The weekend - susan’s view

One must be flexible to roll along in life! The HAM class was canceled due to under enrollment so suddenly Friday evening was free! Let’s head to the boat Friday night so we will be there for an early start on Saturday; and we did! The main task this weekend was to put 5 coats of barrier paint on Gypsy and then follow up with 2 coats of antifouling paint. Dan had selected white and gray barrier coating that made the application accurate; the contrast in color allowed us to see just where we missed! In order to apply the product and let it set for the prescribed amount of time, Dan had carefully calculated when the applications needed to be made. There was only so much time that could lapse from when the last coat of barrier paint was applied and when the first coat of antifouling paint could start. And of course there was the movement of the poppets to factor in! The weather was in our favor.
I’m not sure if from the pictures you have realized that Gypsy has a prime spot on the hard. Looking at some of the other vessels, the owners have very little room to work around their boat. Gypsy not only has space but she has distinction. We are located next to the northern dock’s access ramp. We have not been missed! Many names are unknown but comments on our progress are distinctive. Consensus has it that we are doing a terrific job! Some viewers are unable to pass by without a comment.
It caused much excitement that the bottom color kept changing. Just as soon as someone liked the color, we changed it! Some folks stopped to lament that they had gone through the barrier coating process some time back and though it was worth it, they were happy they were not doing it on a 42’ vessel! One sweet man was even concerned that I was doing more painting than Dan! I quickly assured this thoughtful soul that I can paint but I can’t splice the lines! I’m pretty zippy with the labor duties; it’s the technical tasks where I have limitations!
The encouragement continued for the entire 3 days! Sunday we only applied one coat of barrier with the 5th and final coat planned for Monday, followed by two coats of the antifouling paint. We had some difficulty with lint like particles in the finish which meant that we lightly sanded between coats. It was recommended that we use a foam roller and we did for the final application. Except that the rollers were disintegrating by the end of the job, the lint problem was mostly eliminated. It wasn’t until we applied the antifouling paint that we realized how hard it was to apply the barrier paint. The antifouling paint spread with ease.
The intention was to finish our job by the end of the day. As Dan and I sat with the sun on our backs watching the paint dry, an intense feeling of accomplishment was starting to build. A BIG task was coming to a close and we had been able to intersperse other jobs into the weekend.
The plan was to start to load up our car so once we completed the final coat we would take showers and mosey home. Dan had started to mix the paint; the bags were packed. One of the yard men happened to come by; I offered him a homemade cookie and as he lingered, munching and commenting that only owners could do the kind of labor intensive job that we had done, he declared that we could not apply the next color of antifouling paint for at least 24 hours! Though the surface was dry to touch, apparently another coat of paint would activate something in the dry coat which would release the color and cause the dark green (on the bottom) and the blue (about to be applied) to blend! Horrors! The mixing ceased, the cans were sealed, and another day will finish our labor of love.

Anchor man - dan
We arrived at the marina after work Friday night and walked the docks at sunset. Susan spotted the thinnest sliver of the new moon over in the western sky. It was to be our marathon bottom-painting weekend and we wanted to spend the nights at the marina so we could get early starts in the mornings. It turned out to be a long, beautiful and productive three days that included 10, 11 and 12 hour days interspersed with three nights where we collapsed into Gypsy's cabin, alarm set for a 6:30am wake up. After it was all done Susan and I discussed, among many things, blog coverage. Susan suggested that I talk about the anchor and she’d talk about the painting and people. You know, I never wanted to be a news guy and now here I am, an Anchorman. Life has a funny way of playing with you sometimes.

So here’s my story - I was live, on the scene in Noank Connecticut when an anchor was actually replaced on pleasure vessel. Please don’t yawn, it’s actually a fascinating story unless you’re not interested in things nautical, in that case you should just glance at the photos and skip the rest of this story because if you are not truly into things nautical this next bit will be about as interesting as watching the paint dry on your boat bottom but that’s another tale so let's move on to my anchor yarn.

In-between the marathon bouts of painting we got the forward chain locker cleaned out and the new Rocna 33 installed. It went better than expected; in fact it went better than I ever would have hoped. It’s such a large anchor I was nervous that it wouldn’t fit our bow roller setup. The common rule of thumb for anchors is a pound of anchor weight for every foot of boat. That would suggest a 42lb anchor, Gypsy 42’ of length. She came with a 45lb Delta Plow but still I wanted more. The plow is a decent type of anchor. I’ve had one before but I found when the conditions get rough the plow does just what its name implies; it plows (drags) which is not a good thing. Also in anchors, bigger is better; along with up-sizing I also wanted to switch to a newer design so we picked up a Rocna 33; 73lbs of bottom grabbing galvanized steel.

