I have to replace some below decks wood that got wet and became soft over the years. A multi-tool is a boost for stuff like this. Can't believe I built an entire boat without owning one.
Paddled for over an hour and got to visit the far NE cove...I love it back there, with no visible houses or docks, just an awful lot of Great Blues. I don't think I've ever seen as many herons, so closely packed in and apparently not sqaulking about territory....at least not yet.
Didn't even bother to paddle. The list keeps growing. Good thing I love working on boats!
I'm not a huge fan of halyards belayed to a horn cleat. In my hardware box, I did find one single Spinlock cam cleat. Now, the question is, why was it in the hardware box...did it fail at some point on the i550?
I gave it some rigorous tests, but it wasn't loaded up sufficiently because it's not mounted. Do I drill more holes in the boat? Or just let it slide and use the original hardware.
Plenty of time to think about this...plenty.
I loved building the i550 and I had a bunch of great sails on it. But I can't believe I passed 17 years without having a boat upon which I could sit comfortably below, eat lunch and maybe even take a nap or overnight if I wanted.
I think I spent perhaps 3 or 4 nights sleeping aboard the i550 and it was marginal. And not afloat, unless you count a floating dock as "afloat."
But having a boat with furniture below and an actual keel and all the stuff that's needed to venture out and keep the rig pointed at the sky means: lists. Lists on keelboats only persist, they never completely disappear. Soon as you whittle something off one end, something else pops up on the other. I sat below and worked on mine.
It was 64 degrees in the cabin and that was excellent.
Lots of ducks, (ruddies) and geese, but still zero osprey.
Finally, water back in the creek! Instead of 20-30 feet of sand in front of the rocks, they were almost completely covered at high tide. Haven't seen that in about two months.
And RAINBOW was floating.
Knocked a few barnies off the bottom, lowered the motor mount to make the 3.5 HP more at home, and switched the solar panel to a new, less vulnerable spot.
Kayaked out to the day marks. A lot of ducks. I'm having a hard time I.D.'ing these. I guess they are Ruddy ducks, but I don't see the prominent tail sticking up out of the water.
Who knows?
Look, OK there was a 57 kn puff at Gibson Island earlier, but by the time I put the kayak in, the closest data buoys were showing nothing above 30 and 33 (TPML and FSKM). So I wasn't worried about it. If you see a big puff barreling down the creek, put the nose into it and honker down to lower the center of gravity and reduce windage. You can ride out anything up to 35 that way, easily. 45-50? I don't know. Never tried it in a kayak.
One thing I do know: with all the north wind bowing most of the water out of the Northern Bay and Blackhole Creek, it was pretty easy to stay in water less than knee-cap deep. I mean, it was shallow. So shallow I repeatedly ran aground in the kayak. Beaches I land on, in normal times, where I can step onto dry sand, I couldn't get within 60 feet. I could've almost walked to Blackhole #3.
The remains of the alum mine were quite visable in the clear, late winter shallows.
RAINBOW was ridiculously aground. I got a great view of how bad it needs a bottom job. Really bad.
Good things about kayaking the Magothy in Feb.:
- no other boats out
- no screaming Ospreys (yet)
- extreme water clarity
- gorgeous clouds and lighting
Just don't dump the boat.
Checked the solar/BMS and voltage on RAINBOW, and quite happy with 12.84 on arrival!
Ice had finally receded enough to actually go some where! This time, just to the back of the creek. But that was enough.
And, I finally installed the solar panel and the Battery Management System, it was a cinch and I should've done it six months ago. But the weather was perfect and things went pretty smoothly.
Will check the battery on Friday and pray it's not down to the paltry 7.94 volts I found this morning.
Had to put a charge on the battery so I hooked it up and went for a paddle. Once again, did not get far...just too much ice in the creek. I was extremely tempted to get out and pottage to open water, but it meant getting at least one wet and very muddy boot. Or taking off the boots and wading barefoot on to solid ice.
Just wasn't up for it, and after five minutes of deliberation, paddled back to the dock.
I have been called "crazy" for going out in 25 to 44 degree weather with water temps in the high 30s. But I've been canoeing and kayaking for over 60 years and never dumped one. I understand about loss of form stability in small boats and never push it, especially in cold weather.
Not trying to encourage anyone else to go out in these conditions. And one thing: you can learn the hard way that open water leads can close up suddenly with a change in tide and wind direction. I learned this off Fort McHenry about 40 years ago in a small sailboat that also got reduced to fiberglass splinters on the riprap surrounding the fort.
But that's another story!
OK, I probably shouldn't count this as a "day on the water," but I literally was "on the water." Standing on it, slipping on it and endangering life, limb and hound on it. But still, a day "on the water?"
The scene at North Point looked more like Baffin Island. Huge flows attached to the shoreline from the pack ice getting pushed up over the rocks on shore.
I venrtured out a little but did not want to risk a cold water survival episode. But the ice was very solid. Maybe not DN racing solid, but walkable.
We heard some "booming" noises offshore that could have been mistaken for thunder, had it not been so incessant. Turned out it was a pusher tug with a bunker barge ahead, bashing its way up the Brewerton Channel. We watched it go by and quietly applauded its accomplshment. I shot some video. What's creepy is there were a flock of birds on the ice out further, past the tug, and their vocalizations sound like people shouting "HELP! Help help HELLLLLLLLP!" I guess they were gulls. Or maybe cormorants. Rest assured, it was not human.
So, no boats were involved and it was just cold feet on hard water, but it was a day. Quite a day, in fact.
Long lay off, for me. Weather and other Little Disturbances of Mankind. So this will be a late start to the seaon.
To Do List: charge battery on RAINBOW; float mock-up of dinghy to get waterline and balance data, Kayak out to the island for lunch if not too cold and windy.
Hit on all three cylinders....well, maybe not the island, but...
Batt up 0.7 volts from prior. Little dinghy cardboard mock-up performed well...until it became waterlogged. But I can rip it apart and loft the full size patterns with a few minor adjustments.
Kayaking was very, very limited due to ice. And not just the crash thru the brash variety, this stuff was thick. I could've done a 125 yard portage out to open water but I said the heck with it. Why take chances? Yesterday I accidently did a back dive into 24 inches of ice cold stream water and it was an uncomfortable schlepp back to the car and the heater. I figure I was already ahead of he game, just by getting a kayak out.
And as Mark Knopfler can validate: staying just Ahead of the Game is important.