Norfolk, VA
To see as much of the world as we can,
Using the smallest carbon footprint we can,
Spending the least amount of money we can,
Making as many friends we can.
Good ways to deal with old boat parts are eBay, Craigslist and Nauti Nells. **Consignment stores are kind of fun -- drop it off and hope. eBay is a little more fun if there's a bidding war. ** Craigslist, however, is the most fun. Why?
The fuel filter eBay sale …
Okay, it doesn't look like much, bit it's epic. It's a Parker|Racor 75/500 max fuel filter system. It replaces the old pair of Racor 200's and their leaky bronze tubing and their fiddly little stopcocks that had to be carefully opened and closed.
The old filter system had …
About a year ago, Ocean Navigator published a sidebar of useful links. It's been sitting on my desk for -- well -- a year. Here they are.
http://www.oceannavigator.com - Ocean Navigator Magazine
http://www.boat-links.com - Links to all things having to do with water
Yes. That's a wine cork in the deck of Red Ranger. Once upon a time (it appears) something like an antenna was mounted there. A hole had been drilled through the deck into the aft cabin. A piece of hardware of some kind had been screwed down outside. [You can …
Poop deck?
Yes, the birds seemed to have pooped all over Red Ranger's deck. Sigh. CA took a picture of a bloody fish-head on Liquid Therapy's swim-platform. It appears that otters use swim platforms as picnic tables.
Also, it snowed on Jackson Creek.
You can see traces of snow on …
Now that it's cold outside, we've identified our two favorite appliances for weathering winter weekends.
On the left is a wood stove. Yes, it's small, but filled with Wood Pellet Fuel, it rocks. We use a long, metal soup spoon to put in about 2 spoon fuels of pellets every …
Accessible snacks are really important. There's an easy way to do this. All that's required is to eat some Classico® spaghetti sauce that comes in those high quality Atlas Mason jars. The hard part is keeping the jars handy. Unless, of course, you have a nice shelf under which you …
Sell the house. Buy a boat. See the world. Is that just hubris? We have all the elements: an ambitious November sail which lead to an emergency tow back to the marina. Was it a vain hope that lead to a poor plan and a humiliating smackdown from Poseidon? How …
Many boats are hauled out and winterized in the fall. In the frozen north, it's essential to prevent damage to all systems with water in them; specifically, freshwater, heads and engine. But in Middle Peninsula — Deltaville, VA — haul-out seems to be optional. Some days are a bit too chilly to …
Scott and Jeanie (from Joie de Vivre) dropped us a line via Facebook. We met them at the Whitby-Brewer Rendezvous. On their way south they were docked in Portsmouth. We took the ferry over and had dinner and a movie with them at the Commodore. ("Secretariat", a Disney spectacular on …
We didn't want much -- just a quiet sail around the river. We got my parents onto Red Ranger, out into the bay for a little sail and back to D-dock without mishap or problem. Luck, hard work, planning and experience all came together. It was a real privilege to share …
Davits for lifting the dinghy seem like such a good idea. And such a bad idea.
We've chartered many boats, and towed many dinghies. A towed dinghy has problems. At night, in calm waters, it can clunk against the hull. Stuff grows on the bottom. It's tempting to thieves.
Davits …
This is one of those "Can you really do that?" topics.
Our foredeck hatch leaks. We can replace it with a nice Vetus or Lewmar hatch. Or, we can have just the lens replaced by Atkins and Hoyle or Select Plastics. Gerry (of The Incredible Hull) suggests replacing the entire …
Wow, what a party.
We've been going to the sailboat show on and off for over 10 years.
Before going to the US Sailboat Show, we went to Annapolis just to hang around. Once, we went to the smaller Bay Bridge Boat show, which was probably our first time actually …
Wow, what a party.
The 2010 edition of the Whitby-Brewer Rendezvous was an absolute delight. First, boaters are fun folks because of the shared interest we have. Second, boaters with your model boat are more fun because there's less to explain and more to learn.
Monday night we had a …
We tried to make it to the Coan River on Saturday, October 2nd. We made sensible plans. We avoided dawdling. We didn't stay up late the night before.
We had our meals read. We had our departure steps detailed so we wouldn't waste time in the morning wondering if we …
Time for the annual Whitby-Brewer Rendezvous in West River Sailing Club.
It's about 100 nm up the bay. Red Ranger motors between 5 and 7.5 kn. That's anywhere from 13 to 20 hours of travel. She sails between 0 and 7.5 kn. At zero, we'll never make it …
The blistering heat of summer is behind us. The job list has nothing ranked "top" priority, or "pre-launch" or "critical". We're down to "improvements" and "nice-to-haves".
Further — and this is the important part — we're thinking about making a 100nm trip to Annapolis for the annual Whitby-Brewer Rendezvous in West River …
For the last -- I don't know precisely -- year, maybe two years, our dinghy has been sitting in the gravel parking lot, or over on the dinghy rack with other lost or abandoned dinghies. The lost dinghy collection is one of those forlorn marina things. Deflated inflatables. Puddles of dead leaves …
A chartplotter is insanely sophisticated. Installation of this high-powered computing device was shocking. Shocking. I had studied my wiring carefully to try and figure out exactly how to replace the old -- simple -- Garmins with this new, complex chartplotter.
The Standard Horizon CP300i has a complete GPS system (itself very complex …