We've decided to wait a day or two here in Brownsville before setting out for Port Townsend. It's raining as I type this and winds are expected to be in the 25-30mph range today up near the East end of the Juan de Fuca straits which is where I would be heading. It's one thing if both of us are on board, but with it being just me during this transit, I don't really want to face those kinds of winds on my own on a boat of this size even if I am under power. The marina at Point Hudson can get quite squirrely with winds of that force. They don't want us there till Tuesday anyway so why rush. Tomorrow is supposed to be the same so Tuesday is the "get out of town day". Meanwhile, the tasks continue.
We went to Costco for more supplies. This is the first Costco we've been in that has several self service checkout lanes. It works just like many of the grocery stores. Swipe your card and slide what you are buying over the scanner. Couldn't be easier--and it is faster as most of the people that have few items check out this way.
We stocked up on chicken--this time in individually shrink wrapped packets. Plus some "chubs"of hamburger. The freezer section on Zephyr was getting empty and since we will be leaving, now was the perfect time to stock up.
Tracy defrosted the freezer in the morning while I worked at the computer. It's not an easy task as you try and get slabs of ice out without them falling into the bottom of the box where it's tough to reach down and pickup. There's no front door on this baby. The hairdryer really helps. The bad thing is that it takes quite a while for it to cool down and freeze again. It's almost 24 hours later and the water in the cube tray is still not frozen. The temperature in the box is 35 so the box is cold enough but the freezer area just isn't down there far enough to do the job yet. I should have cubes by this afternoon.
Over to Safeway for some more things and back to Zephyr for a quiet evening.
We're thinking of hiring a diver to go check on the zinc that is attached to the propeller shaft. It's looking a good bit decayed. Since the prop shaft is now the main ground for Zephyr, I'm wondering if that is causing it to decay faster than it did in the past. Previous zincs had lasted a lot longer and since this one was brand new when we launched back in October, that's only a span of 4 1/2 months and that's not long. A diver is a lot cheaper to hire than a haul out at Point Hudson so we will see if we can find someone in the next day or so before we leave.
We stocked up on more anti-flea meds for our fur people. If those little critters come back while we're out in the islands we want to be prepared. The first stuff we bought did nothing other than to cause Shadow to loose all his hair where we applied the medication. The stuff from Advantage got rid of the critters quickly and apparently totally.
Today will be laundry day. We want to get it all done before we leave as it is cheaper here by far. We will be trying to get rid of some of the mildew that has attached itself to some of my clothes while they were packed away in one of the cabinets in the stern stateroom.
We turned over and stowed the dingy yesterday getting it ready for transit. We never got the outboard motor back on and started. It will have to wait till we get to Port Townsend. The new tv antenna we bought got hauled down for storage during the trip North. No reason to have it up in the rigging during the trip.
I started up the generator and hooked it up to Zephyrs inlet for testing. It started right up. When I hooked it up to Zephyr, the "reverse polarity" light came on again. I had hoped we had solved that problem when we replaced the inlet a few weeks ago. Apparently not. The strange thing is that the warning light goes off if I turn off the "starboard outlet" circuit breaker. When the circuit is on, so is the warning light. When it's off, so is the light. When hooked to shore power, the warning light is off. It makes no sense to me or anyone else I've talked to. I've posted the problem on several websites that cater to sailors. Hopefully we will find an answer to the situation. Since we expect the generator to be one of our principal means of keeping the batteries charged we need to get it resolved if we can.
By the way, it's "Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit day" to all of you out there. Have a great day.
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