by Judy Handley | Oct 3, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 334, Year 8: C & S—Cooking and Searching
Date: Thursday, October 3, 2013
Weather: Another Sunny Day with Daytime Temp 70 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Mark and I spent the day at Heather and Jed’s taking advantage of their kitchen and their internet. I spent my day cooking and Mark spent his day downloading and searching through navigation software options. He is searching for a free or cheap replacement for the navigation software we have been using for seven years now. Since 2006, we have used MaxSea with C-Map charts and we love it. But the version we have doesn’t run on Windows 7, only on Windows XP, and our computers with Windows XP have all died. So we need to buy an updated version of MaxSea, BUT that is expensive. Mark has been searching the alternatives—Open CPN which is free, PolarView which costs $50, and MaxSea which costs $350 from Defender with only US charts. Then you have to add a little more than $200 for charts for each region of the world. Open CPN runs like a dog on our computers. PolarView has some nice features, but it doesn’t have many of the features that we both love about MaxSea. So do we make do with something that is not quite our cup of tea or do we pay the big bucks for what we want. It is like the dilemma we had with the dinghy, just not quite as costly to get what we want with navigation software.
Cooking was a lot easier. I made lots of chili—some to free for the sail south and some to eat now. And I finished baking the granola we made last week. I also fried hamburger to freeze to use in taco sauce. In-between cooking jobs, I did laundry. It doesn’t sound like much, but somehow these jobs took me all day. Mark walked to pick Sam up from school and we did our Thursday routine of giving Mark and Sam a spelling test. Sam has a 20-word spelling test every Friday and Thursday night’s homework is to prepare for that. I am still blown away by the first grade academic load these days, but Sam seems to be handling it just fine. When Heather got home with Jonah and Ollie, Mark and I headed back to Woods Hole. Jed had to go get new fish stock this afternoon and he didn’t get back to Woods Hole until after 6 pm. Mark and I were supposed to leave the keys in the car and LEAVE THE CAR UNLOCKED so that Jed would have a way home. Well, we did leave the keys in the car, but we then very methodically locked all the doors. As we were walking to the dinghy, we saw Jed unloading the fish samples and we yelled to tell him that the keys were in the car . . . . . and at that moment Mark and I looked at each other realizing what we had done. So much for well-laid plans. Mark and Jed tried to get the car unlocked but they had no luck. Heather finally called and said that the boys wanted to come get their daddy. So she had to load all three boys into the van when they should have been going to bed, and come get Jed. Apologies, apologies. This is just not our week. On Tuesday Mark’s tablet got smashed when it flew off the top of the car and today we locked the keys in the car. I wonder what we can come up with tomorrow?
by Judy Handley | Oct 2, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 333, Year 8: Summer Weather
Date: Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day with Daytime Temp in the Mid-70’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The weather this week has been just beautiful and today was a perfect summer day with temps in the 70’s. How delightful! I would call it Indian Summer, but that is term for this type of warm weather after the first killing frost. And we certainly haven’t had a frost yet. So we’ll just say we are having a continuation of summer, and we’ll embrace every day of it.
I helped out at Heather and Jed’s today and Mark stayed on the boat to do consulting work and to install the new heading sensor that will hopefully help our auto pilot steer a truer course. Jonah stayed home from preschool today, so Heather and I had Jonah and Ollie. That meant a lot of house work was not going to be done, but we did take a lot of stuff to the town dump’s Swap Shop and Heather was able to take a nap with the two boys. Ollie’s birthday gift to Heather of sleeping through the night on Monday night was not repeated last night. In fact, he hardly slept at all, so Heather was up most of the night with him. His cold is no worse but it’s going to take another few days before he rounds the corner. When Sam got home from school today, Heather made potato and beet chips for a snack. How yummy. And then she helped the boys cut the tops off their pumpkins and clean out the seeds to get them ready to ‘carve.’ This year they are going to drill tiny holes in the pumpkins instead of doing traditional carving and then put strings of small white twinkle lights inside. Martha Stewart calls these celestial pumpkins. Whatever you call them, the effect can be quite magical. I can’t wait to see them when they are done.
