Category Archives: Projects

Varnishing

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Starboard cap rail

The exterior teak requires annual varnishing to protect the wood and keep it looking nice. This is a view of the teak on Phoenix’s starboard cap rail after two new coats of varnish. The cleats and other hardware have been removed for the varnishing project, so there are visible holes where the hardware will be reinstalled.

Our recent days have been filled with the annual maintenance of exterior teak…varnishing. Our boat’s exterior teak consists only of a cap rail around the decks and an eyebrow trim piece around the flybridge. Doesn’t sound like much, but the sanding, taping, and application of the varnish takes several hours for each coat…and we try to put on three coats each season.

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Wi-Fi Again

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WiFi equipment in hanging locker

We decided to relocate our boat’s Wi-Fi equipment again, and put both the bridge and the router in the forward hanging locker.

We thought we had our boat system Wi-Fi working great until we came back from our week-long cruise in early July. When we reconnected everything, we experienced all kinds of problems…from slow response, to no response, to intermittent ability to connect to the Internet. Once again, we were back to the debugging stage, trying to find the source of the problems.

We contacted our Wi-Fi provider, Beacon Wi-Fi (formerly BroadbandXpress – BBX), and we learned they are replacing equipment at various places in their coverage area. Their technicians were able to reboot us a couple of times, which helped briefly, but we found that some of the problem areas were in our boat’s Internet system, as we continued to have inconsistent and slow response times.

Jim started taking out various parts of the system he set up earlier this year. He took the Apple AirPort Extreme (our router) and the AIR802 AP-G250 (our bridge) out of the area below the drawers, thinking it might be getting too hot in that small space. He also disconnected our exterior antenna (AIR802 ANMA2412 Marine Wi-Fi Antenna). Then we decided to locate the router and bridge in the forward hanging locker again, where there is more air space around the equipment, and it’s easier to see indicator lights and reboot if we need to.

WiFi equipment in hanging locker close-up

A close-up view of the Wi-Fi equipment in the forward hanging locker…the larger white box on the bottom is the Apple AirPort Extreme, and the smaller blue-and-white box on top at the right is the AIR802 bridge.

In addition, we got a longer Ethernet cable, so some of the splices used in the previous setup could be removed. Yesterday Jim ran the cable through the engine room (so we have a “clean” installation in our main cabin), put the equipment in the hanging locker, and reconnected the system to the exterior antenna. Voila! Things seem to be working again. We still have to permanently mount the equipment, and we’re hoping that the system will remain stable after that.

Cataract surgery complete and successful

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Jim and Divine Divas

Jim and friends celebrate his successful eye surgery.

It’s now been 4 weeks since Jim had cataract surgery on his right eye, and this week he went back to have the cataract removed from his left eye. So, we made two trips between Anacortes and Seattle – one on Thursday to have the procedure, and another trip on Friday for a post-surgery exam. Both trips were longer than we expected due to traffic volume. Thursday was a beautiful sunny day, and it seems there were lots of people out on the freeway going who knows where…or possibly there are a lot of people vacationing in Seattle. Whatever the reason, I-5 southbound became a parking lot and we ended up leaving the freeway at Northgate and taking surface roads the rest of the way to downtown Seattle.

On Friday, we woke to another thunderstorm and very heavy rain. We had to be in Seattle before noon for the follow-up exam, and we found the freeway jammed again – this time from the heavy rain and all the water that had accumulated on the roads. So, once again, we left I-5 at Northgate…now we’re getting to be an expert at finding our way to downtown Seattle by going through Fremont!

Anyway, the surgery has gone well, and the only event left is another post-surgery exam next week. That should be our last trip between Anacortes and Seattle for a while. Thank goodness!

Boats for sale at Cap Sante

Boats for sale at the Cap Sante Boat Haven docks.

Cap Sante Marina Office

There was a lot of activity outside the Cap Sante harbor office and entrance to the marina.

We went for a walk to Cap Sante Boat Haven (http://www.portofanacortes.com/marina.shtml) this morning. The Port of Anacortes is located at Cap Sante and there is always lots of interesting boat activity there. The morning started out foggy and things were still fairly wet, but the sun came out later and made it a pleasant day for a walk and to enjoy wandering around the boats at Cap Sante.

Commercial crab boats

Four commercial crab boats loaded with crab traps and getting ready to go out.

Lady of the sea

The Lady of the Sea waits at the entrance to Cap Sante Boat Haven.