Gypsy's original inventory included 250' of 5/16 anchor chain. We pulled all the chain out to verify and inspect it, all 300lbs of it and to clean out the bottom of the chain locker. We were surprised what we found under all that chain, no, it wasn't Jimmy Hoffa but another 140lbs of old chain and old nylon rode. We dumped all the old stuff next to the boat with a "free" sign and it disappeared by the end of the day; the nylon line to a frugal boater and the old chain to the local dumpster pickers.

Our new Rocna anchor is a spade type anchor with a roll bar. I’ve had a spade anchor before and really liked it. It also performed like its name implied; it dug in and held like mad. The Rocna takes the spade design one step further by adding the distinctive roll bar over the top to facilitate setting if the anchor should ever end up all cattywampus on the bottom. If you’ve read this far you probably are truly interested in boating details and might enjoy going to the Rocna web site and watching their video about the Rocna anchor that discusses its design features and compares it to other common anchor types.

The last thing we did anchor wise this weekend was to shackle and safely wire the chain to the new anchor and then spliced 200’ of new 3/4” nylon line to the end of the chain to increase our deep water anchoring capability. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. Thank you and good night.
187 days...

Down at the boatyard - dan
It was another exhausting weekend for me down at the boatyard. Susan occupied herself as she usually does lately by sanding almost non-stop for up to ten hours a day (it exhausts me just watching her work). I worked on a few other projects and did a bit of sanding myself but mostly I was busy keeping other lonesome and envious skippers away from Susan. They’d come to her from all directions trying to chat her up. Most seem intrigued and amazed by a woman who not only sands bottoms but seems to enjoy it. That’s all well and good but it distracts and slows her down which is unacceptable. So I was running interference all weekend long. I’m going to have to start using a boathook on them if this keeps up. They’re clever devils too as they’ve taken to working in pairs to do their machinations. First one lonesome mariner will try to chat me up, saying things like; “oh you’re a lucky man to have such a woman yar yar yar” and other such platitudes. All this as his mate then tries to sneak up on Susan hoping that I’ll be caught unawares but I’m wise to their tricks and more vigilante that a German Sheppard.

So you can see that I’ve had my hands full but in spite of that I’ve managed to get a few things done. I replaced our starting battery that had gone bad with a new Group 31, AGM deep cell that’s rated at 105 amp hours. I’m going to keep the house & starter batteries combined from now on to give us a total of 420 amp hours of power. Our small Honda generator will serve as an emergency backup should the batteries ever get too low to start the diesel. I also manage to fix our solar powered vent and our bow navigation lights.

We had some more bad luck with our OGM (Orca Green Marine) tricolor light; the replacement unit that we got from the manufacturer proved faulty, this was our second light from OGM. This time all the lights came on but once we switched on the running lights the unit started to fill with smoke. Funny, they didn’t advertize that it did smoke signals as well as navigation, anchor lights & a strobe. So it went back to OGM and we’re waiting on a replacement. OGM said that they had gotten a bad lot of computer chips and that they won’t have any new units in till at least the begging of next month. They offered a refund but I want to stick with them. I think it will be a good unit if they can get the bugs worked out. Hopefully we’ll get the new unit before the mast goes up but if not I can install it when I climb the mast to install the wind instruments and VHF antenna. Last but not least we just received our Coast Guard vessel documentation. Federal vessel documentation is required for boats traveling between counties. So now we’re all set for that. I came across an interesting piece of history when researching vessel documentation: Issuing vessel documentation is one of the oldest functions of our government dating back to the eleventh act of the first congress in 1789. Of course that was done after establishing several tax acts.

We’ve got another day of sanding to do before we can start painting Gypsy’s bottom. Susan will try to get that done sometime during the week. If she can do that we’ll be all set to start painting next weekend weather permitting. We got eight coats of paint to apply; six coats of Interlux 2000 barrier coat followed by one coat of red Pettit Trinidad and finally top coat of blue Pettit Trinidad SR.

195 days...

