Beautiful weekend at Devil's Isle.

We were "harbor master" this weekend, which meant we cleaned off the tables for dinner and took home the trash and sign in sheet. It was a gorgeous weekend and Hulk had a great time with the other dogs there. 

Rainy Delta Weekend

We finally had another weekend at the boat after several weekends spent house hunting. Now that we're under contract we can get back to enjoying our weekends!  Ox Bow had a cruise out this weekend but we hadn't signed up since we didn't know what our plans would be, so we spent the weekend in our slip, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the metal shed roof. 

We also cleaned adhesive residue off one  side of Spirit. I'll have to take a photo as it's actually pretty amazing. We'd bought stick on patches to display the registration numbers. Unfortunately they didn't stick all that well and all the edges were peeled up. We finally got disgusted with them and peeled them completely off. And of course even though they didn't stick all that well, they left a big mess of adhesive residue! 

We weren't sure what to get the residue off with as we didn't want to harm the dinghy tubes. We ordered a new oar lock as we'd broken one quite some time ago. It came with a 1oz sample of some kind of "orange off" stuff and a little white scruby pad. I won't pretend it was "wipe on, wipe off"-we used the entire bottle and a bit of elbow grease- but it got every bit of residue off and the area we cleaned looks brand new. We'll definitely get more of the product to get the residue off the other side and clean the rest of the boat. Good stuff. 

Meanwhile I've researched the best way to apply the registration numbers and it looks like a stencil and a sharpie is the way to go! So once we have Spirit all cleaned up we'll use that method to reapply the numbers. We'll post photos of the process. Coming soon...

Happy New Year!

I can't believe I've been so bad about blogging lately!  We've been on several fun trips since I last posted, including spending two nights after Thanskgiving at our favorite anchorage with my mom and dad aboard. They really enjoyed all the birds and the dinghy ride to Rosa's for lunch. 

More recently, we spent a few days at the end of December through New Year's Day at the Willow Berm guest dock (yards from our slip) with a group of Ox Bow YC cruisers. As always with Ox Bow cruise outs, there were good times, great people and, of course, plenty to eat. We even got a bacon delivery one morning. Steve Hand cooks up great bacon! 

Today we are kicking back watching NFL playoffs until time to head to Ox Bow marina for a membership meeting. Earlier the TV in the aft cabin about fell over from a wake from a passing boat. It felt like we were in an earthquake. I don't understand why people have such a hard time with the concept of a no wake zone. No harm done though, Matt leapt up and grabbed the TV. We lay that one down when underway since it's not secured- maybe it's time to secure it!!   

I hope your 2014 is off to a fabulous start!  Go Niners! :)

Brilliant

Finally some photos of the wonderful fender storage Keith made. The "seat back" screens were existing. The new screens at the back of the fly bridge were added by Keith. There is a zipper at the to of each so it can kind of pouch out to get the fenders in and out, but hold the fabric taut when zipped.

We got to the boat late last night, after a dinner event we were involved with. We wanted to be underway by 8:30 to be at the mokelumne bridge shortly after the tender came on duty at 9:00. We left on time and got to the bridge in only 20 minutes. Oops. Note to self for next time. The tender saw us as he walked from his car to the building and immediately opened the bridge for us once he was inside. We're looking forward to anchoring out and enjoying the 49ers game and MLK day in one if our favorite places.

It's a bit chilly and the water is quite chilly so not sure I'll use the paddleboard this weekend!! But at least it is now on the boat. We had to tie it to the roof.

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.

The Slip is Waiting!

Saturday we had a few tasks to do on the boat.  Matt fixed the depth and the speedo (loose wires), ran the wire to hook the auto pilot to the GPS (though we still need to connect it), futzed with the starboard alternator wiring (trying to figure out why the tach usually doesn't register) and installed the fins on the dinghy motor.  Together we swapped out the 300' chain anchor rode for 100' of chain plus ~200' of rope (after whipping our splice) swapping out our "permanent" dock lines for our travelling set.

Sunday we intended to fill up with diesel but it was very windy so we decided to head on up to the Delta to get our slip ready.  We wanted to take a lock for the dock box and the only one we have was locking the dinghy motor to the transom of PG.  I tried to get it off but I needed to get under it to dial in the combo.  I put my purse down on the sundeck and laid down on the swim platform.  As I was getting into position I heard a loud "plop" as something slid out of the pocket on my sweatshirt.  I did a quick mental inventory of what was in there--car key fob? no that was in my purse.  iPhone?  CRAP.  Yes, and in its nifty new Lilly Pulitzer case with room for two cards--my driver license and ATM card.  Sigh.  Matt got the lock off while I berated myself and the inventor of hoody sweatshirts with hand warmer pockets.

