Last Sail of 2010

We took our last sail of this year yesterday.  Winds 13-15kt from the SW and 1 -2′ seas under bright sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60’s.  In other words – perfect.  On return to port we removed the sails and stored them below because they were dry and the temperatures and winds were conducive to that type of work.  The boat looks sort of bare and forlorn without the sails.  This weekend it is supposed to be in the mid-30’s and widespread frost prevails.  Our little heater should be able to keep up with those temperatures OK.

Back at the PL house we are having a new 4″ well installed by Rick Boyer because of recurrent problems with a cycling pump turn o then off then on.  The well is over 40 years old and needs to be replaced.  Hopefully the new one lasts that long too but then again I will not be around to see that.

Boring & also sad

[singlepic id=242 w=240 h=180 float=left]Not much new news.  We went to the KANQ hangar owners annual event last night and Republican Sheriff hopeful was there to give us a talk on security of the airport.  Several owners had comments; however, it did not appear to me that Troyer had a good idea of his audience.  This said, I like the man and could support his election.

After arriving back at the pad, I fiddled with the new 12MP Kodak camera I bought SAM.  The camera takes brighter and more clear pictures than my 7MP Samsung.  The Cannon 3MP camera took better pictures also.  I installed a 8GB SDHC external card in the Kodak and when I fired it up it said we had room for 3800+ pictures.  With that kind of memory we should have ample space to decent length videos.

The sun is out now but the radar shows that Saugatuck/Douglas is getting really pounded by rain and wind.  Glad I am not on the boat as it would be another slow day.  SAM is messing with the sewing machine and I loaded a few free embroidery files on the Compact Flash card this morning and the machine is doing the work right now.

This afternoon, I will go to a classmates “Celebration of Life”.  I played football with Mike Sapp at AHS.  He was always the gifted athlete and he was a genuine war hero too – Bronze Star (V) plus several Purple Hearts.

Falling Barometer

The day awoke to overcast skies, dreary and easterly winds.  It got worse from there on the falling barometer and rained the remainder of the day on very cool low overcast skies.

The admiral left the ship on the mid-day break in the rain.  Tires were filled with air at the Shell station  under rainy skies and a green & white golf  umbrella in one hand while filling with the other plus juggling the umbrella and the tire caps.

The Capt. watched Rookie Blues episode 12 n 13.  Also watched Human Target episodes 10 n 11.  The boiled some spaghetti with mushrooms and salsa over the top.  Mumm.

Wind, water n Holland

The barometer has remained steady in the 29.7x’s with strong SW’ish winds that are gusty and more or less clear skies to finish the afternoon.  We spent a lot of time in Holland buying waterproof  nylon fabric, nylon thread, D-rings, nylon black webbing and some food.  Of course, we tried to get the absolute best bargain and used lots of gas, more than the buys were worth, to achieve the best price point.

Late in the day we removed the Wind Bugger wind generator and its mounting mast. Believe me it came down lots easier than it went up, even in this gale, just by using the topping lift and a few clove hitches on the entire pole and generator.  The day was a success.

We now listen to the gusty 35kt gale whistling through the rigging and are glad to be inside and tied to the dock with lots of strong, stretchable lines plying us with a gentle rocking motion.  The noise is loud at times but is comforting in spite of its intensity.  Moore later…

Water problems on the boat.

We came home last night to a failed water pump on the boat.  It had been sounding funny for the past week or so. The pump is a Jabsco diaphram pump that has not been made for 20 years or more.  I had a spare parts machine in the hold so I was able to replace the failed rod with the spare part upper assembly and using the diaphragm from the failed unit.  Yea!  The bad news is that there exist very few spare parts around the country.

The repaired unit sounds different so every time SAM turns on the water my senses are alerted that something just doesn’t sound right and I go into troubleshoot mode before I can surpress the urge.

Maybe it is time I start thinking about a modern replacement pump that will be much quieter.  The new ones are non-repairable so they become throwaways so you have to buy a spare because they fail without any notice.

The Fort

Per ottenerla, clicca qui!Se e vero che su 888 casino non mancano mai le promozioni, e ancora piu vero che si trovano bonus slot machine gratis specifici con una frequenza maggiore rispetto alle iniziative promozionali adottate dagli altri casino concorrenti.