Port Angeles

 Position

48* 07.27’ N

123* 25.41’ W

Well we finally left Sequim Bay today.  It was a very nice anchorage and allowed us to reset everything and secure our electronic security again.  It also gave us the chance to work on some of the varnish that needs to be redone after 8 years in Alaska.  We finally have her name boards displaying her identity again.  Thanks again Lang.  We still have the stern placard to do but the starboard rub rail and the cap rails are first.  So we suspect that will wait until we are down in California somewhere.

We left in fog and rain this morning and felt our way out of Sequim and all the way to Port Angeles.  The fog is not too bad on here.  We anchored in front of the Red Lion hotel.  We struggled to find a place to anchor in our guide books and we called the harbormaster to ask if they had space in the marina.  When he found out we were just looking for a place for the night and we’re planning to leave early he suggested this place.  We probably anchored a little far out there are two other boats here anchored in much closer.  The ferry came a little close to us before she turned to head to her moorings.  In hindsight another 100-150 meters closer to shore would have been better.  But!!!

Anyway we intend to leave at dawn tomorrow or a little earlier to catch the tidal current toward Neah Bay.  We just heard that another boat spent quite a bit of time there waiting for a weather window south.  We hope that one will open in a few days but will keep you posted.  There is no AT&T in Neah so everything will be via our StarLink.  But that is ok too.  Helps us justify our expenditure.

We even have a home port

Sequim Bay

 Position :    48D 03.43 N

                    123D 02.35W

We left Port Townsend Boat Haven Marina this morning at 0830 hours after refueling the most expensive fuel in all of the US, according to the fuel guy.

We arrived in Sequim Bay at 1230 hours and anchored for the night.

It seems to be a nice bay but we did not have time or desire to enjoy it because Pauline fell victim to hackers.

It started out that we bought a new iPad for our boating app.  Somehow we did not realize that the Wi-Fi only model does not have a built-in GPS so Pauline got online to find the number for Apple Support to sort it out.  It appeared that either the number is fake or that they piggybacked the call and pretended to be Apple Support technicians.  They had her download an app called AnyDesk so they could remotely access her phone.  Long story short, after about 2 hours of asking lots of questions and obtaining information that were totally irrelevant to the iPad issue, she gave away the phone IP address and the ICCID number, plus her Apple ID.  By the time we realized it was suspicious, we were already compromised.

So now, Pauline banking sign-in is frozen, and she may have to get a new phone number and SIM card.  The Apple ID and password is already changed but she is afraid to use her phone right now.

So, all in all, not a very good day.  As a result, we may be staying here for a few days while we sort all the issues out.  Oh and we are returning the iPad that started all these problems and getting a new one with Wi-FI and Cellular, which we should have gotten in the first place.

New Solar, and Leaving Tomorrow

We finished helping John and Ivy with their masthead stuff and also used the delay to order some new solar panels.  We had two panels, one dating from the late eighties and one from the mid 90’s supplementing the two we bought before we left Guam.  They were barely working.  When we added the two new ones we almost doubled our wattage.  We are now up to 450 watts.  Unfortunately with Sari Timur’s sail plan we are limited to what we can carry.  We could have gotten a little more wattage but it would require custom panels and that is expensive.

We are leaving tomorrow to make the 18 mile run to Sequim.  It is a small community known for having a Costco, Home Depot, etc.  but we will be tucked into the well protected bay for a couple of days, doing some varnish work and watching weather.  Sequim is famous for its John Wayne Marina.  The Duke used to spend a lot of time on his yacht up here and liked Sequim Bay so much he bought property there.  In his later years he donated the property to the people on the condition they build a marina on part of the land.  We will probably stay anchored out.  We have been in a marina for so long we need to get ourselves into the anchoring mode again.  We just missed a nice weather window on the outside which is going on right now.  It looks like it closes before we could make it to the outside but that means we can take our time moving out to Neah Bay, which is where we need to be when the next window opens.

Well, we were leaving, but!?!