Then we set off for Delta Bay Marina.  We stopped for a quick breakfast then hit the highway.  Traffic wasn't bad and we only missed a few minor turns on the way.  Nothing that wasn't quickly remedied.  We got there a little after noon and first went in to settle the paperwork and pay our slip fee with Judy before loading up a dock cart with all the stuff out of the trunk and back seat.  We met a couple of our new dock neighbors and were informed that all the "big party people" had moved their boats out of the marina.  Hopefully there are still some small and medium party people left.  The folks we met were very helpful and friendly, as was everyone we met last year.

We started setting up the lines and the big round fenders we had bought.  Matt was happy that he was able to attach the lines right to the cleats without needing to wrap chain around the cleat like at Coyote Point (I'll have to take a photo of that so you see what I mean).  I didn't come up with a really good way to tie the fenders to the roof supports so each one is done a little differently.  Hopefully they will all still be tied on when we get there Friday.  We'll be able to spot our slip for sure with two orange fenders on one side and three white ones on the other.  It looks like we have absolutely no idea what we are doing so we lined the slip with fenders.  Which is about right.  Coming in with the current running and the wind blowing is fairly petrifying.  Very high pucker factor. At least we'll have the dock lines there so we can get one fastened on quickly.  Figuring out which one is the best one is the challenge!  It always seems to work out that I think I have picked the correct side of the boat to be on to be able to get on the dock and the boat ends up on the other side of the slip and I have to madly run around the whole boat to try and get on the dock before the hand rail makes contact with the roof supports.  Definitely agree with the docking rule to not be going any faster than you want to hit the dock.  Everybody knows somebody who has come in too fast and ended up with the bow of the boat riding up ON the dock.  As in, parts of the boat that should always be underwater are not.  Doesn't really do your gel coat, fiberglass, dock box, etc any favors to do that.

So after we got everything set up we didn't even bother with the lock on the dock box since all that we left in there is a bucket and some Clorox...  But hey I got a new phone out of it.  Whoop dee do.

We left the marina and headed over to Rio Vista for lunch.  We wanted to try out the famous Foster's Restaurant.  We'd heard that it was full of trophy heads from the founders hunting expeditions back in the 30s and 40s.  Yep, sure is.  It is really quite an incredible collection of trophies, including several of many of the animals.  For instance there seemed to be an entire pride of lions and quite a few water buffalo.  There was a huge elephant head and a giraffe.  I was amazed at how clean they all seemed to be.  To us, it wasn't really the most conducive atmosphere for eating, more of a kitschy touristy place.  By delta standards it was on the pricey side, but not compared to Bay Area prices.  Not someplace I'd be inclined to go again, especially with all the great and inexpensive food much closer to the marina.

CP.  we have to calculate if we can get up there without fueling first.  We are going to the boat tomorrow to check and to see if there is anything else we missed doing in preparation.  We still have to figure out launching the dinghy, since the motor is on the big boat and one of the oar locks is broken.  Makes getting the dinghy from the launch ramp to the boat MUCH more interesting... 

Last Weekend at Coyote Point!

Next Friday is the BIG DAY.  We are taking the boat to the Delta again!  This Saturday we plan to drive up and get our new slip all ready--set up the dock lines, put our stuff in the dock box, pay our slip fee, get our keys, all that good stuff!  So excited.  We'll be at Delta Bay (aka Brannan Island KOA and Marina) where we spent July last year.  We got a really great slip this year, close to the main entrance and the store.  It will be a much shorter walk than last year.  We hope to leave super early Friday and get there in one day.  Joe and Carrie plan to drive up Saturday to hang out, then Sunday we plan to take the boat to Rio Vista for brunch, then get a ride home with Joe and Carrie.  Super Fun!  Can't wait.

March 8 Update

It's been awhile since I posted!  Things have been a bit hectic lately, included a business trip to Miami last weekend.  My hotel room had a view over Biscayne Bay and it seemed like the boat traffic was non-stop.  I wish I'd had time to get out on the water while I was there.

When we went to Alameda last month we got an estimate from Star Marine on having the inverter installed and getting our electrical system cleaned up so it makes more sense.  For instance the "house" battery is currently not hooked up to the "house" panel.  Little anomalies like that.  We'd been thinking about doing it ourselves but considering how frustrating our electrical issues have been, how long we've had this inverter sitting on the boat, and not to mention that amateurs and electricity can be a dangerous mix, we decided to put this one in professional hands.  We take the boat this weekend to have the work started on Monday.  It is supposed to be in the shop for a week but we know how that goes.  We have been very impressed with Star Marine so far and have high hopes for this project.



One of the things they will do is remove our existing "house" battery and replace it with two banks of golf cart batteries.  One will have four batteries and one will have two.  They idea being to run off the four battery bank and keep the two battery bank in reserve.  We will have to reroute a waste pipe in the engine room bilge to make room for the additional batteries (our project for Saturday).  We actually have room for two more batteries in another section of the bilge but that would require rerouting several more hoses and moving some strainers and the bilge pump float switch, so we are reserving that project for later!  (If we determine we need the power.) 