Four day weekends susan

With a four day weekend in the scheme, there is room for cold, rain, socialization and work on Gypsy, too! One would hope that our blog would serve as a way to stay connected to our friends and family as we travel and also may serve to give information to potential sailors and /or cruisers. Never did I imagine that one of our friends would read our blog and offer a solution to our sanding problem! Not only did Tom Hills offer his orbital sanders, he offered his time to assist with the sanding! Now that is a true friend! Tom and his wife Elaine had their own 34’ Catalina that they sold last year and Tom has not adjusted to a lack of boat chores. Friday found us ready to go at the marina by 9; I had started sanding by hand and Tom arrived shortly thereafter with his classy Festool sanding set. Seeing what a professional job this sander does, I wonder how I could have ever imagined that I could sand that entire hull by hand! Gypsy is positioned on flat ground which makes some of her hull directly overhead if I am sitting on the ground. Tom had the wisdom to bring a stool and in addition to sometimes sitting on it I was able to use it to lie partially on my back with my feet flat on the ground. (In yoga this would be assisted bridge pose!)

Spring fever has come to the boat yard. Cars were parked all around; people laden down with bags of all their tried and true remedies for making the bottom hulls foul resistant and the hull above the water line, sparkling. Frequently enthusiastic workers would support others with words of encouragement or would share information on a product they found exceptional!
I liked the sanding; it’s something I can do. It’s messy! Even clothed in a bandana and a respirator, I tasted the dust for days! There is something mesmerizing about the sanding and I had a hard time pulling myself away. I also liked the intimacy of scrutinizing every inch of Gypsy. This structure below the water line, that soon will be a trusted part of our home, cannot be ignored. I found myself whispering endearments to Gypsy at times, hoping for us not to find ourselves kissing a reef or any other underwater obstacle during our future adventures. While Tom and I sanded, Dan worked on several other projects that only required his expertise.

Saturday was the rain day and Sunday we shared Easter dinner in New Haven with 16 friends and family. One of the last of those for a while…

My enthusiasm got me to the marina on Monday; my body felt it! Where once I held the sander over my head indefinitely, I now felt the muscles burn! My sanding attire has now expanded to one of those attractive one piece disposable suits, complete with a hood. In addition to the respirator I wore a bandana over my mouth. Though being a fashion setter is not one of my ambitions, I needn’t worry, even my mother would not have recognized me! Tom arrived at the dock bright and early and was willing to give us another few hours of sanding assistance! We broke for lunch midday and walked to the Seahorse restaurant where we refueled and rested; ready for round two! Even with the constancy of our effort, the job is not complete! Ought to consider a shorter vessel!

The best part, now – dan

Susan and I started this blog “early” as a dry run to practice for the “real” thing; chronicling our sailing adventure. I’m one who practices and prepares for the things that I take seriously. So when Susan suggested that we chronicle our voyage with a blog, I proposed that we start right away to get familiar with the blogging process before we get into it “seriously”.

Last weekend was a bit frustrating at times because of the setbacks that Susan has described in her previous post. In spite of that and perhaps in some ways because of that our preparations are evolving and in my mind are taking on a sacred nature. Sacred in the way that handcrafted things you trust your life to become sacred overtime, sacred in the way important instruments of life-change become. In writing these words, taking a little time out every week to reflect and write, I have become aware that we already have begun the “real” thing, that we’re living the “real” thing. The preparation we are doing now; restructuring our lives and transforming our vessel are surely at least as important and rich as anything that will happen once we cast off. The great yoga teacher Swami Kripalu identified nonjudgmental self-observation as one of the most advanced spiritual practices one can do. I’m finding that this blog is encouraging and enabling that type of healthy introspection. It’s helping me maintain a larger perspective on my life and to understand how events and actions past, present and future are interconnected and related. With that wisdom in mind, I step back and take a relaxed look at my life as it is right now and I’m please to report that I like what I see.

Years ago a treasured karate teacher informed me; “you look but you do not see”. Seeing is an active practice, it is also nuanced and heavily influenced by context. It’s such an ordinary practice that it’s easy to overlook the subtle but important things one tends to encounter in life. This is where we find ourselves lately, Susan and I; in a dusty marina parking lot, all weekend long for several weekends to come, sanding the bottom of our boat. I’ve come in to the wonderful realization that it’s the very best place I could be with the very best person I could be with. Now that’s what I call “real”, real good that is. Don’t get me wrong, there is still a part of me that can’t wait to head out on the open ocean, turn Gypsy’s bow South towards the islands and beyond but I’m in no rush because I know I’m doing what’s important now, in this moment and it’s good, it’s all good.

