Monday started with a trip to Sequim for more supplies from Costco and a stop at Home Depot. I needed a small soldering iron to do the wiring for the fog horn. I also bought an infrared heat gun. It's a neat gadget that will tell you the heat of anything that you point it at. It's helpful at diagnosing any kind of heat problems that might occur with the diesel engine. If it starts to over heat, by pointing the gun at any particular area of the engine you can see where the overheating is happening. It won't get used often, but is just another tool to add to the locker of useful gadgets.
Tuesday was the big day of the past three. They finally finished the refit on Zephyr!! As I was sitting down to do our blog, there was a tapping on the deck. Jack--the legendary electrician, Troy--Prince Regent electrician, and Eric the Earl of Electricity showed up to install the replacement masthead light! As it will be the third light they have installed, Sea Marine sent every electrician they had to our boat to get it installed. Eric was the lucky man to go up the mast. Jack pulled down on the halyard while I cranked the winch for the same halyard. As always, it bound up about 10 feet from the top but we got past that with some extra pulling. Troy and Tracy winched the backup safety line. Any time you go up a mast, you should always have two lines attached to your harness. If one goes, you always have the backup.
Now the light that had been installed still glowed, but only as bright as a very dim star in the heavens. Once Eric got up to the top, he yelled down "This thing is covered in bird c---. No wonder you can't see it". OK, now we have three guys on Zephyr that all normally bill out at $75.00+ per hour and I'm being told the reason my light won't shine is that it is covered in "c---". That is not what I wanted to hear. I knew I wasn't going to be billed for it(considered warranty work) but still, to have all the electricians show up just to figure out the problem was this was just a bit much. Jack turned it on so it would strobe--bright flashes of light. He and I walked over to shore and looked at it through binoculars. Eric was saying it was strobing just fine. Jack and I couldn't see anything. Eric then hooked up the new one and it was a tremendous amount brighter. Ah Ha--it wasn't the bird c---, it was just a piece of c---. Eric installed the new one and we lowered him back to the deck. As it is set up to turn on automatically when the Sun goes down(it has a photo cell), I set it at that and found all was well when it lite later that evening. It's glowing as I type this.
With that being done, Tracy and I were figuring it was their way of saying--"It's time to move on"(they have had the new light since back in late November). We already had planned to move to the Port of Brownsville down the coast but we were in no hurry as this space is free the Brownsville isn't. Hey--a penny here and penny there. It all adds up. We went up and talked to Matt--one of the owners. He had no problem with us staying right were we were. I offered to pay for the electricity so at least he would have that covered--hey , lets be fair. He said he would look into it but hey as long as Tracy bought a cup of coffee every now and then we were fine staying right where we were.
Sea Marine got it right over Christmas by offering free haul outs to anyone who wanted them. All they had to do was bring their boats up here and Sea Marine would haul them out of the water at no charge--about a $320.00 savings. They sent out cards to all of their old clients. It has been a mad house here at the dock ever since. We have a boat tied up to the side of ours as I type this.
We finally got Gordon(one of our riggers) to go up the mast to measure the pin that holds the forestaysail stay to the boat. That is the wire that one of our sails goes up near the bow of the boat. When the mast was raised back in October, Brion(main rigger) hadn't ordered in the pin so he installed the wire with a stainless steel bolt and nut(he then lost the measurements-oops). It works fine, but it isn't made for long term usage. It really needs a proper pin installed. So up Gordon went and the measurements were taken. I took them to the local metal fabricators and am having them made to order. While not cheap, it will be cheaper than getting them from another source. It's a long stainless steel pin and not readily available. Being a sailor, I'm having him make two--just in case. Hey paranoia is my friend! I should have them by some time next week. We might actually get this boat done!!!!
I bought the wire for the fog horn and expect to work on it tomorrow. I had planned on doing it today, but instead we went to Seattle on another road trip. We decided to go just as I was settling in to do the blog again. There were several companies we had met at some boat shows and we wanted to see their showrooms. Sure Marine, The Off Shore Store and Fisheries Supply we at the top of the list. Off we went with maps from Map Quest(I don't like getting lost). We took the Kingston-Edmonds Ferry across. Out first time on that ferry. We got to the dock one minute before they set off. Of course, a car bearing Colorado plates was a bit unusual so the "sniffer" dog were paraded around our car before we were let on the boat. Not sure if it was drugs or explosives they were looking for.
I had the forethought of checking out where the local Qdoba restaurants were on our route. A little bit of home. There isn't one any where on the peninsula. There just happened to be one right on our way. Boy it sure was good!!
Sure Marine--we'd bought our fireplace(nice little propane fireplace that mount on the wall) for our last boat(when you're at over 8,000 feet, it gets cold up there) from them as well as our Force 10 stove we installed on Zephyr. Nice people but small store. The space they have at the shows is bigger than their showroom. The also sell and service Wabasto heaters. They were nice enough to show me how to take them out. Ours needs to be serviced and I plan in doing that later this week. They already sent me the service manual for it--like I said--nice people.
The Off Shore Store was about the same. A small hole in the wall whos space is bigger at the show. We got some good information from them on the up coming installation of our SSB radio. We also bought a book on the proper use of the SSB. It couldn't hurt.
Now Fisheries Supply is a whole nother thing. It was HUGE with lots of things to drool over. We were like kids in a candy store. Looking at and trying out lots of boating toys we had never been able to see, let alone touch and look at. We finally got to try out a set of REALLY expensive "electronic stabilizer binoculars". As the boat rocks back and forth, it can be a bit tough to see things through a regular set of binoculars. These on the other hand make it really easy to see things as when you rock back and forth, it takes a lot of the movement out of what you see. Real pretty, but at $1300, it's way out of our price range. Spinnaker poles, hardware, faucets, rope. Your name it, they had it. Just about everything any boat would love to have. We asked questions and looked but didn't buy. Heck, I can have Sea Marine order it in and not pay sales tax and delivery is free. We're from out of state and don't have to on things we will be taking out of state. We were good. It hurt not getting any new toys but we used our will power to over come the "boating demons".
We made it home nice and safe and sound by 8:00.
Tomorrow--back to more projects.
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