We are a little bummed at the thought of being boatless again so soon but hopefully it will only be a week.  We have a cruise out to Jack London Square in Oakland the weekend of the 24th-25th so the goal is to have the boat back by then for sure.  The weekend after that we will drive up to the Delta on Sunday (April 1st) to get our slip ready and they April 6th we will take the boat up there!  Can't wait.  We have been counting down the days! 

I hope to post some new pictures soon, now that we have our home computer fixed!

Yard Update

No photos yet--still have to upload from the camera. 

We took the boat to SF Boatworks on January 29th.  Matt took the boat up with one of his work buddies and the buddy's wife while I drove up in the car to meet them.  I had a nice breakfast at the Ramp while I waited. 

Matt decided to tie the boat off right in front of the travel lift so they'd have no choice but to get to work on our boat Monday morning.  This is pretty much frowned upon at a boatyard as they like to keep the travel lift clear but Matt really wanted our boat back ASAP so he decided to be a bit of a wise-acre and leave the boat front and center.  Once we had the boat tied up we headed over to the Ramp for lunch.  The Ramp and the Boatworks are right next to each other and I believe are owned by the same people.  The Ramp is a very pleasant spot with a large patio overlooking the water.  After lunch we made sure we had everything off the boat and the boat was locked, then headed back to Coyote Point marina to take the crew back to their car.

Not a whole lot happened the first week the boat was in the yard.  There was a lot of back and forth between the yard and the insurance company as to what needed to be done and how much it would cost.  As I mentioned before, the insurance company felt all the work could be done in two days and the bottom would not need to be repainted.  As the boat has now been out of the water for two weeks, needless to say we had a new bottom put on.  We are splitting it 50/50 with the insurance company as it should have lasted about three years but we were forced by this event to have it redone after 18 months.  SF Boatworks did a really nice job on the prep work and bottom paint.  For instance, the through hull for the forward head discharge was almost completely painted shut before and it now has an opening like it is supposed to!  There is still some excess paint on it but nothing like before.  They also used a slightly darker blue which is a much nicer color.  We are going to need to have all the layers of bottom paint removed at some point in the next few years and "start over" and after the bottom work they did here, I would be happy to bring the boat back for that project.

We had hoped to have the boat back last Friday but the weather did not cooperate.  They had it "done" Thursday, the gel coat just needed to cure, when it started to rain and ruined the gel coat that had not set up properly.  Which turned out to be just as well as when we went to check on it Saturday Matt was NOT HAPPY with the work at all.  The non skid is this texture that is like little pyramids molded into the gel coat and where they had to redo the non skid the texture was not the same and there was a ridge line between the new and old sections.  In addition, the original non skid was gray and the new non skid, and large sections around it, was white.  It looked hokey to say the least.

Now Matt is a non-confrontational guy and he was not looking forward to telling Craig, the project manager at SF Boatworks, that he was not happy with the repair.  I suggested he simply tell Craig he did like how it turned out and ask what options we had.  He was pleasantly surprised when Craig agreed that it did not look good.  They decided the best solution would be to completely remove the non-skid and replace it with a sand based non skid that would be the color of the hull of the boat (Kind of a cream color).  I am not entirely sure how this is going to look but I guess it is better than the mismatched situation we have now.  We are hoping the boat will be done by Friday, but it is raining now and I think rain is forecast at least for tomorrow as well.  We'd really like to have the boat back for the weekend as we were planning a trip (not sure where we are going!) since we have Monday off. 

We have really missed having the boat.  Super Bowl weekend we had commitments at the yacht club Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we were dreading having to drive back and forth.  Luckily Joe and Carrie invited us to join them on Ada Helen, which was great, though when they stopped by our house last night on their walk it sounds like we will be paying them back all summer with them staying in our V-berth up on the Delta. :)  The perk to that will be going with them on their "little boat" to explore the Delta.  We ended up discussing Delta destinations and ruined their plans for a long walk by feeding them pot roast and Budweiser.  We are even more excited now to head up to the Delta in 53 days.  I am sure we will be spending more nights on Ada Helen at Coyote Point while our boat is in the Delta so it is a great trade off for all concerned!