Marina anecdote: Sunday morning Susan and I stopped in at the marina’s chandlery to pick up some sandpaper. As we were checking out the cashier said to me; “You know your wife has a lovely smile, you’re a lucky man.” Although Susan and I are not married I didn’t feel the need to correct his well intentioned misassumption, I just smiled and told him I agreed whole heartedly with his sentiment.

208 days...

Some work days go more easily than others… susan

Friday night we completed the first round toward our full HAM radio license. Well, I should say, I did, as Dan attended all 5 classes with me but he already has his Technician’s license; now I do as well! Starting in two weeks we both start the General license course for another 5 weeks of lecture ending with an exam. Our intention is to be able to use our HAM radio/single side band that’s aboard Gypsy; she came to us equipped…

Saturday dawned with cloud cover but a fair breeze. Our first stop was Defender to exchange the antenna we purchased last week for our GPS; the connection did not match. Another sales person with another view realized that the antenna is fine, we just need an adapter to make the parts fit together. Simple? No! This is not a part that Defender carries but they will make an attempt to get the part for us. To be continued… Strike one!

Second attempt of the day: replace the faulty LED masthead light that has been replaced by the distributor. We set up the generator to test the light before we placed it in its permanent spot. The anchor light seemed bright and true; switching to the running lights produced a cloudy haze inside the light chamber in less than 30 seconds. Not good! And I was the observer of the light function; Dan we have a problem here… Strike two…

I hesitate to be too descriptive of our next task, lest you have all the same sensations we had. The breeze and cool air seemed to create the perfect conditions for removing the holding tank for the now storage locker, formerly forward head. Space is too precious of a commodity to leave unclaimed so we had decided to remove the tank; we were waiting for the right conditions… With some major disassembling we may have been able to remove the tank in its entirety but the least disruptive way was to use the saws-all and cut it up! Even the inspection through the capped top yielded unpleasant findings so to lay the tank open was intense. With hatches open and lots of breath control we managed to remove the tank and clean the area. Both Dan and I are scheming as to what will be stored in that space. Being low in the bow we are thinking of things that are bulky but not too heavy.

Even meeting with some frustration today, we left for home feeling as if we had accomplished something big! Whether the task is big or not; if the hype builds up ahead of time, it feels BIG!

Sunday was a day like no other so far. Dan had a task: he planned and had prepared to fill and fair the open areas that had come alive once we had had the keel bolts tightened. What was I going to do?! More accurately: what could I do?! My lack of skills sent me to a frustrating place I have not experienced. Completing the sanding on Gypsy’s hull seemed the only logical task I could handle. Or so I thought! Our boat yard loans sanders and armed with the recommended sandpaper, Dan assisted me in setting up and tried a hand at the first few rounds just to guide me with any special cautions. Unlike most other yard boats, we had our bottom soda blasted so the remaining residue was uneven and often very light. The 120 sandpaper was too abrasive. This prompted a trip to Johnson’s Hardware. This store is a very special place. Packed with every possible solution to the customer’s need, the sales people are very accommodating. You never spend more than a few minutes in any isle looking for a solution to your special problem when a smiling non-intrusive voice asks if there is any way they can be of help – an old school type of place; a place where you feel the pride that the workers have in the service that they provide. I always like going there… only not for sandpaper – taking away from Dan’s project; me not yet started on mine! After much adjusting and thought it was determined that the bottom would be best sanded by hand; I set to the task… rubbing continuously, often with back arched, neck arched I was able to work out my frustration at my small repertoire of skills… there are several more days of sanding in my future…

How do you say good-by - danAs the calendar progresses our departure date feels like a very real event and not the abstract goal that we established almost a year ago. This heighten reality brings me face to face with the certainty of leaving close friends behind. Although we're headed around the world and we intentionally haven't set our final destination. On thing we feel pretty certain about is that we won't be returning to Connecticut. It's not going to be "good-by, we'll see when we get back" because we probably won't be coming back. So how do I say good-by to most of the people that I've come to know for most of my life? As I was struggling with this a word came to me from my youth; aloha. When I was a child our family lived in Hawaii and I was exposed to the word and concept of "aloha". The Hawaiian people use this word in a very beautiful and profound way. To them aloha seems to mean more than a simple hello or good-by. It also seems to covey; affection, love, compassion, kindness and an inclusiveness that expresses a recognition of wholeness, that you are a part of me as I am of you. So on November first when we cast off our dock lines for the final time in Mystic, I won't be saying good-by to all my friends and loved ones, nor will I be leaving them behind. Instead I'll be saying aloha and taking them all along with me in my heart.

212 days...