Five Years!

In the past five years:

Hours: 370.9 hours port motor, 366.2 starboard (we've had issues with this meter) and 153 on generator. 

Purchased 1220.65 gallons of diesel for $4678.51. 

Projects since purchase September 2010: 

 

Windlass: new wildcat and friction discs 

Power reverse added 

Remote control purchased, to be installed 

 

Canvas: 

Sunbrella covers for:  

Windlass 

BBQ 

Teak railngs 

Windshield and doors 

Screen covers for all windows 

Hatch covers 

Fender storage bags at back of flybridge 

 

Interior: 

Refinished sole in vee berth, galley and salon 

 

Freshwater electric heads 

 

Galley updated:  

corian countertops 

Fisher Paykal dishwasher drawer 

Kenyon smooth surface two burner range 

Large stainless sink 

Pull out faucet 

Bottle storage 

Sharp convection microwave 

Custom undercounter storage 

 

Inverter and 6 6v house battery bank 

New 30amp shore power inlet 

 

30 gallon holding tank 

 

Raymarine A60 at flybridge

2 flat screen TVs 

Yamaha receiver and Boston acoustic surround sound in salon 

  

Uline stainless icemaker.  

 

New showerhead and faucet handle in master shower 

2014 Bottom taken down to gel coat, blisters repaired, epoxied, faired and barrier coated.  Port shaft and coupling replaced 

 

Additional lighting in salon and aft stateroom 

 

Normal maintenance like oil changes; impellers, shaft packing, fuel and oil filters 

replaced 

 

Dinghy motor hoist 

 

Starboard engine 8D starting battery July 2015

We're in Martinez with our club and Merroplitan YC for the Martinez YC Parrothead Party tonight. 

Underway today

Last weekend we went to the cove and had it all to ourselves for a very pleasant overnight. Unfortunately the main fin came off my paddleboard- I must have lost it in the weeds. I've got a new one on order. 

We got to the boat late last night after dropping a car off at the mechanic's marina in Antioch. We put the new sliding window in place this morning but we forgot the glue / sealant to put the fixed piece back in.  We waited for the ebb tide in the early afternoon and now we are underway to Antioch to leave the boat at the mechanic then hop in the car to head to Pittsburg for dinner with some Trawler Forum friends. 

Labor Day Weekend

We spent Labor Day weekend on an Ox Bow Cruise Out at Decker Island, a spot called Horseshoe Bend that is just off the Sacramento River. We were all sterned into the island, at a spot with a nice beach at low tide. The current was ripping through pretty hard, which led to our first broken glass of the weekend....

We were coming in to side tie alongside a boat with higher freeboard than we have. The current pushed us into them pretty hard and with the height difference, their gunwale (the upper edge of the side of their boat) was in the middle of our stanchions (the stainless posts that hold up our handrail). The current was pushing us against them so hard that the stanchions were bending in. I was pushing against them, trying to create some space so we could pull forward and get off of them. I could not get us off them so Matt ran down from the helm.

We were both pushing as hard as we could when I heard a CRACK. My first thought was the teak handrail had broken. That would truly be a catastrophe as the railing is a work of art. I couldn't see the wood because it the cover was on it. I had kind of a sick feeling of dread... Then I heard Matt behind me cussing and turned to find the cracking sound was actually the window cracking from where Matt had braced himself to push off the other boat. It was the sliding part of the window and we should be able to replace it for around $60. Plus all the time it is going to take us to remove and reinstall the entire window :rolleyes:

Also broken over the weekend: one clock and one champagne glass. Turns out glass is a modern third anniversary gift. Guess Pineapple Girl was mad we didn't bring her anything?

In three years we have put 286.6 hours on the port engine, 282.2 on the starboard (probably really closer to equal to the port as we had a time the starboard hour meter wasn't working) and 88.2 hour on the generator. We've put in 902.6 gallons of diesel at a total price of $3477.26. For all the fun we've had, it's "a bargain at any price."

Night Boating II

Two weeks after explaining why we haven't been out at night in the delta... We were out at night on the delta.

