Zinc on prop shaft

Oh Canada....
Thank you Canada for the lovely zinc now on my propeller shaft!
The person diving my sailboat for the past 6ish months to scrape the boat and check the zinc has been telling me my zinc was fair... when the sailboat came out of the water... there was NO zinc!!!!!!!!
How do you trust someone that is doing work that you normally cannot see....

More thru-hull work

This thru-hull from the bow pump-out, took me about an hour to clean, and about another hour to get back into the tight space from which it came... See picture on the right, I should have taken this photo with the tools I was using to try and tighten that thru-hull... this pic does not justice to the tight awkward spot this is... this is not a wide open space by any factor of the imagination. One has to squeeze arms through a flip access opening about 6"x12"...
Didn't get it tight tight tight, but hoping it's okay anyways...
also, foolishly lost one of the thru-hull nuts into the bilge of the boat when working under the sink in the head... a place where my hands cannot go... :( ugh.
it was the "safety" nut, so hopefully this thru-hull will stay in-place without for a little bit until i find another option....

Thru-hull valves

These nice old bronze valves come apart for servicing. I'm cleaning up the corrosion, greasing them up and putting them back together.

The valve put together in the pic on the bottom left is for the sink in the galley...
yes, that is light coming up through the open valve... I'm replacing the hose to the sink and potentially the sink...
These type of valve are on two thru-hulls for the cockpit drains, the galley sink, the head sink, and two for the head itself. One other thru-hull is a ball-valve type and can't be taken apart.

Bottom of keel patch

As it turns out, the hole in the fiberglass at the bottom of the keel wasn't as bad as i thought...
Epoxy fill and fiberglass patch. She's beautiful again :)
thank you thank you thank you Russell :)
A hole had to be dug beneath the boat to achieve this mission.

patched thru-hull

Old thru-hull out, new wood-epoxy-fiberglass patch in.

Artwork by Russell ;)

up in the air

It just doesn't look right... does it...
The green bottom paint will soon be black, and the green stripes... sapphire blue...

Brian cuts one ;)

Thanks to the incredible tool shop of my fantabulous friend, Brian, a very nice piece of "not crappy-ass" plywood (yes, there is a story behind that quote) was cut. A nice circle plug to fill the spot of the old thru-hull.

Thru-hulls...

Russell helping me get going with the thru-hull work...
One through-hull is being completely removed and sealed up.
Russell and I (mostly Russell) also used lots of brute force and contortionist moves to take apart six other thru-hulls (some were "rather difficult" to access). They hadn't been actuated in some time and definitely need some tender loving care.
Now that all the thru-hulls are apart and one removed, there are, yup, you added it up correctly, seven rather large holes in the boat...

On-the-hard...

SV Athena came out of the water today...


A somewhat exciting and nervous type of activity...

Really Rad Russell spun Athena artfully aft.


Now she's officially "on the hard"

We looked her over and discussed her soon to be new bottom paint job.
I've been debating whether or not to change her color scheme... I've been considering sapphire blue.

I think I can't hardly wait until she's back in the water...

She probably feels the same...
Boats belong in the water for sure.

It's rather strange for both myself and Athena to be on land...


The cats also got a ride in the slings...

I wonder what they thought of the hull being power washed...

New Battery Shelf...

Well, a project I started over a week ago (new battery box shelf) got a little further... Note nice sailboat "shop" in photo... yes, that's inside the boat! and was cleaned up before I went to bed. The "tortures" of living and working on the sailboat, one has to actually clean one's mess up to live!
You see, the original battery box for the boat only holds two batteries, and I now have two, what they call, golf cart batteries in that box, which essentially make up what is called the "house battery bank." With that space used up, I need a new place for the separate "starter battery." All these batteries are connected to a battery switch, which can be off, battery bank 1 on, battery bank 2 on, or combo 1 and 2. I've got the house battery on 1 and the starter battery on 2. I use combo to start the sailboat engine, but switch to 1 when i only need to use interior electronics, which "saves" at least one battery (the starter battery), for just in cases.
I used a helpful hint from Beth to use cardboard for template making the very difficult to measure curvature of the sailboat hull for the new shelf. See reuse of triscuit box before it went to the recycle center ;)
Thank you Brian for letting me use once again the all important jig-saw!
As always, Patty-cakes must always be where the action is... She is down in the storage compartment area that I have to lower myself down into to work on the battery banks. The original battery bank is the white box with the little round holes in it beneath my new cut pieces of shelf that will go between the original box and the sailboat hull. The crappy streaks on the hull I can't figure how to clean. They appeared when i applied some strange chemical stuff that's suppose to prevent mildew... Patty is actually facing towards Athena's engine "room."
A very long day and a mess in the boat created yet another somewhat temporary fix for holding the starter battery. Still more work left to do (painting, gluing, re nailing with longer nails, getting a 3-inch strap to hold the battery box & battery in place...not to mention i may need to change out some of the wood i used since i'm not sure it was the best kind to use...), but ran out of time for this work session. I did re hookup the batteries to the new battery switch, not yet installed completely... it's so nice to have the lights that run on the battery back up and running again, and so nice to have electricity to the bilge pump again... a little water had collected apparently, as the auto switch came on with the power up.

