The crew has been very busy getting their new home ready. In fact, too busy to take more than a few pictures. There has been moving and unpacking and cleaning and exploring.There’s been learning where the water and all important food dishes are, where …
Sitka to Juneau – Part 1
Besides all of its other attractions, an additional plus to being in Sitka during June is the Sitka Music Festival. It is a month long classical chamber music event in which visiting musicians give symposia and concerts. While we were there we attended two outstanding evening events. In future years, we’ll try to include more events in our schedule.
We were also able to catch up with other cruisers who own boats from the same builder as ours. At various times Luck Dragon (Edward and Carlene Forcier), Shearwater (David Cohn) and Seaducktress (Peter and Glenda Geerlofs) were in Sitka while we were there.
After three days in town, on Thursday, June 16, we left Sitka heading towards Juneau. Based on a suggestion from Peter Geerlofs (Seaducktress), we made a reservation in downtown Juneau at the Intermediate Vessel Float (IVF) for the nights of June 29 and 30. The most direct route to Juneau is 162 miles which we could comfortably cover in 3 days. Since we had 13 days, we intended to take a more circuitous route and take shorter hops.
The first night was back Kalinin Bay, with the thought of perhaps fishing outside its entrance. Based on recent experience, Marcia decided to forgo the opportunity.
For the second night, it was back to Douglass Bay but not before dropping prawn pots nearby. The next morning, we harvested a sufficient number of prawns for a meal or two.
From there, it was onto Rodman Bay, a new anchorage for us, where we again dropped prawn pots on the way in. Alas, when we brought them up the next morning, they had just a few tiny striped prawns which we threw back.
On Sunday, June 19, we anchored in Point Moses Cove, in Hanus Bay. We arrived early enough that we had time to drop the kayaks and paddle over to the trail head for the Lake Eva. The US Forest Service has a well-maintained trail from the beach landing to Lake Eva, a 3+ mile round trip. It was wonderful hike paralleling the stream draining Lake Eva. We saw no bears only some relatively fresh scat. Based on the number eagles in the trees along the drainage, we’re confident that when the salmon return the bears and eagles will be eating well. After the hike, we paddled into the lagoon that separates the fresh water Lake Eva drainage and the salt water Hanus Bay. Both the hike and paddle were wonderful (the sunny weather helped as well).
The next morning, we headed south into Chatham Strait heading towards either Ell Cove or Takatz Bay. The winds began to pick up to 20-25 knots and soon we were pounding into short-period steep-sided waves. We were fighting both wind and current so our pace was a glacial 5+ knots. The motion was all pitching and not rolling so it wasn’t too uncomfortable for us but the cats thought otherwise and both threw up. Ultimately, we went to Ell Cove because it was about 5 miles closer which meant an hour less pounding, a unanimously approved decision.
The morning of Tuesday, June 21 was the opposite of the day before, winds were calm and the seas glassy. As we continued south along Chatham Strait, the low marine clouds dropped and became thick fog. Fortunately, between radar and AIS tracking, we felt comfortable traveling, although we remained alert for logs and debris in the water. Along the way, we passed going north the Nordhavn 46 Penguin owned by Doug and Cathlyn MacQuarrie who are members of our yacht club, Queen City.
Our destination for the night was Gut Bay on the east shore of Baranof Island. This was a new to us anchorage. We had heard it was a lovely setting but the electronic charting either erratic or poor. The fog had lifted before we entered so we were able to safely enter and enjoy the stunning views of steep cliffs dropping into the narrow bay. It is a deep bay and anchorages are few. We approached the recommended anchorage at the head of the bay and to the right of a stream carefully, looking for any shoaling ahead. We dropped anchor about 125 yards from shore in 50 feet of water (zero tide). The winds were light overnight and we did not move substantially overnight.
Covered Bridges
“Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. Take the road less traveled.”
Pennsylvania is one of the leading states with the remaining number of covered bridges and Columbia County, where Kyle now lives, is home to the states third largest concentration of covered bridges (23). Once there were 14,000 wooden covered bridges in the United States, today there are less than 900. Time and technology has taken its toll on the bridges. Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Vermont have a combined total of 550 authentic covered bridges with Pennsylvania leading with 198. Many of these bridges are over 150 years old.
CONTINUE READING HERE…»
2016-17 A Counterclockwise Circumnavigation of Chigagof Island
Tuesday, June 14, 2016: The Boat People as CrewOver the years the Wild Blue has hosted many a crew, most of whom seldom if ever get on the water. They’ve learned while crewing and do excellent work for little or no boating experience. On the flip side,…
Plymouth
After leaving Cape Lookout, North Carolina, we ran for three nights to Massachusetts and stopped overnight at Plymouth so that we could enter Boston Harbor the following morning. As with Cape Lookout, we chose Plymouth mainly because it was a convenient and easy place to anchor without taking us too far off our route. But…
Little fabrication
Pretty warm in the boat shed today, thermometer was approaching 40 C which is waaaay to warm for this fat ole’ bastard! I was drenched inside of 5 mins!Managed to fabricate a new bulkhead or whatever you want to call it to support the prop shaft tube. …
Finally
New intercom phone to replace the nasty old nicotine stained one. Nothing has changed in the design and construction!!