Minor Projects

Last weekend we completed a couple of minor projects on the boat.  We had been meaning to change the impellers on the engined since last summer on the delta when Scott had problems with his raw water cooling.  What the impeller does is draw raw water from whatever body of water you are boating in, through the raw water cooling system and where it helps take heat out of the engine and then goes out the exhaust.  If the impeller is not in good condition it can lead to overheating and can even cause engine damage.  Since we didn't know when the impellers were last replaces it seemed prudent to change them out.  There was one spare on the boat so we decided to replace the impeller that was easy to get to.  The engines are nearly identical and the impeller is located on the port side.  This makes the impeller on the starboard motor handily accessible from the center of the engine room and the port motor impeller impossible to access as it is up against the fuel tank.  I have absolutely NO idea how we will get to it to change it, though after the experience of changing the "easy" one, I think we will be hiring someone to change the other one.  An impeller is a small circle with fairly stiff rubber "legs" all around it, kind of like the wheel of a mill house, if you now what I'm talking about... the impeller is a tight fit and the "legs" have to be pre-bent in the correct direction for how they will spin before it is pushed into place on a spindle that goes it the center of it.

old impeller in place

Now we all know that there is nothing simple about any boat project, but really, how hard could this be?  We just had to remove six screws that held on a brass cap, pop out the impeller, pop in the new one, put the plate back on and Bob's your uncle (whatever that means).

So the six screws in the plate.  The first three were no problem, there was easy access and I was able to use a normal screwdriver and they came out easily.  The other three... none of the above.  I could only get to them with the shortest handle screwdriver and I could not get good leverage on them to get them to unscrew.  I should have realized this was a harbinger of things to come.  I got Matt to get out the last three then he started tyring to pry out the impeller.  At this point I was in the galley polishing the brass cap we'd removed and I heard the cursing begin.  Apparently things were not going well with "popping out" the impeller.

I went back to check on Matt and he was really annoyed.  He hadn't wanted to do any boat projects and here he was with an impeller fractionally removed and me insisting we should finish what we started and change the thing so pretty much in disgust he told me to try it.  I could not get it to budge.  Of course we were trying to remove it with pliers and screwdrivers and what not and not a proper purpose built impeller remover.  This is about when we started texting all our marina neighbors to see if anyone had such a tool.  No luck. 

I was waiting for West Marine to pick up the phone when Scott came by, Matt told him our predicament and he said he had a puller.  I hung up on West Marine of course right as a person finally came on the line.  Scott had not had one of this tools when he'd changed his impeller at the Delta last summer and the tool was brand new, still attached to the package.  We were super optimistic now that we'd have the impeller out in no time.  Yeah right. 

Matt tried first and again there was much cursing emanating from the engine room.  Again I asked what was wrong and he said there was not enough clearance to get the tool in.  Again I took over to see what I could do.  By taking the tool apart I was able to at least get the "claw" part of it gripped onto the impeller but the part that is basically a giant screw that leverages against the center spindle the impeller fits on to pull the impeller out as you screw it in would not go on due to the lack of clearance.  If we could have cut about 1/2 off it we could have used it but we didn't want to modify our friend's brand new tool!  I tried threading a screwdriver through the claw but did not have the strength to pull the impeller out.  I convinced Matt, over muttered protests, to give it a try and he was able to finally "pop" the impeller out. 

Sooo... now to the easy part of putting the impeller in.  The trick here is to hold the "legs" bent the right way as you push in the impeller.  Matt decided the best way to hold them would be with zip ties.  We ended up with about 52 zip ties in the bottom of the engine room before Matt was able to get a couple on there and get the new impeller back in place.  He needed a break after that so I put on the new "gasket" that came with the impeller (a thin piece of paper?? ok well I guess the engineers know what they are doing) and then screwed the cover back on.  After that, Matt wanted to make sure it wasn't leaking so he sat in the engine room while I fired up the motor.  No drips.  Yeah.  But no way we want to try that on the inaccessible one!

zinc

The other thing we did was find the zincs in the cooling system.  The zincs help prevent corrosion in the cooling system because zinc will corrode before the metal of the system will.  The zincs need to be checked to make sure there is zinc left protected your system.  We had no idea where they were or what they looked like.  Friends told us to look for somewhat large brass hex bolts, which have the zinc attached to them on the inside.  Well, is it hard to spot anything brass because the motors are painted a uniform beautiful blue. We found a couple of likely candidates and had a friend confirm which were zincs.  We then removed one and found we have plenty of zinc left.  We do need to buy replacements to have on hand but we aren't in dire need to switch them out!  Some good news for the day...

Lunch Trip

The other Saturday (11/12/11) we had a boat project day planned out.  It was such a nice day, though, we felt we had to take advantage of the good weather so we decided to take a little cruise instead.  We had to leave early on Sunday to go to the Forty-Niners v. Giants game (go niners!!) so an overnighter was out.  We decided since it was an especially high tide to head over to our favorite shallow destination, San Leandro Marina.  The channel has supposedly been dredged but it is not anywhere we care to go unless there is a LOT of water.  We headed over in late morning and where they are noon, shortly before high tide.  We were seeing 10-11 feet of depth on the way in.  We stopped by the harbormaster's office and were assigned a slip directly in front of Horatio's restaurant.  We had our choice of eating there or El Torito's and decided to go with Horatio's and the view of our boat.  We had a great lunch and were totally stuffed so we took a brief nap before leaving. 

at San Leandro

On the way out, we had to stop by the harbormaster's office to drop off the key and we decided to pump out while we were there, then we headed out.  It was about 2 hours after high tide but the tide was still up.  We saw depths as low as six on the way out, which is why we only transit that channel at high tide!

