Day 372 Into Nanaimo

It blew all night long and the anchor held like a champ.   No movement at all and the DuoGen just kept cranking out the amps.  A much better bottom than Pirates Cove.

I checked on the part we have been waiting on from Shakespeare coming in via UPS.  The tracking info said to "Call UPS" so I did.  After getting through to the Canadian UPS, they checked the tracking number and said that they couldn't find "Yacht in Transit" as an address.  Well, shucks, I wonder why not.  I told her I was on the yacht and we were in transit to Nanaimo and would be in tomorrow.  She laughed and said it made sense if you look at it that way.  I had already gotten the address of the Nanaimo Wharf Office so I had it directed there.  I told her we could pick it up a the local UPS office but she said she didn't have that address and that they would have to call me.  Say what?  You don't even know where you local office is located.  I was a bit surprised at that.  Oh well, it should be here tomorrow and right at the dock.  I didn't think they delivered to the post office.  It's like Coke delivering to Pepsi.  It just isn't going to happen.

I called the father of the boy that lost his fanny pack back at Pirates Cove.  He is sending a Fed Ex box to the marina so we can get it back to him.  I think he was surprised we were doing this. I know I'd hate to loose my phone. 

We started the engine this morning to see if the alternator worked as it should after yesterdays strange action.  I'd checked all the wires and belts and all looked fine.  We fired it up and she cranked out the proper amount of volts and amps we expected so who knows what happened yesterday.  In the future we won't start the engine if the Webasto heater is running.  That was the only oddity of the start up.  This afternoon while sitting in the cockpit, I noticed that the oil pressure gauge hadn't gone down as normal.  We started the engine and there was no movement of the needle at all on the gauge.  I check the connections and all looked fine.  If the pressure doesn't go up as it is supposed to, the alternators won't turn on and crank out the volts and amps we need but they were cranking out just fine.  So maybe the gauge is just broken,  It has never really gone down to "0" when the engine is stopped.  I'll be looking into that tomorrow.  Who knows, maybe just a bad connection.

We launched Puff with Dragon on her stern and headed over to the marina after lunch for a look around.  The marina fees are a lot more than they were at Sidney and I thought that they were bad there.  Not much choice I guess.

  

Our trip over to Nanaimo was nice and dry.  It had finally calmed down enough that the waves had flattened out.  We walked around looking in different shops.  Several "used" book stores for more reading material.  With no TV, we are reading a lot more and are fast going through our "library".  I did get my hair cut.  A REALLY short "republican" haircut.  It will take a while for this baby to grow out.  We checked out the local market but will be in a larger one tomorrow so we will wait till then to get food.

 When we launch Puff, it used to be a big ordeal getting her up and over the life lines.  We've seen some people  hook lines to the bow of their dingy and use the spinnaker halyard to get it up and over the life lines but we found a better way after we had the rigging changed.  We'd added a connection for out new spinnaker pole to the mast and it fit an old pole I'd brought from our last boat with just the thought that maybe we could use it on Zephyr.  It works perfectly making the job easy.

We just hook a block and tackle set up to a set of straps that Bill had left in Zephyr and attach the end  to the pole.  Insert the end of the pole in the end of the spinnaker attachment at the mast  and pull her up and over the lifelines to the deck.  Turn her over and strap her down.  Takes maybe 10 minutes and gets easier each time we do it.  No more hernias!

I'm getting the blog in now as we will be off for the marina early tomorrow and there won't be time.  We are planning on getting the car from Enterprise by 0900 and hitting all the stores we need and get it back to them by 1750 when they close.  Costco, Walmart, Groceries, West Marine and a few chandleries and we should be done but who knows.