Mark is on his way to Dutch Harbor

 Mark got the call and had to leave a few hours later to head for Dutch Harbor.  The Reece Eagle picked up a couple of quick jobs and he had to fly out in a hurry to beat the bad weather hitting Dutch on New Year’s Day.  

Our New Heater

 As we said in an earlier post we gave up on our wood burning heater and ordered a new diesel burning heater.  That was in July.  It finally arrived on the 24th of November and Mark did most of the installation while he was recovering from Covid.  He had to wait until he got the all clear sign from the health department before he could finish the installation as he needed some additional parts.   So Sunday was the day that the heater was finally installed.  We test fired it and all looked good for a short while until a large whoosh sound happened and the heater went into superheat.  Luckily, one of the parts Mark was missing was an external valve and we quickly turned off the fuel supply and watched and waited nervously for the fuel to burn out.  Both the chimney and burner turned red hot.  We swear we could see through the metal!  Eventually it stopped and cooled down.  We talked with the technical department and found out what went wrong.  So today we again tried out the heater and are happy to say it has been running all day with no issues.   We have to run it a little lower than we thought to keep the surrounding area from getting too hot but heats the main salon up to 68 degrees on the lowest setting.

Mark Brought the COVID Home

 Well Mark got home on the 29th of November.  As he was passing through Anchorage he took a COVID test so he wouldn't need to quarantine too long.  But little did he know he had been exposed to COVID 19 in Kodiak.  The good news is the results came back quick enough and we were able to back trace and we exposed no one.  Everyone at Pauline's work tested negative and so did the two people Mark met in Seward.  Unfortunately his entire crew tested positive.  Pauline came down with symptoms five days after Mark arrived home and also tested positive.  We are on the mend and just waiting our time out to finish the quarantine period.  We have been told by the health officials that after the symptoms finish 10 days later we will not be contagious.  Mark has passed that stage but as Pauline is still finishing out her symptoms he is not seeing anyone yet.

Mark is on his way to Nome

 Mark received a text from one of his old colleagues that said they needed a mate to take the Fish hawk from Nome back to Seward.  Because it is late in the year.  Urgency was required.  So Monday was a mad rush to put together a travel bag as his work gear is all in Dutch Harbor.  Don’t know if he will get a chance to see the town or not. 

Our New Home

 We got a permanent Berth!  After 13 months on the wait list, we finally have been assigned a new berth.  This means if we leave to go for a day sail or longer, we will still have our berth when we come back. There will also be no issues with the electric company because some one else jumped in our spot.  The view is not as nice but the new neighbors all seem very nice and it is much more protected than where we were before.

Sari Timur Secured In Her New Slip

What's Happening During CV-19 Isolation

 Well, as many of you know, Pauline's job is classified as essential, so she has been working and thus bringing in a paycheck.  Mark however has not worked for money since the first week of June.  He has taken the time off to do some much needed repairs on Sari Timur.  The biggest ones are the leak in the aft cabin and refurbishing the wheel.

We have been chasing a leak in the aft cabin since shortly after crossing the North Pacific.  Because of where the drip was happening we suspected that it was coming down through or around one of the fittings for the dinghy davits/mizzen traveler.  However, numerous attempts at rebedding and caulking around these fittings did nothing.  After a couple of years, we finally had dry rot in the  ceiling panel above the aft cabin window.  Mark decided to attack this with pry bars, chisels, hammers, sawzall etc until he finally had the whole underside exposed.  Luckily this year has been one of the rainiest on record and once exposed from underneath, Mark began tracking the trails.  The culprit prove to be some rot in some of the joints near deck level in the aft deck boxes.  So in between rainstorms, Mark began to dig and repair the spots.  There were four areas in total plus some rot had opened up a seam where the teak deck meets the box.  After a few weeks, the last of the leaks was discovered and the seams recaulked.  The leaks were finally stopped!  Note these boxes are glassed on the inside to make them waterproof but that means the water, if it enters the way it did, it wicks a long way before it can find an exit.  

So now he had to fix all the rotted spots in the aft cabin. This meant repairing or replacing some of the boxes support beams and reinforcing the floor of the box.  The beams were not hard, some wood and epoxy and a lot of cursing and it was soon done.  The bottom of the boxes were plywood and most of this had been scraped out so rather than replace with new plywood, Mark decided to glass from underneath which is kind of like glassing upside down.  We felt that this would not only be a better way to make the fit more water tight, it would also strengthen the whole support structure better.  If you have ever glassed upside down in a tight space you know the drama that this required.  If you haven't, consider yourself lucky!  We then also decided to put foam insulation panels in between the beams to help with insulation.  

The next step was to refit the panel.  He made a template and then traced this out onto a piece of half inch marine ply.  Pauline took a day off of work to help him do this and fit the panel.  It took about four attempts with a little shaving off here and there before it slipped into place but finally it was up and in.  It still requires a bit off faring to match the panels next to it but we are happy with the results.  It is the end of the fishing season so our normally well stocked chandlery is short on a lot of things including faring material but some is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday.

On both sides of the panel the surfaces were also damaged this is mostly what requires the faring before painting

The Panel Finally Fits and Is In!

What the boxes look like from outside

The other big project was refurbishing the wheel.  We have mentioned our wheel in a post long ago, but for those that don't remember it is nearly 75 years old and used to steer the British East India Steamship, Kampala.  The original owner of Sari Timur (called Freedom II) in those days took the Kampala to the scrap yard in the Middle East back when he was fitting out Sari Timur.  He felt the wheel was too pretty to be destroyed so he carried it back to Taiwan and fitted it to the sailboat.  It has been a showpiece in the cockpit ever since. But it was looking a bit decrepit so again Mark got after it.  There are still some remaining coats required but it looks much better now.  And we are hoping for breaks in the rain to finish it off before winter.