We had flat water and beautiful conditions coming and going so we are glad we took advantage of the great weather to take the boat out.  There will be plenty of yucky weather days this winter to get projects done!

Moving Up to the BIG TIME

I can't believe I forgot to post about this...  If you look back to one of the first posts about PG II, you will read of the horrible tragedy of the much anticipated ice maker croaking after making one batch of ice. 

the one and only batch of ice from the old machine

This was a sad, sad day for Matt as he had been Soooo looking forward to that badge of the true power boater, the ice maker.  Well, it took over a year but we finally have a new one!  It was an anniversary gift from me to Matt.  It took a few weeks to get it and Matt was going nuts waiting for it but I think it was worth the wait.  It fits perfectly into the cabinet, is very quiet and puts out a lot of ice.  I believe it makes 22 or 23 pounds a day, about twice as much as it actually holds.  Which is a good thing because now we are Joe's source for free ice. :)

perfect fit

after just a few hours...

Boat Chores

Lately we've done a few boat chores.  One entertaining one was cleaning the bilges.  I was prompted to do this by coming down to the boat on a Friday evening and being annoyed at the odor in my cabin.  It is not unusual for an older diesel powered boat to have a bit of an interesting aroma to it, but on this evening it just seemed stronger and more funky than usual. 

I grabbed a flashlight and opened up the bilge compartment in the aft cabin.  The opening is maybe 12x12 and the area of the bilge it gives access to is fairly limited as the bilge basically ends shortly aft of it and there is a fuel tank under the floor forward of it that limits access to clean beneath it.  There are also a couple of pieces of pipe sticking up with no discernible purpose.  The surveyor who did our pre-purchase survey thought the pipes were rather odd.  So as to the cleaning bit, there was a lot of what seemed like sediment in there.  This is where I was really glad we got a shop vac, as that sure came in handy as I attacked the bilge with most every cleaning product we had on the boat, then added water (the handheld shower head conveniently is long enough to spray into the bilge) and vacuumed.  I wouldn't say it was spotless or odor free when I was done, but I sure got a lot of gunk out of there.  Best not to think about what it was or where it came from...

The next day I set about cleaning the rest of the bilge, starting forward at the access hatch in the galley.  this is a much larger access hatch, maybe 24" x 24".  I ran the water hose in through the port in the head, adjacent to the galley, and got out the long handled brush to reach as far forward as possible in the bilge.  It goes a long way forward from this access point, to where it tapers up to nothing at the bow.  I spent quite sometime psyching myself up to duck down under the floor and crawl around in there.  I finally convinced myself it would be better than being in a crawl space, which I have done before, as it is HIGHLY unlikely there is anything other than spiders possibly living in there.  No rodents or snakes, for instance.  Though one of our friends once found a dead rat on his boat.... but I digress.  So I finally decided to go for it but I couldn't actually contort my body enough to get fully in there.  Maybe if I had tried harder... No, definitely no way.  So I scrubbed as best as I could as far forward as I could.  The space only went aft a few feet before running into the bulkhead for the engine room, which was my next area of bilge to attack.   This forward area came fairly clean and did not have any weird mystery sediment.

So onto the engine room.  I brought the hose through the side door and removed all the floor boards to the engine compartment.  The floor of the engine room then comes up in two sections.  I had very limited access to the aft section of the bilge under the engine room as the battery boxes come down in that area and I did not want to risk getting water on the batteries.  As it was I manged to spray water everywhere a few (okay SEVERAL) times.  What I could reach did come fairly clean.

This whole project took several hours and the net result was a fairly clean looking bilge but not a significant improvement in the funkiness factor.  Ah the joys of boat ownership.  We just brought the dehumidifier back to the boat so maybe that will help with the general funkiness.

Another recent chore was changing the oil.  It had been over a hundred hours on the motors (we put on 111 hours in the year we'd had the boat).  We were well prepared for this chore as we had purchased of a couple of cases of Delo 400 15W-40 in advance.  We rose bright and early Saturday to begin... then realized we did not have oil filters.  Which began a lengthy errand run that sent us to three different stores.  The giant filters our motors take are not a standard item at the corner auto parts store, unfortunately, so that took visits to two stores.  We also needed some kind of container to put some of the oil from each motor and the generator in (each in its own container) so we could have the oil analyzed and compared to the oil analysis done prior to purchase.  We are lucky to have a good friend that can get this analysis done for us locally.  The point of this is to watch for trends which could be signs of problems with the motor, so hopefully you can nip them in the bud before they might lead to greater problems.  So anyway we ended up buying some plastic storage containers at the grocery store for that.

