2009 Log
1/16 to 1/31/2009
This is our log for 2009; our other voyages are in Prior Voyages.
We plan to post and update at least weekly. We move the older portions of the log to history; pages accessible at the bottom of the page. Join our voyage!
Updated on 02/05/2009
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1/16/08 - During my wanderings for parts I picked up a headset so we can use Skype on our computer for phone calls where we only have a WIFI connection. Our communications alternatives keep expanding. As for the rest of the day I spent it working on solar wiring. The project has become the likes of laying sewer pipe in a metropolitan street/ 1/17/09 - Saturday - sunny and cool! I had to make a run to West Marine (a daily event lately) for a couple of #6 and #8 terminals. By 2pm the solar wiring was done and the unit was powered. Troubleshot a glitch in remote controller and we were making electricity... 5 times the amps that Our Way was generating from two smaller panels. We celebrated our new power by heading out to Lake Boca behind Our Way to join the Hillsboro Inlet Cruising Club's Chili Cook-off. It was cool, a good night for a chili potluck. Ruth entered her version of "Frozen Tundra Chili", winning one of a half dozen awards. The last line of her recipe reads "Set three noodles aside to cool for Parrot." 1/18/09 - Brrrr - a cold 55 degrees last night! Colder than a June afternoon in WI. My brother bounced me an e-mail already this morning to note my last publication was missing a day... sounds like my life. Speaking of sounds... yes, he told me to turn off the Christmas music. Play day today, we stayed at anchor in Lake Boca enjoying the warm sun and reading. Ruth took a long nap (still fighting her cold) while Buddy took in all the boats visiting the lake. Every now and then I'd come down to the pantry and check out the solar charging - saw a top value of 26 amps... awesome! We burned a lot of power today to see if the system would recover. I think we overdid it with the coffee maker but we were gaining charge all day for the first time. 1/19/09 - We elected to anchor out a second night to test our recharging system and enjoy a change of scenery. About 1 am I woke to approaching loud music thinking it was a chartered party boat. Then I realized the music was stationary and nearby. I stuck my head out the hatch and was surprised to see a 30 foot good fast lying against our windward side - running lights on and no one visible. Once on deck I realized the boat had drifted up against in the dark... still no one visible. As I moved toward our bow (their stern) I noticed a couple in their cockpit too occupied to realize they'd hit us. As the young lady watched I gently pushed them past us letting them drift on across the lake to the romantic sounds of a pounding beat. Interesting night. Monday was a weird day with brief scattered showers, blue skies and strong winds. Ruth noted a sailboat anchored near us dragging toward some private docks and sounded our horn, alerting the crew so they could re-anchor. We held in spite of 20+ knot winds with 35 knot gusts. 1/20/09 - Smarter folks read the log than they who write it. Jim Reid noted that since the 14th I'd been dating the log December... focusing too hard on the 09. We watched the inauguration on TV, pretty moving. If I wasn't such a cynic... time will tell as always. Strong winds all day, another cold front on it's way - they're forecasting 40's and folks are running to the hardware stores, supermarkets and liquor stores to get ready for it. Guess it's a mindset. 1/21/09 - 4.9 degrees last night... centigrade. That's 40 but it's got people bundled up. We had the heater on all night and all was good. Barry is working on the large drapes for Sol Bu's patio. (Nelly and John's Patio). I've been working on quite a few things pushing and pushing paper. The dam should break soon I hope. We need to make an appointment for Buddy to get her physical so we can apply for her Visa to visit the Bahamas. Weird huh? We heard from Miles that Laureen is recovering well from her breast surgery (reoccurrence of cancer from years ago) We've been saying lots of prayers and we really miss them. She can even bring Miles back with her when they return to Ariel. Laureen, if you are reading this we love you and miss you and send you hugs! I (Barry) finished laying out and cutting 16 curtain panels around 6:30pm, returning to the boat to relax and have supper with the flock. We had 16" of cloth left on the roll when we finished - too close for that much material. Tomorrow we start sewing... miles of stitches - 8 double panels 18' long, all with edge trims, a center seam and gathering. 1/22/09 - Clear, sunny and cool (50). I worked all day on curtains, joining 16 panels to make 4 sets of curtains. Made more progress than I expected but we have a long way to go. Ruth helped with short recesses to check e-mail and contact clients. Tomorrow we'll start establishing sets, hemming the panel tops and bottoms. We closed the day with TV news and pizza with John & Nell. Long day, but a lot achieved. 1/23/09 - Another cool clear morning. Heavy workload sewing today as we're running out of time. We assembled a set of curtains today. That means 3 more days and we'll have all the sets assembled. John has to get the hardware mounted for the final 3 sets. Temperature-wise it turned into a great day - we ate our sandwiches on the patio, enjoying the balmy breeze. In our spare time the last couple of days John and I sold two wind generators with mounting kits and a SkyMate 200 package...and 2 headsets-- not bad with one hand tied behind our back. Okay, we had help, couldn't have done it without Rosemary. Ruth helped while monitoring her paper activity. We headed to the Vet about 4 to get Buddy's nails and wings clipped, and to get the physical for her visa to the Bahamas. Went very well! She was awesome...we asked her if she wanted to go in the car for a ride and she climbed right into her transport cage! Normally, we have to put towels over Buddy and force her into the cage. She did the same thing when we asked her at the Vet if she wanted to go to the boat. Climbed right in...wow-no problem. Is she getting more intelligent with her understanding of what we say with age? Barry also got good news today! All of his 10 biopsies came through okay! He had 10 moles and growths cut off. (When you grow old you just grow things, kinda like the hair in your ears for a guy) Okay, I gotta say, this is not a great thing when the hearing is going already! 