Tropical Storm Barbara

First tropical storm of the season to pass over us...
The rains started to arrive on June 1st, happy first official day of hurricane season!

With the full moon and onshore winds, the high tide was really high!

The night (early early morning) the real winds of the storm came through, the boat wouldn't stop rocking. My net slings kept swaying back and forth all night. I poked my head out, i think it was around 4 AM, and the moon was really full and beautiful, the wind was howling, the water sloshing, the tide really high, an eerie feeling, and I went back to sleep to have nightmares that the boat came loose from the dock...

Working on boat again...

Working on the battery box. Had to take everything out of the storage compartment where the batteries are. It's all up on deck now...

Started this task then realized needed a different saw than I had... So, everything is still sitting in this position...

Batteries are disconnected in wait for the new battery shelf and box for the starter battery... It's actually been kinda a pain not being able to use the interior boat battery run lights. Must get this task done before the boat comes out of the water on Friday...

Silverware drawer

This is the silverware drawer on Athena, with the new used silverware from B&B :)

Fires from early May

Picture of fires from early May that I hadn't gotten up on the blog.

You can really see the spot fires around the Picayune Strand in the pic on the left. The picture on the right is actually the day before the pic on the left was taken.

Ignore the spots in the photo that are now permanently there :(

must send camera in for repair.

A week after the fire I had the chance to travel through the Picayne Strand on a field trip for work. We saw some of the burned areas. The fire was so hot, hotter than a "typical" natural fire for this area, that the natural pines burned to the tops, killing them :(

During a typical natural fire, the fire will not get high enough to burn the tops of the pine trees, and they will survive. The fire is necessary for the native lower growth plants, but not at the intensity of this fire.

Perhaps because of the low low water table because of the drought, likely because of historical draining of the Everglades and continued development and watering of lawns.... the fire was able to burn without natural controls. It's one thing to say fires are natural in this area, it's another for the fires to burn in unnatural ways because of the damage we have done to the area :(

My new job is so cool....

I haven't been spending much time working on SV Athena lately...

been busy working again ;)

and, I do enjoy my new job :)

earlier this month I was actually on TV!!!! kinda funny, since I don't own a TV....

anyways, this week I had great fun putting together last minute a display in the Collier County Library headquarters location. Had the help of one of my co-workers. I think it came out pretty good for last minute work!

Celebrating National Fishing & Boating Week, June 2-10.

I'm finally in a place where I feel there's a chance of making a difference in this world!!!! and, I truly believe in education and outreach.

Ignorance is bliss, until the world turns around and bites you in the ars!

SWFL Fires

It's dry dry dry season in SWFL. We are in a severe drought.

Here is a recent fire that sent a plume of smoke into the area.

The winds shifted during the night and dropped this plume onto the marina like a fog the next morning.

I awoke to the smell of 1,000 campfires. I expected to awake in a tent, rather than a sailboat ;)

It was obvious how this relatively thin smoke plume blocked out the sun; reminding me of the theories of a possible ice age caused by some catastrophic event... in the midst of talk of global warming...

Small Footprint... take to land...

My efforts to keep my footprint on the Earth small extend beyond living on a sailboat...

I hope to encourage others to keep their footprint small too.

A very significant way to keep one's footprint small is by adopting a vegetarian lifestyle, or even simply making it a part of your life to whatever extent you are able to give at this time...

Here I am at one of the Earth Day celebrations in the area, doing vegetarian education and outreach as it relates to the environmental reasons for such.

