Convivia is one heck of a sailing boat. I love her dearly, but she is sadly lacking in two areas (no binnacle, no nav station) that made my navigation/chart plotter system decision somewhat harder than the typical, 1. Buy Raymarine, 2. Install Raymarine, 3. Enjoy Raymarine, process. Add to that the fact that I am a dyed in the wool hacker with a natural distrust of the closed and proprietary, and you have a recipe for innovation. ...
This weekend was the official opening of the Sharks Bight Yacht Club, a hyper-exclusive yacht club in Brickyard Cove. Chris & Kim (the Commodores) invited the crew of Convivia to be the inaugural guests. Chris met us in Emeryville at the appointed time (1430) but due to a project that was running long (a new alternator), we didn’t quite keep our schedule. Chris was totally laid back and even called in the big guns (Chuck of s/v Chester P) when it looked like we might need a second opinion. Luckily it turned out to be a small misunderstanding regarding a three position switch, and we were off the dock by 1600. ...
Years ago I stenciled a sailboat and an anchor onto shirts for Ruby and Olive. I wanted to make updated shirts for them one day so I ended up moving onto the boat with a stamp carving kit and some fabric paint. I planned to carve an anchor onto my stamp so that I could print onto fabric and notecards over and over again. A sailor friend of mine was expecting a little girl and so the inspiration and count down began. ...
I’ve found, time and again, that no plan is the best plan. This weekend was a perfect proof of that theory. On Friday night we still didn’t know where we were going. Would we go back to our old tried and true anchorage (Horseshoe Cove) or brave the sail-in-sail-out anchorage at Aquatic Park? Would we prioritize getting a good view of the fireworks, shoreside activities, or visiting with friends? As it turns out, we managed all three. ...
I love my Aeropress. If I could work two at once I would buy a second one. It makes great coffee, and it cleans up easily (read: less water). Consequentially, I had already elected to bring it along on our trip as our primary brewing device. I had resigned myself to it’s one shortcoming, the consumable filters, and had decided to get dozens of packs (300 filters/pack) as soon as I used up my first one. ...
Today marks three months until departure. Or at least until the earliest possible departure. We’ve got 97 items on the list, so while we are still fighting a deficit (if one item = one day), at least we aren’t loosing much ground. This is a work weekend, so I hope to cross off a few big items. Wish me luck!
More than a year ago, when we had bought the boat but hadn’t moved aboard yet I found this print while reading Kind Over Matter. It says, “it is in all of us to defy expectations to go into the world and to be brave; and to want, to need, to hunger for adventures; to embrace change and chance and risk so that we may breathe and know what it is to be free.” I knew with certainty that we were on the right life path—about to live on our boat while we got ready to travel the world—but I took her message as a huge encouragement. Her prints and her original works are listed on her etsy store and I’ve gone back many times to look and wished that I had a wall for a print. Last week I decided to order an 8x10 print even if I was only going to tape it up on the hanging locker door. ...
I remember when I was young my mother would say things like, “you’ll always be my baby boy,” and, “I wish I could put a brick on your head so you would stay little forever.” Now I’m a parent and my little baby has grown into a big girl. I feel my mother’s words coming to my lips and they almost spill out. Then I look at Ruby and realize that I wouldn’t hold on if I could. She’s growing, and I often feel like I’m not paying close enough attention; feel like I’m missing too many of the precious moments of her life, too many of the new facial expressions, thoughts, worries; feel like too soon she’ll be 14 then 21 and off on her own adventures. ...
New parents, new lovers, newly converted, people discovering a great new ashram, sport, hobby, or any other infatuation. We all share a common stigma. Most people want us to just shut up already. There is something about falling in love that puts a shine so bright on us that makes some people just want to turn us off. What kind of trips me out about this phenomenon is that it is socially accepted that shining too brightly is annoying (at best). Like new parents who just can’t stop talking about their beautiful perfect babies are somehow rubbing the rest of our noses in it. I was that guy (okay, I’m always that guy). I couldn’t stop talking about my kids. Even now, I have to remind myself mid-emote, that the general contractor of our new headquarters really doesn’t care, he was just being polite. ...
Convivia was ship shape and ready to sail by the time my work day ended. We decided in the morning that today would be the day that we tested out the North Sails QuickCover (similar to a StackPack) and Monitor windvane. I was a little worried about the monitor because I had to guess on where to attach the control sheets and I hadn’t had time to read the instructions on how one actually sails with the thing. I was worried about the QuickCover because I have heard all sorts of complaints about the sail getting caught and other related issues. ...
We just passed the 100 day mark. On the upside, the anticipation of this 90º course change in our life has all of us sparkling. The recent addition of two Blue Latitudes cruiser’s guides to our library has us ooohing and ahhing over lovely color photos of turquoise bays and vibrant seaside towns. I’ve also become enamored with the laid back, islandy sound of my ukulele, often playing it all evening instead of knocking items off my todo list. ...
This was a pretty productive weekend. I had hoped to get started on the Monitor install but instead got all of the New England Ropes (Dyneema) halyards run as well as one of the genoa sheets. I had a very simple method planned for swapping out the old halyards. I was going to tape the old halyard to the 5mm Dyneema®, run it back up the mast, over the sheave and down. Then I thought I would just tape the new halyard on and run it back up. I tried it Friday night and it worked great until the new halyard got back up to the sheave. Apparently the tight turn was too much for the tape and the halyard and 5mm fell back down. ...
Today I got home to find several large boxes waiting for me. Okay, true, I did have to walk 1/4 mile up to the marina office to pick them up, and I did have to call Ed (the security guard/awesome guy) to let me into said office and then wheel those large boxes back to the boat; artistic license. In said boxes were: a) A Ukulele. Which I have been wanting for a long time but didn’t quite get over the hump until Merileigh (our boat neighbor) got one. ...
Convivia and crew spent the long weekend spinning around our anchor (very slowly) in Horseshoe Cove (a.k.a Sausalito’s Presidio, a.k.a Fort Baker). The anchorage was every bit as enjoyable as our last visit, and more so since they removed the flotsam collection from the mooring ball. When we arrived (around 1400 on Saturday) there were two other boats on anchor. Both the ~35’ trimaran and the ~48’ trawler had a lot less draft, and were closer into shore than I would have been comfortable with. The upshot was that Convivia dropped anchor almost exactly where she did last time (if the GPS waypoint can be trusted). We didn’t get off the boat at all on Saturday. Once we had settled the boat, covered the sails, and tidied up, we settled in for afternoon coffee (and lemonade). A few hours later (and in the pouring down rain) I turned on the grill for some awesome BBQ chicken. The kids fell to sleep quickly and early and Vick and made tea and read until the damp cold drove us into our berth. ...
I just got a note from Kevin at New England Ropes. Our Dyneema® line will ship from the West Marine rig shop today. With any luck they will arrive before the end of the week. I should be able to get at least the sheets installed before the long weekend. If so we’ll be able to test our new vang and some beautiful new line on our long weekend cruise. That will take some of the sting out of not getting the Monitor installed.