We were supposed to leave today.  And we were saying our goodbyes to everyone yesterday.  We were even having our final leaving beer at the local bar with our friends John and Ivy from Ruby Slippers.  During the beer, John was lamenting that he was having difficulty getting help to do mast head work.  He was having problems with the masthead lights and the eagles in Sitka wiped out their wind instruments.  Mark made some suggestions and just enough beer was flowing that we quickly came to an agreement they would give us money for the moorings and a little extra if we would stay another week.  So we have.  This morning Mark checked the wiring and found one bad wire.  That was connected and he headed up the mast. Unfortunately the light still didn’t work.  He checked voltages at the light and they were there.  So we disconnected the light and brought it down to test the light in a darker place in case we could not cover the photosensor well enough.  Once down we confirmed it was the light itself that was faulty and a new one is ordered.  There is a two day hold on things while we wait for parts to arrive.  

The weather is still not favorable so our delay is not hurting us and the staff here at the marina have been sensational, so our delay with the ability to help friends is kind of a no brainer.  

We Sold Our Car

In an effort to cut our spending down, we decided to sell our car.  We had planned to keep it until next year when we are in dry dock somewhere in Mexico but as we looked deeper into the logistics of keeping it until then, it kind of made sense to get rid of it.  One of the local Nissan dealers whom we used to service her after we did our big super tour of the Continental States needed used cars and contacted us.  So down we drove.  They made an offer and we accepted.  George and Marsha whom we were going to visit with if we declined the offer, quickly offered to come and pick us up and return us to Port Townsend.  Wow what an offer!  Anyway it gave us a chance to visit with them again.

We miss the car as if it had human feelings, she had been with us offering us the chance to do some pretty fantastic road trips since we first bought her in Ft Lauderdale  back in 2015.  Pauline had nicknamed her Miss Red.  We hope you get another owner who appreciates you as much as we did, Miss Red!!!

 

stickers of some of the places we visited

lots of stickers

beautiful Miss Red

Alaska, north of normal

 

Mark is Back

Mark is back from his short trip up to Alaska.  He was in Ketchikan, Valdez, Cordova (twice) and Seward but never got off of the tug and barge after joining in Ketchikan.  It was a very busy and quick trip.  He was impressed with the power in this very old tug named the Clayton Arthur.  At a 126 feet it was the biggest he had ever worked on.  

He returned on Tuesday afternoon on the Edmonds to Kingston ferry and Pauline drove down to Kingston to pick him up.  On the way back to the boat we picked up the forestay from the rigger.

He was getting reading to go up the mast when he realized the clevis pin was too short.  A quick trip back to the rigger to get a longer one.  Once that was up, we tried to install the bottom end onto the new Cranse Iron but it didn’t fit.  The rigger had replaced the bottom end of the turnbuckle and it had a slightly larger width on the tang.  As the old turnbuckle bottom had some corrosion around the pin the rigger felt it was better to modify the new rather than put back the old.  So off they went to do that.  At any rate we were beginning to worry this project was jinxed and we were worried that there were still two major things that could go wrong.  One, the stay didn’t fit and two, that the new fittings would have taken up too much wire and we would need to modify our roller furler.  However, we are happy to report that both fears were not needed and the forestay and furler are installed.  Today we will attack replacing the voltage regulator that blew up on us before Port Protection and took out some of the engine’s electronics.  If that all goes well,  wrap the new exhaust mixer riser with cladding tomorrow.

One other thing that has been going on in the background is, we have met up with Lang and Douglas, sailors from Singapore that we met in Singapore.  They had their boat shipped over here from Japan.  They have been showing us some of the local attractions in between all of our projects.  Also in an unexpected opportunity, she let us know she has a printer that can print boat decals. So we settled on a font and got some printed up.  Mark is chomping at the bit to strip and revarnish the two foreward nameplates and tidy up the port of call one.  Not sure if that will happen while we are still in Port Townsend but will be done pretty soon and we will post pics.  Thanks Lang!!!

