Back on the water today. We slipped the lines early this morning and left at low tide to sneak out through the narrow breakwater and back out to open ocean.
There has been about two weeks of unusually windy, cool weather so when a few days of calms—or at least under 10 knots—opened up we were all over it. The regular winds this time of year are out of the northwest which is exactly the way we’re headed—meaning we’re more than happy to have no wind at all. We had so little wind, waves, and swell today that we never even bothered hauling out a sail.
In the late afternoon we hit an unexpected wall of fog. I guess we had that once last year when we were leaving Mazatlan, but after a long sunny day it still came as quite the surprise. There was so much moisture in the air all of a sudden that water was pouring down the rigging, dripping dirty water all over the deck. Fortunately the fog lifted before dark.
A booby bird came and landed on our spreaders right before dark. These birds seem so clumsy that it is hard to believe they can fly, catch fish, and really survive at all. The kids liked seeing him up there so we left him alone and put the kids to bed. After half an hour up there he had covered about every inch of the boat in poop, and gotten himself evicted in the process. A couple of well placed swings with a halyard and he decided to move on.
6 Comments on “Motor On”
Looks like the new helmsman needs a periscope!
Glad to see the boat on the move.
Here’s hoping the autopilot doesn’t crap out on us until he’s grown another foot or two.
Good job on the photos. They are getting better and better. Love the black and white deck and family on the bunk.
Thanks. It’s like anything I guess, practice, practice, practice. Or at the very least, repetition, repetition, repetition.
Two things are keeping us from getting a good night’s sleep on our boat: Our table situation and the bilge pump that auto-tests and sounds like a goat. The goat is easily evicted, but what did you use to make your table drop down so that you can put a mattress on top of it? Are you happy with that solution? Anything you would do differently?
The table was purpose built to do this. It’s basically a stainless steel post sliding into a just slightly bigger post. When it is raised up there is a bolt on each leg that you just twist tight and you’re good to go. Our cat had the same thing, though with 4 beds already we never did need that one. All we had to do with this one was have a cushion made. We’re happy with it because hey, it’s the biggest bed we’ve owned in a decade. 🙂