Sailboats Fair and fine# 51 : Read oldest posts first

Last night we lazed around in the cockpit listening to some nice music on a local radio station. The sky is full of stars overhead but there is a city in almost any direction you look. You can see the glow in the sky from each of them. The stars directly overhead are the only ones visible. We heard on the radio there was going to be a shuttle launch in three days which inspired me to gaze at the stars in amazement as sailors have done for thousands of years. I wondered how many and from how many lands and seas they looked up and were nearly over whelmed by the wonder of such a sight.

Well it was a sure thing with a shuttle launching in a few days that we weren't going anywhere until that was seen. I planned to get as close as the law would allow and watch.

Since we had several days we decided to go over to the cape and tour the museum and ride out to the launch pad and see the shuttle. We were very excited about the whole thing so Georgene and I studied the chart book to see how close we could get. We made a decision on an anchorage that would get us close but give us room to drag anchor if a storm moved us. The anchorage was on the east side of the Indian river. Cold fronts and squalls usual come from the west and they would put us on a lee shore if an anchor pulled loose.

We weighed anchor and headed on over there in a light breeze and we ghosted along at about two knots and marveled at how good it felt to not feel we needed to make five or six knots.

We sailed into our chosen anchorage and dropped three hooks. Wolftrap set right in the middle of them. We were in a fairly large body of water and we would be leaving her for for long periods of time during the days. I put down a Danforth to the north west and the plow to the southwest. To the East I put out an old Heshoff yachtsman about 25 lbs.

We were anchored in mud and the yachtsman though it might drag in mud would not let go. So if she moved it would be very, very slowly and the other two would have ample opportunity to pull in again. I felt pretty good about how we were anchored and I expected that the anchorage would be full of boats watching the launching. I hoped everyone else would do a good job anchoring their boats. We put the sail covers on and wrapped lines around them to be sure they couldn't blow free. It's not unusual to get gusts of wind to 70 knots in winter frontal thunderstorms. Feeling secure we took the dingy and headed for shore and a two mile walk to the Museum

We were really excited about going to see the space port. I had worked for years doing work for Nasa and felt I was a part of all this and it a part of me. My part was very small but it was big for in my mind.

Sailboats fair and fine# 50 : read older posts first

Just want to thank everyone for being patient and I should be posting regular again. I still can't post with Linux to blogger as I had hopped I'd be able to do. I would really like to stay off line with the computer I am doing video with.

Doug

Dec.1,Monday Georgenes Log

We were up early and had breakfast before we got underway. We waited until 8 A.M. To get some fuel at the marina across from us. We tied up at the fuel dock at the Anchorage Yacht Basin right across from the big dragon on the point. A man in the boat across the dock from us gave us a loaf of bread and a dozen eggs. The dock master let us stay at the dock long enough to let us stay at the grocery store about a block away.

We managed to get to the Esau Gollie ( Oh Golly )bridge just in time for it's opening at 9:15 and off we go- South on the Indian River again. The first stretch this morning was straight down the middle of this beautiful river. Just before noon the channel started to have a few zig zags because of the many little islands. We passed through the Pelican Island Wildlife Refuge and saw the tiny Pelican Island a mile or so away from the channel with dozens and dozens of Pelicans and lots of other birds watching us go buy. It has really been a beautiful day. We found another nice anchorage just off the waterway behind a little island at mile 945. We stopped around 4 P.M. And both took a short nap. I washed my hair and started supper and Doug took the dingy for a little sight seeing tour.

Having sailed most of the day and only having run the engine about 30 minutes I thought I had better check the battery charge. Sure enough it was down pretty good. We ran the engine another hour. We had run enough to bring the house battery up. But not the starting battery. With days now shorter some reading lights were nice in the evenings. Having it to do over again I would have put a larger alternator on Wolf trap as the one that came on the engine was only 15 amp. When we got to Ft Lauderdale . I run up on a fellow who had a nice 30 amp alternator that he was replacing with a 100 amp and really fancy charging system. I gave him $10.00 It had a bad diode in it and I got one for $15.00 and put it on the little Yanmar. I could detect a little slowdown for about twenty minutes if the batteries were down some but as the alternator load lightened Wolftrap was back up to speed again. There is no end to this more and more electricity thing I would have been just as happy had I stuck with the 15 amp alternator. It jut meant running under power a little longer. I do believe that when charging batteries at anchor the heavier load on the engine from a bigger alternator is better for the engine as long as you never charge batteries under about 1600 RPM's. For a fellow who builds his own stuff It's not a hard thing to but a small refrigerator on board run off a small rotary automotive air conditioner compressor. If you have to run the engine to charge batteries you may as well run a small refrigerator. Even the little 8 hp Yanmar will pull a thirty amp alternator and refrigerator while anchored. You can't run both while motoring If the little refrigerator is really well insulated say 6 inches you don't have to run it but about twice a week for one hour in hot summer time. Unless you are going to live aboard for long periods. I used in our sailboat Kate, the refrigerant that they sell in the automotive stores.

Us men are mostly fools. We take a girl off sailing who has been used to all the modern convinces and expect her to cook, serve meals and a few other jobs in blissful happiness with a kerosene stove that is contrary. No refrigeration, hardly any electricity minimal heat and not even a decent mirror to put her makeup on. You and I can't saw out a new hatch board without an eclectic jigsaw a couple of Rather manly wood planes, chisels

WE can't even read a chart without a chart table. No frilly curtains no flowery bedspreads. Except for one rather large problem we should take only men sailing.