and they invited us to bring our boat along as well.  It is supposed to rain all week but hopefully clear up for Sunday and Monday.

Photos

This is Matt and our friend Joe having a very important logistical discussion before we headed off to Sausalito for New Year's weekend. 

 This is the boat at the slip we were in at the marina in Sausalito.  It was a bit of a tight squeeze.  We towed the dinghy up there and ended up not using it as the weather was not all that great.

Here is the dinghy behind the car after we finally got the hitch installed and got the trailer and dinghy transferred into our names.  Yay!

We finally took the CF numbers (California registration) off and put our mini pineapples on!

Here is Chef Matt hard at work in the galley.

And here is the new set-up in the aft shower!  I forgot to take a before picture but we had a two handled faucet and a different sprayer with no height adjustment.  This one also has the flow saver button where you can turn the water to a trickle at the shower head to save water while you soap up without losing your temperature adjustment.  Well, except when you are running out of hot water!