We'd planned to take a long weekend last weekend to anchor out with some sailor friends... Then spent Friday at a funeral instead of anchored out. Took the runabout out to visit our friends Saturday and found out they were headed to our marina for the night so we made plans for the ten of us to take our ski boat and one other ski boat to dinner that night. Departure time was pushed back as it took them awhile to get settled in and cleaned up but the timing still worked out to get home before dark... Except we had to wait about an hour and a half for a table for ten at Giusti's in Walnut Grove. Not too shocking to have to wait for a big group... The food was fantastic...

So it was dark when we left to come home. Very dark. No moon dark.

There are certain running lights required at night and one of our lights, the 360 degree white light at the stern, does not work. We'd brought a suction cup mount battery powered one from our dinghy (that we've had for two years with no occasion to use) "just in case". The other boat had a spot light and we had a chart plotter with depth sounder. They went first with their light and we started off back down the river, backtracking the way we'd come.

For some reason the stern light decide to make a swim for it shortly after we left. Luckily someone noticed right away. It was actually pretty cool, not only did in float but it floated with the light pointed up. We went back and easily retrieved it. We had a small piece of line we tied to it to tether it to the boat after the light over board drill. The boat we were following noticed we'd turned around and waited for us.

A short time later we were passed by two boats traveling the same direction at what sure seemed like high speed. It was really hard to see their wakes to take them at a good angle. We were all in our life vests for safety and weren't scared, it was more weird to see their lights woosh by.

We then had an uneventful stretch where we spent time admiring the stars and noticing how the dippers were visible from completely different sides of the boat as we wound down the slough. We were able to maintain a consistent distance from the other boat by listening to their music. They have huge speakers on their wakeboard "tower" and when the music got louder we knew they'd slowed down so we would too.

Once we got close to willow berm we saw the lights of another boat headed our way. As I mentioned, we have a chartplotter. The boat we were following was over a shallow spot in the middle of the river so we were hanging to the left a bit. The other boat went right between us. It was probably at least a 30' boat, moving at a good clip. In my opinion, too fast for the conditions (I.e. PITCH DARK!!!).

We dropped off our passengers shortly after and were very happy to be back at our slip safely after an exciting trip home. The return took about twice as long as the outbound trip as we were feeling our way along in the dark. We slept pretty well after a long day on the water!

Night Boating

Matt and I love boating at night. Some of our best memories are night time runs in the bay or offshore. However we don't boat at night in the delta and the photo illustrates why. When we took the photo last weekend, this tree was behind B&W resort and marina. Today it was about a quarter mile downstream. Not something you want to run into in the dark. Maybe we'll reach a point where we're comfortable running at night with moving obstacles like this but for now, no.

Devil's Island

We're on another Ox Bow cruise. This weekend we are at "Devil's Island," a private island at the juncture of white slough and little connection slough. They have a very nice dock and some open air covered decks with barbecues. No power or running water. We just enjoyed a delightful dinner with the club- a bring your own main dish affair with potluck sides and desserts. We are now enjoying a wonderful cool evening after a rather warm day.

SNAFU

A very large sailboat was anchored in front and to the right of our group on Wednesday. He only had a bow anchor out so was swinging with the current. Our group of fifteen boats had bow and stern anchors so we were all fairly stationary. Thursday afternoon two large power boats showed up and rafted one on each side if the sailboat. No additional anchors were put out. We were somewhat concerned as they weren't all that far from our group.

The wind came up over night and some of our guys started an anchor watch. Good thing they did because about 1 am that group of three boats started sliding backwards in front of our raft up. Everyone in our group was quickly awoken and we all started honking and trying to hail the three. They stopped moving (their anchor hooked on the anchor lines of the two boats to our right) and shortly after we finally saw the crews come up. Two per boat.

Since neither powerboat had an anchor out they quickly freed themselves and disappeared in a cloud of diesel exhaust, leaving the two on the sailboat to try and disengage their anchor from our group. I hope you can see in the pictures- iPhones aren't really meant for night photos! Our group had a few spotlights on them. They finally got free and with a backwards yell of "champagne's on us tomorrow" they were gone. They didn't show up with the champagne today either!!

