Day 158 How low will it go?

As I was growing up, my father had a small barometer by the front door that he would look at regularly to see what the weather was going to be.  This was back before satellites and computer forecasts.   I don't know when he bought it but after his passing back in the 70's I've taken it to where ever we have lived.  I still tap the top of it on a regular basis to see what it is doing.  I find it much more accurate than the weather people on the TV.  As of this morning, it has hit what I think is a new record low.  At 29.15, I don't think I have ever seen it down that far.  The dial lists "Stormy", Unsettled" and "Fair".  It's below the "Stormy" area by quite a bit.  The forecast is for wind--up it 50 mph and rain today.  It rained a good bit last evening and is still blowing quite a bit--20 knots.  I'm not sure where it will bottom out but WOW--this must be a really strong low front that has come in from the Pacific.

We set ourselves up for a slip at the local marina for the month of November.  Since we will still be in the "testing" phase of getting Zephyr checked out, we thought it prudent to stay local for at least that month.  We got what they were offering as the last of the available slips till late November.  They have quite a few slips that will hold our boat but will be going through a dredging project during that month.  Because of that, they are only renting half of the slip of our size so that after the first half is dredged, we can move into those slips and the second half can be dredged.  Once that is done, the rest of the slips will be made available for leasing.  I had originally--yesterday morning--been told they had 3 slip left available.  Tracy and I talked it over and decided to go for one of them.  We filled out the necessary paperwork--insurance papers(with their name on them so if we should cancel the insurance they would be notified) copies of our documentation on Zephyr, and lots of forms signed and initialed.   We walked them over and OOPS, they had made a mistake, they only had ONE space left!!  I had not wanted to rush it but Tracy had pushed to get us registered.  She was right to have pushed.  While we will be staying on the hard for only a short while as of now, we will be staying at Sea Marines dock for a while after we get launched and then over to our own slip for November.  We will still be going out and exploring the islands but will have a base of operations to come back to and a place to keep the car after I bring it back later this month.

The Verizon wireless dongle is working just fine.  We have been on and off it quite a bit over the past 24 hours.  Nice to be able to connect her in Zephyr where it's warm and dry.

Jack, the electrician was pretty much absent from our boat yesterday.  With him being gone to a boat show next week, there were a few things for him to get settled at the yard and at least one boat that had to be checked out--our new neighbor-- as to thing he needed to have done.  We've compiled another "punch list" of projects that still need to be done but each day it gets just a bit smaller.

The riggers were not here yesterday as Brion was in Seattle and once he got back, he had to have a mast installed on another boat and then meet with a representative of the Coast Guard about the class he taught a few weeks ago.  He stopped by to apologize and say that he would try and get over here on Sunday when it is quiet and get a few things done.  The weather chick on TV said that it is supposed to be better tomorrow.  We're still getting South winds in the mid-20s.

The West Marine foul weather coat Tracy got as a replacement for her defective one(inner lining peeling off) isn't the same quality as what she had and we have made arrangements to take it back and reselect a better coat.  This one has no strap  that goes through the bottom of the coat from back to front to hold the coat down, plus the collar that used to close up over her lower face is much shorter.  We'll probably swap it our for a new Gill coat similar to mine.  Really nice and built to take just about anything Mother Nature can throw at it.

 There is another "festival" in Port Townsend this weekend.  Some sort of "Kinetic" show where people come from all over the place with gizmos(best word I could come up with) that are supposed to be able to be driven down the road as well as float and move on the water.  From what I have heard, every "freak"(not my word but how they were described to me by some of the people in the boat yard) will be in town this weekend.  There are displays of the different "vehicles/vessels" on Saturday and then a parade culminating with the owners driving them

through town and out into the water.

Here's pictures of one of the more creative boats in the yard.  We call him "Little Tommy Tugboat".  He's 24 feet long but packed with the same amount of equipment as a 40 foot boat.  She hold 1200 gallons of diesel which give him an incredible range on the water.  He has three keels on his bottom.  The outer ones hold the

fuel and the center one holds the cooling system for the engine.  The front has a big rubber bumper--not sure why and the big anchor roller swings up and out of the way when they need to use the rubber bumper.  Everything is packed in like sardines.  It's been in the lot for quite a while and Jack gets called to him from time to time to solve a problem or help with an install of some new gizmo.  This is the boat that Jack dropped his cell phone into the bilge of diesel fuel.  Still worked but he got it replaced since it had a bit of an odor to it.

We have a few projects for this weekend.  With the weather being filled with wind and rain, I figure we will concentrate on the inside of the boat jobs.