Hanging out at the Marin Yacht Club, the locals have been incredibly welcoming. Last night we had a great dinner with the club and the members of the visiting Coyote Point Yacht Club from the South Bay. Lots of stories were traded and the bartender at MYC had some really creative drink ideas.
It’s a bit anti-climatic to have the SF Bay be our first stop as we were formally locals here. But on the other hand it’s nice to have a place to unwind easily, we know our way around, there isn’t pressure to sightsee or do things.
We are working on some projects, as usual. We ordered a new stove for the boat. We tried to make the 20 year old stove work but it it’s clearly on its last legs. The new one showed up yesterday and we just need to borrow a car to go get it. Hopefully it will be a drop-in replacement after the extensive measuring we did. But you never know.
We are making our preventer easier to use. It worked great down the coast but it could be even better. There’s just a little sewing involved and that will be done. Easier, faster, and safer will be great.
We are rebedding the front hatch. It’s a project we had put off because we could never find time to do it in Seattle. It was either raining or we were sailing. Here in CA we can actually get it done without any pain. Removing it is easy, then all the old gasket had to be taken off with a razor blade. Next we are varnishing the wood trim that’s in bad shape because there’s been a small leak and after the varnish the hatch will go back with all new Butyl sealant. Once I took the hatch off it was immediately clear why there was a leak, the old gasket had a kink in it and had a gap. We didn’t take more than a few drips of water over the years, just enough to ruin the varnish and cause a few small water spots, but enough of that.
Next I have to do an oil change. The MYC has oil collection so that’s super easy. We put about around 40 hours on the engine on the way down. Not bad for 900 miles. 14 hours were motoring from Port Townsend to Neah Bay (zero wind). Then another 4 hours motoring around Cape Flattery (zero wind). Then 10 hours motoring from Point Reyes to Sausalito (no wind). Then we ran the engine about 1.5 hours a day for power (the auto pilot was in full use in the big seas and it became the #1 draw). So we had about 50 gallons left plus 10 gallons in jerry jugs that we transferred to the tanks today using the clever “best siphon”. We would have had to use less fuel if we realized that our starboard solar panel connector had failed because of water ingress. We fixed that in Sausalito and haven’t been plugged into shore power at all with our batteries at 100% every day. Anyway, yes an oil change is due.
Next we are going to sew a new sail bag for on deck storage of our storm jib. Making that easier to hoist will make life much easier on the high seas. We are going to make a special bag to keep the sail on deck and easy to deploy. More sewing machine work on this one.
Miscellany includes some varnishing, making our wind vane easier to control from the cockpit (less reliance on the auto pilot), making our lazy jacks easier to stow. Oh and a little better anchor snubber.
For fun ? Friends are visiting today. We’ve visited my parents a few times and taken them for a sail. We are going to Rachel’s parents 50th anniversary party. Next week we are taking the train to Santa Rosa for “sightseeing”. We are walking a ton, our biggest day was 7 miles. And averaging more than a mile a day. We’ve had a lot of fun making new friends. Soon we have to go to Sacramento to get our Temporary Import Permit for our boat to get into Mexico.
Soon it will be time to head south. We’ve been watching with excitement as the rest of the coho fleet makes their way south. www.ngc457.com/coho/index.php?rally_year=2021 Our plans include half moon bay, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Moro Bay, Santa Barbara’s Channel Islands, L.A , Catalina, Orange County, San Diego and then Mexico.
My sleep is back to normal finally. It took a whole week. I had a midnight to four am watch on the trip down, between that and all the captaining duties like navigation and weather I don’t think I got enough sleep each day which led to a pretty big deficit. The next few legs our voyages will be much shorter, and for our next big crossing we won’t have North America as a terrifying lee shore, plus we know the boat much better, so I should be able to sleep better, even if it just the two of us sailing the boat.