Next up for the boat is to tackle annual exterior maintenance…varnishing and waxing. The unsettled and wet weather will make that a challenge. Earlier this week, we found a couple of dry days to do a little of the waxing and got one coat of varnish on the teak before Friday’s rain. Rain is in the forecast for the next couple of days, but we’ll start up again on the varnish when the weather allows.

More WiFi Fun

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Jim drilling holes to reinstall WiFi bridge.

Jim pulled out the two bottom drawers under our helm seat to install the WiFi equipment. Here he is drilling a hole to bring up the exterior antenna cable to the space under the drawers.

Jim inserts the new airport into its new location.

Jim inserting the new Apple Airport base station into its new location under the drawers in the cabinet below our helm seat.

Mickey explores the open space where the drawers have been removed.

Of course, as soon as the drawers were removed and there was open space, both kitties had to check out the space. Here Mickey is inside, looking around. Rosie followed shortly thereafter.

WiFi equipment under the drawers.

The bridge and new Airport base station (router) fit nicely in the space under the bottom drawer.

Argh! We lost our Internet connection this week…the new WiFi bridge is still good (see May 28 post), but the 6-year-old Apple Airport base station that we use as a router seems to have become buggy. So we went to Best Buy and bought a new one. Yesterday Jim worked on re-wiring the on-boat WiFi system to hook it up to the new Airport. The new Airport device is smaller than the old one, so now there is room to install both the Airport and the bridge in the area under the drawers in the cabinet below the helm seat.

After rerouting the cable connections to the exterior antenna and hooking up everything, our system seemed to be back and working as it should. However, this morning it was down again, so looks like we need to do more trouble shooting. In the meantime, we are able to connect our laptop directly to the bridge, so we are able to reach the Internet from at least one device.

Meanwhile…we have a free week between eye doctor exams/surgeries in connection with Jim’s cataracts (his next exam is July 10), so we are getting ready to leave the dock (yea!!) to spend a few days in the San Juans. We thought we’d leave this morning, but the wind has come up a bit here in Anacortes and there is a gale watch posted for the East Entrance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca for later this afternoon, so we have decided to wait for a better weather window before departing…Rosario Strait can be a bit uncomfortable when the SE wind blows against the current.

Superwinch Inaugural

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Lifting the outboard with the Superwinch

Jim guided the outboard as we used the Superwinch to lift it from the dock so he could attach it to the dinghy on deck. My job was to press the hoisting button on the winch remote.

Lifting the outboard with the winch - closeup view

A close up view of Jim attaching the outboard to the dinghy. The other end of the yellow hoisting line is connected to the drum of the Superwinch.

Today we got our chance to actually use our new Superwinch!

At high tide this morning, Jim brought the dinghy outboard motor down from our storage unit. We store the outboard in our storage unit every winter, then get it out and put it on the dinghy when we’re ready to use it. Since the dinghy is stored on the aft boat deck, we have to lift the outboard from the dock to the deck.

In the past, we’ve lifted the outboard from the dock slowly by cranking the manual winch, but today we let the Superwinch do the job. It quickly got the outboard up and onto the deck where Jim could attach it to the dinghy. Neat! We’re very pleased with how our new system performs.

Dinghy Hoisting Line

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Superwinch with hoisting line

The Superwinch mounted on our boom, with the dinghy hoisting line wound on the winch drum. The yellow line looks like polypropylene, but actually it is AmSteel.

Superwinch with line, close-up view.

A close-up view of the AmSteel hoisting line wound around the Superwinch drum.

Our electric dinghy hoisting winch system is getting closer to being complete. Jim wound the hoisting line onto the winch drum today. The yellow line we’re using came with the Superwinch. It looks like polypropylene, but actually is a product called AmSteel. It is 3/16 inches in diameter with a breaking strength of 5400 pounds…more than strong enough for our 275 pound dinghy and outboard motor!

AmSteel is a product of Sampson Rope. We found the following description of it in the Fisheries Supply catalog: “A high-performance 12-strand single braid of 100% Dyneema SK-75 fiber, AmSteel yields the maximum in strength-to-weight ratio, very low stretch, and is stronger than the same sized wire rope constructions — yet it floats. It’s the highest strength single braid Samson makes. Samthane coating enhances an already high abrasion and cut resistance. Adding a cover is recommended for areas handled by winch or rope clutches.”

This line sounds pretty good to us. It’s also lightweight and easy on the hands.