Our Wheel

Mark is Home and Covid Free

Well it took two days of travel for Mark to get home from Dutch Harbor.  Sitka has experienced a number of cases of CV19.  It is also one of the top tourist destinations in the state, so at the airport he was met with the notice to either go get checked and submit to self isolation for only the days until the test results come back (3-5) or he would have to do self isolation for 14 days.  As he could only count on a few weeks of time off he went for the check.  The results came back negative so he is free to do precautionary things through out the island.

His trip on the tug boat went rather well.  They had to go on the outside around Canada as the fill in captain did not have clearance for the inside passage.   The captain had been through there probably a hundred or more times. However none during the last couple of years to keep his recency up.  He can appeal but we didn't have time before departure.  The weather cooperated until we reached Alaskan waters.  There was a threat of some rough weather so they dipped into Chatham Strait and avoided it.  In Seward they offloaded most of the stuff off of the barge and loaded on some more.  Two of the owners were trying to get back to Dutch and because the airline that serves Dutch went bankrupt they chose to ride the tug back.  Again we had a good trip and the owners got to see some of the things we had been mentioning as crew and also helped the crew figure out some of the Reese's idiosyncrasies.  So good for everyone.  We were worried that Mark was going to be stuck there for several days but after a couple of days a way home for him and the captain became available.

Now that he is home he can do some maintenance to Sari Timur and help with the chores including making some good dinners for when Pauline comes home.

Updates

Well since our last post Mark has done a tugboat trip from Seattle to Seward and is currently in Seattle to do another.

The first trip was a "fill in" job for another company that Mark's boss put him in touch with.  This is a construction company that bought a tug in Seattle and has hired two more to do an airport project for a community up near Nome.  Canada has some severe restrictions required of the deck officers transiting her waters while towing.  Not many mates have that clearance.  Luckily Mark did, so we got some much needed revenue.  Of course he barely got back to Sitka and his boss called him back to work two days later.  "When it rains it pours".  Not sure how long this job is for as it requires several side trips.  So he may be gone for over a month.

The last job proved to have some excitement, as the tug had pretty much been moth balled before purchase and with only a week to get her ready there were some teething problems during such a big trip.  Probably the biggest and most exciting was almost losing the rudder.  We noticed that the rudder required a huge offset to steer straight just before leaving Canada.  When we were going through Ketchikan we had arranged to have some spare parts delivered.  As we arrived too early we went out and turned circles.  The problem got worse so we booked a spot to tie up and got some assistance.  After checking the top sides of all four rudders and they seemed in order we ordered a diver to inspect the bottom.  During his inspection he found one of the main rudders was held to its coupling by only one bolt.  So we quick ordered some bolts and arranged to be towed over to a drying out beach to fix the rudder.  Amazingly this went together like clockwork and we only lost one day.

This was the part that came unbolted and was twisting at off angles and making the other rudder try to compensate.  We aligned it with divers and they got prelim bolts in before tide dropped.  Those bolts are inch and 3/8ths diameter.  We also did some back up welding on both rudders

Tug High and Dry

Update

Well many people have asked how we are doing.  And we found some people even look at our blog to see what we are up to.  Well as of the 9th of April there are still no cases in Sitka.  Most of Alaska has been in lock down mode for a while now.  And as far as we can tell it has helped greatly.  Both Ketchikan and Juneau were also hit late but before the lock down and both had a pretty high rate of incline with infections.  As these are the two cities which Sitka is linked we were obviously watching.  Ketchikan went to 14 cases incredibly quickly but has had no new cases since the lock down so that does kind of indicate it is working.

Mark is becoming a couch potato and his only responsibility seems to be to make something interesting for dinner.  Pauline's job is considered essential so we have a paycheck coming in.  Mark tried to file for unemployment but when doing so online it said there was a problem that he needed to call in.  Of course when ever he calls in they say there are no operators available and he has to do it online.  We gather the powers that be do not want him to collect an unemployment check.  Luckily his boss called up after about the 15th attempt and said that they would soon be going back to work.

Each weekend we try to social distance, but get some exercise by taking in one of the many hikes that Sitka has to offer.  The problem is all that exercise in one go means that the next day we are hanging out recuperating from our aching knees etc.  The good news is we have only scratched the surface with regards to the number of trails available.  We had pretty much taken for granted the bears were not out yet, but have now been enlightened that they are indeed out and to take bear precautions.  So next hike will include a bit more chatter and we will be armed with bear spray.

We do hope that everyone stays safe and healthy and that this virus will be over soon.

Happy Anniversary

20 Years Ago We Said
          I do
Now Look Back on What
    We Have Done
And Still So Much More
         To Do!

We are having one Hell of a Ride Dear and make up one of the best teams out there.  Happy Anniversary

Back in Sitka

Mark is back in Sitka.  They finally grabbed a weather window and had a good trip across the Gulf of Alaska and then on to Seattle.  He got to meet up with Tayler for drinks and dinner while in Seattle.  He stored a suitcase of his work clothes with her so he hopes to meet up when he returns to take the barge back north.

Pauline is enjoying her new job.  She is working at the First National Bank of Alaska here in Sitka.

Sitka has had a record amount of snowfall this year.  When we got here everyone talked us out of doing the igloo.  But Mark is quite bummed as he could have started on the other side of the coach house before the leaks there develop.  We did spring one leak on that side when we were cruising this summer but stopped it by taping over the area with the small bit of rot.  So that is only a temporary cure that he eventually has to get after.  But after doing the port side he is now an expert.