Finally
New intercom phone to replace the nasty old nicotine stained one. Nothing has changed in the design and construction!!
Life’s little difficulties
Sometimes life just has it’s moments that seem to get in the way of a boat building session. Yesterday I was off and running for the UPS store to pick up my new motor mounts. Almost about to cross the border when the oil pressure in the ole’ IROC goes …
ENVOY CONTINUES CRUISING SOUTH
Envoy is currently anchored off Yiyhion on the mainland Greek southern coast with our friends Kevin and Diane aboard.
After leaving Lefkas Marina we cruise south to Argostoli, the port capital of Cephalonia, and anchor in the harbour seeing turtles for the first time this season as they pop their heads out of the water, take a look around and dive back to the depths. It’s a quaint town that suffered considerable damage during an earthquake in 1953 and was then largely rebuilt in its original Venetian style.
Vista of Argostoli from Envoy at anchor
Chris and Laurie enjoy ice cold Mythos beers at Argostoli – someones gotta do this!
For the first time we visit the island of Zakynthos and anchor one night off a great beach at Alykanas before going into Zakynthos harbour so that Envoy will be safe while we hire a car to look around the island. The marina cost is a reasonable 35 Euros (about NZ$58) per night including power and water.
Envoy in Zakynthos Marina
Alykanas is a great settled weather anchorage
In Zakynthos we have a rare bad dining experience with poor quality and over-priced food costing 100 Euros (about NZ$167) for the three of us. To be fair this is partially our fault for not checking the price of off-menu specials so that we end up paying 50 Euros (about NZ$83) for a small snapper that we’d throw back in New Zealand. After Chris makes our complaints known on behalf of all of us, they offer free meals for the following night although get off lightly as we don’t take up their offer.
We loved this rustic old stone building
On the south side of Zakynthos is a marine reserve where turtles return to sandy beaches to nest and breed. Understandably boats are not allowed in most of this area but are allowed at nearby Ormos Keri where we spend two nights and we’re able to replenish our fresh water supplies from a tap at the local small boat harbour.
Gathering fresh water is a regular activity
Ormos Keri and its local boat harbour
Two miles off the anchorage the island of Marathonisi has numerous sea caves that we are able to explore taking our RHIB completely inside.
Marathonisi Island looks like a giant turtle
The sea caves of Marathonisi have exceptionally clear water
We are inside the cave looking out at Envoy
From here it’s about 50 miles east to the mainland Peloponnese coast where we ‘ll spend the next several weeks, so we break the journey about halfway at the remote and lonely Nisidhos Strofadhes Islands. We are the only vessel here and the cruising guide says gales from any direction cause the seas to be like a giant washing machine swirling around.
We don’t encounter a gale but even the 15 knot winds causes an uncomfortable swell to enter our anchorage making our flopper-stoppers necessary. The islands are inhabited by a solitary monk who looks after the 13th century Ay Panayis monastery, built like a fortress to withstand historic pirate attacks.
The fortress-like 13th century monastery
TECHNICAL
All fuel used by Envoy is filtered (or “polished”) using a 7 litres/min !2 volt pump feeding a 2 micron Racor filter and a magnetic DeBug unit into our in-use fuel tank before being used by any of the engines. Before if gets to the engine it then goes through a Racor primary filter and secondary on-engine filter. Shorty after leaving Lefkas Marina the 12V polishing pump fails, emitting just a faint clicking noise, so we replace it with our on-board spare – a simple exercise except for the time required to remove the pipe fittings from the failed pump and refit them to the new pump. As a new pump costs about US$500 and there was nothing to loose we decide to utilise Chris’s expertise and attempt to repair the failed pump, which consists of three separate parts – a rotary vane pump, a 12V DC motor and an electronic controller – any one of which could be at fault.
Chris fixing the failed polishing pump motor in Envoy’s pilothouse
We dismantle the vane pump and find no broken parts or blockages so dismantle the motor and find the armature and its associated brush housing in poor shape. We clean it up with white spirit and carefully clean the commutator grooves with a sharp blade and fine emery paper, then reassemble the motor without the pump and test it on a 12 volt power supply, but it still doesn’t run and makes the original clicking sound. However when we remove the motor from its electronic controller it runs perfectly. We take the controller apart and find two relays hard-wired onto a circuit board – by elimination probably the cause of failure. We consult the specs to find these relays simply enable the pump to be switched for forward or reverse operation. Our use is for one direction only, so we remove the relay board and hard-wire the motor using its existing switch and fuse, reattach the vane pump and it works perfectly.
We finally confirm the cause of the seawater leak to the guest cabin bilge. The outlet hose from the aircon’s seawater cooling system discharges out of a through-hull fitting (without a seacock) just above the waterline. This hose is not visible or accessible for its complete length and must have a split or developed a small leak so that when sea water has been splashing into this hose it’s been leaking into the bilge. We fit an in-line gate valve near the through-hull and when closed the leak soon stops. Normally gate valves aren’t recommended, but this is an above-waterline and non-critical application so we’re comfortable with it. The hose will need replacement.
