Day 159 The Kinetic Festival!

The festival has come to town!!  It started yesterday with a parade through town.  Bands of drummers and horns and lots of floats and bikes.  All the floats must be self propelled.  No motors or engines are allowed.  After the parade, they go to the top of a street(sort of steep) and coast down it, but they must be able to stop at the bottom.  If they don't, they may just end up in the water as that is where the street ends.  If they do stop, they then proceed to a boat launching area where they then go into the water under their own power.  Each "float" must actually do just that.  They must be able to propel themselves through the water.  Since we got to Port Townsend, I think we have seen two people in the water swimming and that was shortly after we got here.  The water was cold then and colder now.  Some got wet and others were smart enough to put on wet suits before going in.  Last night was the Kinetic Ball at the local American Legion Hall.   With it raining and blowing, we decided to just stay home snugged in.  The last hurrah of the Summer.

We did some projects early in the day before the rain came.  All the anchor chain was pulled out to be washed and painted at specific lengths so as it comes out during anchoring we will know how much has been let out and where to stop.  I will have to find some cardboard to put under it as I paint it.  Then the fun begins of pulling it back on board.  Glad we have a windlass to pull it back on board.  Before I do that, I have to install a U shaped fitting for the end of the chain to attach to and then one of the bulkheads of the boat.  This way it won't go overboard if I let out too much chain.  Previously, there had been a piece of pipe attached at the end so that it wouldn't go out through the windlass pipe.  I can't imagine what would have happened had that steel pipe slammed into the underside of the deck at any speed.  I think it would have destroyed the motor on the windlass.

We installed the flag halyard on the starboard side and ran up the American flag.  It attaches to the base of the spreaders and then to a cleat on the mast.  We also put on the halyard on the port side spreader that will be used for the radar reflector.  Sailboats typically don't give that much of a reflection to a radar signal since they typically are quite low in the water with just the mast sticking up and it's not that big a reflector.  With this reflector installed, it like putting up a 6' X 6' piece of metal 25 feet above the boat.  We really want to be sure that other boats can see us when underway. 

It is important that you have flag halyards installed on boats that are cruising since as you enter a harbor in a foreign port, you must fly a "Q" flag to let the immigration folks know that you are new to their country and need to be checked in through customs.  You are officially "quarantined" to your boat.  After inspection, you must fly the flag of your host country from the same halyard after removing the "Q" flag.  You fly your own countries flag from another area of your boat. 

I crawled back down into the bilge and got out the last of the water that had made its way there during the last storm.  Hopefully by rerouting the drainage lines in the sail locker, it won't get much water in it again.  It's always better to have a dry bilge.  We will be reinstalling the bilge pump sometime this next week.

Tracy and I took off late in the afternoon on separate errands.  She went to Safeway and I took off for Radio Shack for a toggle switch to fix the rusted out light in the forward berth area.  I picked up some solder and special tubing that shrinks when heated to make a water proof covering over the connection for the wires inside the fixture.   They sell the tubing but not the heat gun to shrink it.  So off to Henery Hardware.  I needed come "cutting" oil for drilling and tapping the screw holes that I will be making in the underside of the boom for the boom vang.  This is a collection of blocks and line that holds the boom down while sailing so that it doesn't try and go upward while sailing downwind.  It connects to the base of the mast  and then to the underside of the boom at about a 30 degree angle to hold the boom down.

It rained off and on all afternoon and evening with the winds hitting about 30 mph at it top.  Apparently, it blew harder in Seattle as the news was full of stories of downed wires and trees.  Today it's overcast with the possibility of some Sun this afternoon.  We'll be off to Safeway again today to get what we forgot yesterday and back to Radio Shack as the switch didn't fit the lamp.  We will be buying new bus passes for October to see us through till I get back up to Port Townsend with the car in a few weeks.

Have a great Sunday.