1/24/09 - We received an e-mail from a Netherlands' owner of a sister ship to AA (a beautiful dark blue hull). His Raymarine system is very similar in all aspects to ours... including the frequent "Raymarine Moments". Pieter will be re-cabling the Hsb2 in an attempt to solve it; something we haven't tried though I doubt it is the issue. Good luck Pieter - I'd love to know the solution. Ruthie and I were smoking today - 3 1/4 panels completed/ Only 1 1/4 to go. John and Nell hung two sets... looks great! After we finished the day Ruth and I hit the whirlpool, heavenly. I could have spent the night there. 1/25/09 - Sunday, no rest. Ruth and I finished all the curtain panels and started on the sashes. The curtains look great and work as intended. The curtains were designed as solar shades but it is also apparent they will also serve as bug screens. Buddy came up to the house and watched as we test hung all the units. Tomorrow we'll finish the sashes and tie the project up... hurrah! Bradd & Maeve are on the move, heading to Havana to clear out of Cuba and return for the Miami Boat Show. 1/26/09 - Clear skies, sunshine and balmy (68) - very nice way to wake up. Worked on the sashes in the morning while Ruth did her paper trading. It's pretty tough out there right now in her industry but she's still pumping out those offers. Tired... finished 6 sashes this morning. The curtain project is done for this visit (another smaller porch that needs curtains). Then we attack our gennaker (we'd blown it in half last year). Four hours later we'd effected a taped in repair that appears as a draft line. Tomorrow we'll sew it, adding a large circle to repair the major shredded area. Sometime later we have to replace both luff tapes and we'll have our sail back in service. Big project... one I'd been afraid to tackle but it had to be done. Many thanks to John and Nell for use of the "sewing room" to work on it. 1/27/09 - Windy night last night carrying into the morning. A few scattered clouds in the morning, rain all afternoon. We really needed the rain. It also was a good opportunity to see how the curtains handled rain - no problems mon. Today was a gennaker day. I taped and sewed the splice joining the two sections together. In the epicenter I inserted a 36" blue circle to replace shredded material. With Ruth's help we got it all taped together and sewn. All that remains is a stitch around the dot and extensions on the two 55' leach tapes and we have our sail back after a year out of service. 1/28/09 - Another B-U-tiful morning. Today was another gennaker repair day. I was able to finish sewing the cross sail rip and replace a missing section by the tack. That leaves a small tear by the clew and the luff tapes to finish it. Turned out to be a bigger task than I expected. We joined John & Nell for lunch with two other couples, air force friends of John's. Very interesting discussions at lunch ranging from flying nuclear bombers to talks with Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. 1/29/09 - Sunny and balmy, calm compared to yesterday's breezes. I worked on our gennaker, fixing another tear and with Ruth's help getting the leach tapes straightened out. Then we designed another anchor for the curtains and tamed them in strong winds. That project is basically done. Neighbors have commented on how nice the curtains look. I finished modifications to John's helm cover to accommodate their GPS, pretty much have their projects finished. Bradd & Maeve checked in, they were off Miami and had just caught a nice tuna. We expect them later tomorrow after they clear customs in Lauderdale. Burgers a' la Wellman completed the day... time to take our full tummies to bed. 1/30/09 - Friday the 30th (noted for those of you who are superstitious) - another month has spun away from us. Catching up on the world news we see that Blagojevich is out of Illinois and Jake the rooster faces extradition from Neenah (can you say KFC)l. On the financial scene Wall Street has celebrated their near miss and bailout by giving each other a pat on the back and 20 billion worth of bonuses. The government is struggling to figure out how to give the banks billions to strengthen them while leaving the Gypsies in control of the palace. Obama is against having lobbyists in government... unless he wants them there. Yes, life is interesting from the perspective of an ignorant old sailor. Today was a quiet one, I worked on our gennaker turtle, did some prep for taping the gennaker and a couple of little jobs for John. Ruth got Buddy's paperwork sent our for a permit to enter the Bahamas. We'd been expecting Sampatecho this evening only to find that it had taken them 5 hours to clear customs and immigration in Lauderdale. I keep telling Bradd it would go faster if he didn't greet the Homeland Security officers with "Allah Akbar" while wearing a turban... gotta keep an eye on those crafty Canadians. Somehow the 5 hours doesn't surprise us... it took 60 days for us to get our custom user's decal. If terrorists came through the system they'd be too old to be a threat by the time they were cleared. Unfortunately they don't follow the rules. 1/31/09 - A beautiful sunny dawn jump started the day. On opening the hatch we learned it was a crisp 47° autumn day. Brrr! Okay, we're spoiled! We have been tracking some supplies shipped UPS for delivery yesterday. UPS announced they'd delivered at 6:15 last night but we got no package (we checked at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30) - arrrggghhh! No one around UPS this weekend to help us. We'd expected to complete the project today. Later in the day the package appeared like magic on the front steps. Don't know if UPS delivered it or someone else received it and dropped it off at the right address. Sampatecho arrived after lunch. It was great to see them again. Enroute from Cuba they had caught a tuna so they hosted dinner last night. Excellent! |
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Sew & So laying out the gathers
Sewing the gathers at the top. How about that sewing room?
Grand Slam, Dutch sister ship of AA, she looks great in blue.
Blue panels are damaged areas that were replaced
Finally, the curtains are done...
3/4 view of finished set
Overlooking the pool
John dons his rat's ass
Belated Christmas gifts for Bradd & Maeve
The rat pack |
2009 Logs
| Boca Raton, 2/1 to 2/15/09 | |
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