So we FINALLY got back to the marina and borrowed an oil extractor from a friend and set to work sucking out about 22 quarts of oil, between the two Perkins and the generator.  As the extractor only holds five quarts and we did not want to mix oil from different motors, due to the sampling, this process involved MANY trips back and forth to dump the oil in to the used oil container the marina maintains.  We tried to speed things up a bit by using a second oil extractor but we could not get it to build up any suction to actually EXTRACT any oil so that was a lost cause.  Finally, many, many hours after our early arising to attack this project we were done. 

...Except we didn't have QUITE enough oil to refill everything we emptied so we had to go back to the store (later that week) and get more before we were really done.  And then we ended up putting a touch too MUCH oil in the port motor and then had to take some back out.  Sigh.  Nothing is ever simple when it comes to this yachting stuff!

We really need to go back and get some spare oil filter to keep on the boat but we haven't made time yet--we cleaned out the store's stock to get enough for the oil change.  Soon.

WheelChair Regatta

This past weekend we participated in the PICYA WheelChair Regatta at Encinal Yacht Club.  If you are a regular blog reader you may already realize that Encinal is one of our favorite Yacht Clubs to visit, so this combined with the chance to give back to our armed service veterans presented a not to be missed opportunity.  PICYA invites veteran's from the local VA hospitals here in Northern California to come for a ride on a power boat.  They are not necessarily in Wheelchairs but are disabled in some way. 

We had six veterans join us, along with two attendants from the VA and one member of PICYA who narrated the cruise.  We also had our friends Joe and Carrie along so thirteen people in total.  One of our veterans was wheelchair bound and the other five all had canes and used walkers.  The fellow in the wheelchair and one of the others were blind as well.  We got the five "ambulatory" guys settled in on the flybridge, with the blind fellow (he had some visions but was legally blind) picked the spot right by the helm.  He spent the whole trip talking to Matt and seemed to have a great time.  Some of the other guys went to sleep, but I still think they enjoyed being out on the water.

you can see the five vets up on the flybridge with Matt.  The three folks seated on the sun deck are the sixth vet (wheelchair bound) and the two attendants.  Joe, Carrie and I are on the boat casting off and the fellow on the dock is the PICYA rep who came along and narrated parts of the adventure for the veterans.

We were supposed to go out for about an hour and a half and then bring the vets back for a BBQ lunch.  We headed up the Alameda estuary, went to the South of Treasure Island, crossed under the Bay Bridge to the ferry building, then turned South, back under the bridge, ducked into McCovey Cove for a look at the Giants stadium then back across the Bay and down the Estuary.  We were one of the first boats to leave and as we returned, after about two hours, we saw quite a lot of boats just leaving.

We got all the vets unloaded (thanks to the Oakland and Alameda Fire Departments!) and then headed up for the BBQ.  Joe got into a conversation with the Marine running the grill and Carrie mentioned Joe had been a Marine as well.  The BBQer made a comment to the effect of "this long haired hippy was a Marine?" and he gave Joe a pork chop.  I have no idea where the chop came from as the menu was hot dogs and hamburgers!

We were the first boat to get back that was staying the night and we ended up tucked into one of the inside corners of the U shaped dock.  This meant we were at the mercy of those around us as to when we could leave on Sunday morning.  We weren't really planning to leave early as we were pretty sleep deprived after arriving around 2 am on Saturday.  That is a whole story of its own but I'll just say we had a beautiful ride over and we both enjoy boating at night.  That was our first night trip on this boat and all went well.

We had a great trip home on Sunday.  There was a bit of drizzle but all the more reason to stay below and watch the 49ers game during the trip.  The 49ers won, which was a great bookend to a great weekend.

August 31st - September 5... Goodbye to Summer

As I previously posted, we got to Willow Berm late on Tuesday the 30th.  We had the best of intentions for leaving early on Wednesday for our trip to Benicia but the boat was FILTHY.  Maybe it is the fact there is a lot of farmland around there but there was full on dirt coating the boat, plus all the spiders and spiderwebs that seemed to thrive everywhere we went in the Delta.

Bye bye Delta.  Until next year!

Matt had said he wanted to see a freighter up close.  We did just that in New York Slough.

So after lots of scrubbing we finally set off mid morning.  As we were getting towards Antioch it seemed rather rough.  New York Slough towards Pittsburg wasn't too bad but once we were out of the slough and turned south (in Susuin Bay I believe) it REALLY got rough.  We were taking water over the windscreen on the flybridge and were discovering some window leaks we didn't know we had.  We briefly entertained the idea of turning around and staying in Pittsburg but decided to carry on to Benicia.  This day there were no Coast Guards to run us off from the Port Chicago Naval Weapons Depot but we still gave it a wide berth.  Conditions were improving as we approached Benicia and we flirted with the idea of carrying on but with no good way to know what the conditions were in San Pablo Bay we decided to stop. 