This led to SNAFU part two this morning when we tried to leave. All the folks from the left end of the raft up raised anchor and left but we were concerned our line was under that of the two boats to our right. I'll have to write that up from my computer as my hand is tired from typing with one finger on the phone!! There was a tangled mess oh three anchors but luckily we were clear of it.

Fireworks

iPhone photos really can't do this 30 min show justice!! Thank you Hiltons!!! We were nervous about being out in the middle of things at Mandeville but it's been great and better than three river reach last year which had lots of bugs and very loud young people. This place was mellow in comparison. We were in the front row right behind the barge with the Ox Bow Yacht Club. Awesome.

Pre Fireworks

The fireworks haven't even started yet and this is AWESOME.

Discovery Bay

We took Hinky Dink down to Disco Bay for lunch yesterday. We've seen the plane out many times. There are a couple shots from our return trip.

Can you spot us in the raft up photo?

Sunrise is from this morning and the guy with the parachute contraption was flying around WAY too early this morning. It sounded like a weed whacker.

The fireworks barge is setting up right in front of us.

North Fork

We took the ski boat up the North fork of the Mokelumne today ( after a wonderful late breakfast at Herman and Helen's). I must say it is much prettier than the South fork. We stopped for a quick drink and cool down at Giusti's and came home via the South fork. Tree lined banks vs rock covered berms? North fork wins.

Private Island?!?

We had the pleasure of visiting Delta Yacht Club this past weekend. This is a beautiful private island just off the San Joaquin River not too far from Stockton. They were having an Open House and membership drive. They fed us dinner and let us spend the night on their dock. Their members are allowed unlimited use if the island and it's facilities. Let me tell you, I'm very tempted to join. It's not cheap... We're giving some serious thought to how much we'd use it.

Sunday morning we were waiting for a favorable current before we left so we worked on our to do list. Awhile back we bought one set of hinges to try on one if the engine room hatches. They were a bit difficult to install but it looks like they will work out well.

Float Plane

Just got buzzed by a float plane. Anchored out in what must be one of the better places on this Earth.

New wildcat INSTALLED!

Got the new wildcat and friction plates installed!

Log Ho

This past Saturday we took the boat up the Georgiana Slough to Ox Bow Marina for safety day at the Ox Bow Yacht Club. We learned about docking and raft up procedures for Ox Bow YC cruise outs, plus got some tips and tricks for things like anchoring in the delta and requesting bridge openings.

We headed back to Willow Berm Sunday and passed a HUGE log floating in the Georgiana. We're not sure if it followed us home but there was an equally huge log behind our slip shortly after we pulled in. Glad it want there AS we were pulling in. Scary.

Photos

Sorry I am too lazy to insert them in the relevant post.  I'll put them in some semblance of order:

Angel Island October 2011 (Did I really never post these??  Maybe I just didn't erase them off the camera?)

Sparkler III (L) and Windmill

Ada Helen

Pineapple Girl

Party Central on the Black Pearl

Breakfast at Sam's

Here's the swim platform repair in progress:

This was "done" and Matt said no way.  I don't have a photo of what they ended up doing.  They ground off all the diamond non-skid and started over with more of a sand or sandpaper textured non-skid.  It is all white with a smooth cream border around most of it, except where they did repairs and made the border white.  I don't know why these repair people cannot recognize that our boat is cream and not white!  There are several large white areas on it where prior work has been done.

Our inverter and batteries:

The inverter at home under the settee

The selector switch for the house banks and the slow fuse for the inverter (these are also under the settee, at the front)

The inverter's control and status panel

Our two battery banks of four 6 volt golf cart batteries per bank.  They also made a nice lid for this new battery box.

The new charging relay and bus bar.  It seems a little messy in this photo but everything is much neater than it was before. 

And lastly, here is the boat at Marina Village in Alameda.  We spent a weekend here after we picked the boat up from Star Marine.