Dry Dock Week 3 Splash Day

Well it has been exactly three weeks and we are going in the water today.  After last week’s post things started happening.  The carpenter got after the scarf and did a beautiful job.  All the painting is done except the places where it is sitting on blocks.  That can’t be done until they lift us in the slings.  The forestay is laid out just waiting on the top toggle and should be here in the next couple of days.  Basically we have everything we set out to do, done.  The exhaust went in easier than expected.  We still have to wrap it but need to verify no leaks when we get in the water, before we can do that.  There is sanding and varnishing to do but that was never going to be done here anyway.

the cranse iron

the scarf in the rub rail, that you can hardly see we ended up using sepela wood

the bobstay fitting

 

Mark is leaving to work for about two weeks which will help recoup some of the expenses from this dry dock.  All in all things have come together nicely.

Dry dock Week Two Summary

 Well in a few hours we will have been in dry dock two weeks.  A lot has happened but nothing is really finished.  The blue stripe is on but will need some touch up once the rub rail repair goes in.  The bobstay fitting and Cranse Iron are fitted but not connected.  The exhaust riser is back but not installed.  A lot of the white is on but the transom is not, and all that is on will need a light sand and at least one more coat.  The first coat of bottom paint went on.  However it will need another then we need to move the jack stands and get the areas that are under them.  We cut the broken scarf out of the rub rail and realized it will require more tools or skill than we have.  We think we have sourced a carpenter but he is rather busy.  He thinks he will have time before Thursday.  Which would be great as we could just feasibly make a launch date on Friday.  If he can’t we will probably be here another week as he is traveling after Thursday.  The forestay is still waiting for the custom toggle to arrive from the East Coast.  That can be installed in the water.  So all in all we are making progress and hopefully this week we will finish.  BUT!!!!!

Dry Dock One Week

 esterday meant we have been up on the hard for a week.  Things slowed down a bit after those first couple of days.  We hired a guy to sand and paint the hull above the water line.  The purpose here is not to get a pretty job.  Just to get underneath the existing stuff.  It will all come off during our major dry out when we get on the hard in Mexico.  But we, or rather Mark, couldn’t stand her looking as bad as she was with sheets of paint peeling off and blisters everywhere.  Eight years in the Alaskan rainforest has taken their toll on her paint and varnish work.  We hired Pio, mainly for his tool.  Mark was scraping and sanding with a random orbital and was watching the guy next door working with his Festool.  The guy with the super tool was taking things down quickly.  We went to look at buying a Festool (they aren’t cheap) and the guy said he would do the job for us for the price of the tool.  So we bit in.  Of course that means we are working around his schedule.  But things are moving quickly again.  The bottom paint is mostly sanded and ready for stuff to go back on.  The Blue stripe should get painted today and the white within two to three more days.  The new Cranse Iron is fitted and the bobstay fitting is ready to go on.  We are just waiting for some custom bolts to be made.  The forestay rigging is ordered.  Unfortunately the top toggle is a custom piece and there is a delay on it.  That won’t stop us from going in the water.  But we can’t leave until it is back up.  The green mainmast is white again.  We used a whole tub of Clorox wipes to clean the mold off!  We were struggling to find a carpenter not too booked up to repair our damaged rub rail.  Pio has said he and another guy can fix that so hopefully that will get done first part of next week.  The flex part for the exhaust mixer riser is in.  Waiting for an elbow on that and then it should be welded up soon.  So all in all it looks like we will be on the hard a week longer than we expected but that should be it.

Day Two on the Hard

We got the forestay down and to the rigger.  Disconnected all the rest of the wires off the Cranse Iron and removed the Cranse Iron.  This all had to be done upside down 17 feet above ground.  Not an easy thing but done.  Got the bobstay fitting to the fabricator to drill the new holes.  He also is making the three pieces that dropped overboard from the roller furling.  Finished off the day scraping more paint and purchased a 20 foot extension ladder to get after more topside prep work.  Not bad progress for day two, running up and down ladders twenty times a day is getting old!