Benicia Harbormaster's Office from our slip.

We had been instructed to pull up at the dock by the harbormaster's office to receive our slip assignment.  The wind was blowing us off the dock and we were basically we were trying to parallel park between two other boats in a space less than twice the length of our boat.  Matt was getting really frustrated but after a good 15 or 20 minutes he was able to get close enough to the dock that I could jump off.  At this point one of the people on the boat behind where we were pulling in offered to help out.  Matt snapped "we've got it NOW."  And of course within a few minutes of our finally getting tied up that boat left.  Thanks.  A lot.  Right.

We checked in with the harbormaster's office and they sent us over to a "35 foot" slip.  There is no way that slip was 35'.  We were hanging WAY off the back, as was the 32' boat in the slip next to us.  Oh well, it was only for one night!  We walked in to town for a late lunch and later walked the docks and met all sorts of really nice people.  There was a woman we met who lived on her houseboat.  She gave us a tour and it was HUGE and really nice.  She said she'd had it shipped out from wherever she bought it, somewhere in Nevada or Arizona I think.  Anyway, we had a fun time talking to her and many others.

The next morning I had to stand at the gate and hold it open as Matt walked the key over to the harbormasters office.  I am not sure how safe it is to have to have a key to get off the docks as well as on.  Seems dangerous in an emergency.  Anyway, we got underway a little earlier than we had the prior day.  San Pablo Bay was smooth as glass and we had an uneventful trip to Tiburon / San Francisco Yacht Club. 

One of the "brother's" in San Pablo Bay.

We met with Jay, the Port Captain of San Francisco Yacht Club, and figured out where everyone was going to dock, then had a delicious lunch there.  We took a walk around town and I saw a thrift shop.  Since this is a nice area I figured they'd have good stuff so I took a look and found a cute Tommy Bahama sleeveless polo shirt.  I called Matt in to pay for it for me and he saw the Tommy Bahama label and rolled his eyes, expecting it to be expensive.  $3.50. It was half price day.  Whoo hoo.  Matt liked that.  We ran into half the people from the cruise in as we continued our walk around town.

The view of our club boats from the SFYC deck.

We had signed up for dinner at the yacht club as well, despite a rather high price tag. We ate with two other couples from our club and had a great time--great food and better company. We somehow got on to telling "how we met" stories and they were great. We went to bed absolutely stuffed with big smiles on our faces.

We all agreed to head out at 11 on Friday morning as there was some concern about the tides and having enough water in the Looooong and narrow channel into San Rafael that leads to the Marin Yacht Club. Luckily we were in touch with someone who'd left from the club very early that morning who reported no issues with skinny water as he went through the channel so we went through with confidence. Though we did have a moment where the depth read " . " whatever that means!

We stayed at Marin from Friday until Monday. What can I say about it other than it was FUN FUN FUN. We took the dinghy up the creek and gawked at the houses (no dead body this year, that is another story), we tried stand up paddle boarding, we went fishing with Gary and Lucille on Panda Angler, we took a whole bunch of people up the creek on Pineapple Girl, we ate lots of great food and had a fantastic time. It was really tough to leave on Monday and head back to Coyote Point but the time had come to get back to reality. We had a nice ride back and the wind held off on REALLY blowing until after we were back in our slip. Note to self for next time, after a six day trip, stop at the pump out before going back to the slip! We had to make an emergency run to pump out this past Saturday to make up for our shortsightedness.

Delta Asphalt Sloughs

Last weekend on the delta was one for car based exploration.  We drove up Saturday morning by a different route that took us past all the windmills near fairfield to approach Rio Vista from the West.  Once we were through Rio Vista we decided to take a scenic drive instead of heading straight to the boat.  I forgot the camera so I will try to add some links...  we drove up to Walnut Grove and Locke. 

These places both have a lot of history to them and were home to a lot of the Chinese who originally built the levees.  There is still a large Asian American presence in both towns and there are some interestring historical spots in both, but particulary Locke, which has kind of an eery feel and is definitely a throw back to another era.

We noticed an ice cream shop (Mel's) in Walnut Grove and stopped in for a scoop.  We noticed some people eating sandwiches and Matt remarked that they looked good.  One of the patron's turned to us and gave his sandwich a rave review and said the roll was especially excellent, so we decided to get a sandwich for later as well.  Well let me tell you, these folks do not mess around.  I ordered a single scoop on a cone and there was so much ice cream on there I had to act fast before I lost any of it off the sides.  Matt got his single in a cup and I think they mounded up about a pint of ice cream in there.  He couldn't even eat it all.  When they realized we were going to share the sandwich they threw in a second bag of chips.  We ate the sandwich later and was indeed delicious.  I think it was called a Hog's back (named after a local landmark) and it had bacon, I think ham AND turkey, cheese, various veggies.  The roll was a type I was not familiar with and cannot remember the name of but it was good and was not soggy even though it was awhile before we ate the sadwich. 