We each make a difference.

Animal agriculture causes more damage to the Earth than driving a car...

Anchor Rode Markers

Before the last trip I had put anchor rode footage markers in the line... 30, 60, 90, 120, about 125 feet of line attached to about 15 feet of chain and the anchor.

I was hoping this "knowledge" of how much line I put out would make me feel better about my anchor holding... It would I suppose, if I followed the rules... which, I didn't quite do on the night of the storms that came thundering and blowing and raining through Panther Key. Not sure even if I had put out more line if I would have felt any better about the situation that night.

At any rate, there's probably no other place (besides the dock) I'd rather be during those storms. Panther Key, the sweet spot that Russell, Lynne, and I love to anchor in, has some great holding ground. and, honest to God, thank God!

Not sure what the drainage issue is yet, but when I went to pull the anchor back in the morning after the storms, my anchor locker was half full of water. I bailed it out before raising the line.

As always, check out the other blog to get the full story.... skip the boring stuff and go to the dates of April 10th and 11th.

http://athenacaptainslog.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html

Before the trip I had also installed a new depth sounder on Athena. This came into use when I attempted to anchor in a new spot at Camp LuLu...

Patty Naps during trip

Patty, when not cowering during sailing... or, when not running around deck, chasing bugs that happen to fly by, batting at lines hanging from various places, swatting at my head as I walk down the companionway past her stealthy self "hiding" on top of the dodger, leaning over the edge of the boat staring into the water and making me worry she'll jump in, or relaxing under the shade of the dinghy on the bow or the kayak on starboard, she naps down below.

Pic on left is her cuddled up on a pile of stuff in the v-birth.
Pic on right is her cuddled up in the salon area when it's too hot outside.

Back to Camp LuLu, Again

After being rocked and rocked at 5 AM in the morning by the damn shrimpers heading out of the pass just south of Indian Key, and open to where I was anchored, I was NOT spending another night there, and likely I will not go back! Waves on the beam, we rocked, we rocked, off and on for a half hour or so that morning... blah!

So, Camp LuLu called... A nice "breeze" sail to Camp LuLu. Once anchored and rested, a kayak trip to Camp LuLu produced no shells this time. The wind and resulting wave action made it difficult to see the shells in the drop line on the shore.

Last week of freedom trip....

Well, this is the last week of "freedom," I've been successfully unemployed for almost 7 weeks now. It's been wonderful.
I've experienced many things I may not have otherwise experienced without this time....

What better way to spend my last week off than sailing....

A day later than I anticipated, I headed south to catch the winds that were out of the NNE, but would be switching to out of S-SE soon...

After being out on the water for a while, and being tossed around like salad again, I decided at the last moment to jibe and head into Indian Key, not all that protected an anchorage, but things calmed down a little bit once in.

The pics are of Indian Key.

~ Athena is "hiding" in the first pic on left...

~ First pic on right is part of beach on Indian Key, albeit, not the prettiest part...

~Second pic on left shows Indian Key obviously got some of the brunt of Hurricane Wilma, which came tearing through this area about 1.5 years ago... hard to believe it's been that long.

~ Second pic on right is sunset through a key that is just to the northeast of Indian Key, the key I was trying to "hide" behind from the winds and waves...

~ Third picture on left is all the "shells" washed onshore Indian Key. Lots of worm coral.

~Third picture on right shows "company" behind Athena. They came in while I was kayaking and exploring Indian Key. They closed up and went to bed early, it seemed... then left before I woke in morning, well, at least before I actually woke-woke up, and not just to check the anchor. Would have liked to meet them. It gets lonely sailing alone... I'm a little shy though, and not always confident that every sailing group wants to talk to others...

After a tiring day of sailing, had to enjoy sunset with wine, of course ;)
check out this wine, Goats Do Roam. a couple significances here... the wine is from South Africa, my mom might appreciate that since she and the rest of my fam (father and brother) visited there last year or the year before, i forget now. the other significance is that of the goat! being Capricorn, the sign of the goat, i just thought it interesting that "goats do roam" ;)

Firmly afixed running lights

Back from trip, I finally got around to installing the rest of the screws to hold the new running lights on...

I realized having the dinghy up on deck is a danger to knocking off the running lights, particularly when all the screws aren't in yet!!!!!

Wing and Wing

Wing and wing leaving Panther Key.