We headed back down 160 and stopped at the Ryde Hotel, which we had noticed on the way up.  The place has a lot of history, it was built in 1927 and had a speakeasy in the cellar back in the day.  We checked out one of the rooms and are considering a visit at some point, or at least going for brunch someitme.  It is right on the river and has beautiful grounds. 

We finally got to the boat sometime in mid afternoon and spent awhile cleaning it, then decided instead of hot dogs for dinner we'd walk over to Alebrijes at the Lighthouse, right next door.  We had a fun time and they had a great band.  Unfortunately we could still here the band quite well when we were back on our boat trying to go to sleep but oh well...

Sunday we decided to try someplace in Isleton for lunch.  We went to the Levee Cafe.  Matt absolutely LOVED the Chile Colorado that he ordered and my BLT was good.  It was a very "hometown" kind of place, nothing fancy and just one person taking care of the whole room (not that they were busy at 2 on Sunday).  Matt wants to go back and try some more of their Mexican Specialties.  I'd love to try their breakfast sometime.

So as you can see we mostly drove and ate our way across the delta.  Next weekend we are letting Joe and Carrie use our boat as a home base for playing with their ski boat so we are going to visit Coyote Point for the first time since June!  We plan to take the boat to Stockton on 8/20 for an overnight and to fill up with diesel at the Chevron station there, which has really good fuel prices. 

Delta Photos

making bacon!

Tiki J and Ada Helen leaving Willow Berm to anchor out at Threeriver Reach while we head to Oxbow for one night

The Mokelumne swing bridge (Hwy 12) opening for Steve and us as we head up the Mokelumne to Georgiana Slough to Oxbow Marina.  We had been told the bridge opened on the hour and on the :20 and :40 but itopened for us immediately without our having to even hail the bridge tender.

Matt cooling off at Oxbow

Joe checking our bow line.

the "Fun Island" in use (Kim and kids, Carrie on her float)

Pineapple Girl with our $50 pop up canopy.  Worked out great.

Matt getting ready to try water skiing

Another view of Pineapple Girl from the ski boat

The three boats on Threeriver Reach, from the ski boat as we prepare to pull Matt out of the water

About as close as Matt came to water skiing.  He gave up after four tries.  But he had fun!

A morning visitor in at Threeriver Reach

Passerby on the San Joaquin as we sat on Pineapple Girl. 

We were right of the Stockton deep water channel / San Joaquin River and we saw a few freighters slip by while we were there.  They move at a pretty good clip.  One caused all sorts of small bubbles to rise up out of the water all around us as it passed by.  Very Odd.

Saturday on the Delta

The sailboats got underway around ten am after some small struggles freeing anchors from the delta mud and weeds. We heard the other part of our group, who were in Rio Vista, heading out earlier. Hopefully everyone will meet up safely tonight in Benecia.
Scott's engine cooling water issue turned out to be due to an impressive collection of aquatic plants in his raw water intake hose. Matt said there were literally STICKS in there. Once the intake was cleared everything was fine.
We plan to stay one more night then head to willow berm to leave the boat there for August. We thought it would be wise to check our tanks and we were happy to find we still had half our water (about 100 gallons) and about 1/3 capacity left in the holding tank. Using paper plates and not showering certainly helps with the fresh water consumption! We've also been following the "if it's yellow..." adage in the heads. We have enough food to be able to stay out another month so one more night is definitely doable.
I have a bunch of pictures to upload and post once we are back to civilization with wi fi and such fineries.

Delta Friday

It has been a bit of an odd day as far as vacations go. We had lunch on Joe and Carrie's boat (left over BBQ pork sandwiches from wednesday night dinner, yummy) and after that Matt and Joe left to take Joe's new ski boat back to its slip on Bethel Island and move our car to Willow Berm.
Scott took the dinghy over to pick them up and they got back around four. Matt stopped by for a few minutes then went to Scott's boat to work on the motor with Scott and Joe. So I've been hanging out by myself for about five hours. I could have hung out with Kim and the kids or Carrie but I wanted to spend some time reading. Now that boredom has set in they are all in the water and I don't feel like putting on my swim suit and getting in. It is howling windy and I am hungry. Guess I'll go make some food and hope the "mens" are done soon...

Delta Thursday

At least I think it is Thursday...


Everyone who wanted to water ski has done so. Everyone else from our group left for a ride on the ski boat about two and a half hours ago leaving Matt and me in the anchorage to do... Nothing... In peace and quiet. Loving it... So relaxing. Too bad we have to go back to reality in a few days.

Joe water skiing with Matt driving the ski boat.  Carrie skiied Slalom style I think they called it, with one ski.
 

I made a movie of her actually skiing so all I have is this one picture of her before we pulled her out of the water.