Mark spent a great deal of the afternoon installing the new Airmar heading sensor. This should allow our auto pilot to steer more precisely in tight areas like the Intracoastal Waterway. We won’t know how effective it is until we can go out on a calm day to adjust the compass and do a sea trial set-up. That will let us know it is set up and working properly, but we really won’t know how effective it is until we are actually in the waterway. So here’s hoping.
by Judy Handley | Oct 1, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 332, Year 8: Oh, My . . . It’s October
Date: Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day with Daytime Temp in the Upper-60’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
It was a bit of a shock this morning to realize that it is the first of October. We have only two weeks until we leave here. We’re not ready, but then you never are. So we celebrated the first day of October by doing a little bit of everything to get us closer to being ready to leave. We started out by going to the chiropractor. Both Mark and I have been going two times a week for the past two weeks to get ourselves in shipshape for the sail south. Actually, I made the appointment for myself as a recommendation from the Spine Clinic at Mass General. Dr. Cha told me to keep doing whatever I had been doing to solve the issue of the pinched nerve in my neck. And what I had been doing was going to an Activator-type chiropractor. I have had no pain since leaving South Carolina in the spring, but I thought I should at least meet the doctor here in case I might need him next spring. I took Mark along to see if he could help with the problems Mark has been having with pain in his neck (note I didn’t say he is a pain in the neck). We’ll go one more time on Thursday and then hope everything stays in place until we get back here next spring.
Next we went to Heather and Jed’s to take care of Ollie. We were greeted with wonderful news. I suppose as a birthday present to his mother, Ollie slept better last night than he has for months. So Heather actually got some sleep. Hurray!!! Ollie still has his cold, but he was feeling much better today. Heather had to go to Boston to do her first TV taping of a science piece for a program called Greater Boston. It is my understanding that she will go to Boston every Tuesday to tape a weekly piece that will be aired on Friday evenings. But I could have that wrong. Whatever, she looked great and felt great and was on her way. Mark and I played with Ollie until almost noon and when he looked like he was ready for a nap, we put him in the car and headed to Hyannis. I needed to do grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s, fabric shopping at JoAnn Fabrics, odds and ends shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond, pick up a pair of soccer shoes for Sam at a sports store, and check the Hyannis West Marine for a piece of clothing. Ollie slept through all of his and only opened his eyes as we were leaving Hyannis. So Ollie had a great nap, but unfortunately the rest of the trip was not a total success. We started out with a very expensive mishap. When Mark put Ollie in the car, he put his beloved Nexus 7 tablet on the top of the car along with some papers and a pair of soccer shoes we were returning. I started to remind him to get the things, but as I was getting in the car, I was sure I saw him reach for them. So I said nothing. A few minutes later when we got on the highway, I saw things flying at the car behind us. I immediately knew it was the tablet, papers, and shoes. We pulled off the road and the car behind us stopped blocking traffic. The driver was a woman who jumped out and started gathering the items on the road. Mark was there to help her, but when he returned to the car, it was obvious that the tablet was a goner. He was able to put it back together and it turned on, but the screen is broken and the image looks a bit like a modern art painting. Mark is way too attached to this electronic device, so tonight he is having a bit of withdrawal. But we did recover the shoes and the papers. So not all was lost. The shopping in Hyannis was also not so successful. As always, I should have known better. The downside of living on the Cape is that if you need something, you really have to travel off the Cape to find it or order it online. So tonight I am searching the internet to find the items I need because they were not in Hyannis.
We got back to Heather and Jed’s just as Jed and Jonah were getting off the bus from Woods Hole. Jed left work early so that he could take over with Ollie as Mark had a 3 pm doctor’s appointment. This was a wellness check with the ever-vigilant cardiologist who helped diagnose Mark’s colon cancer. At the same time, this Dr. Christman discovered that Mark has a bicuspid aortic valve. Most of us have three cusps or leaflets in the aortic valve, but Mark has only two. This requires bi-yearly checking to make sure everything is okay. So he visits Dr. Christman when we arrive here in May and again in October before we leave. Dr. Christman works with Mark’s oncologist so that when Mark gets a CT scan at Mass General, they also check the thickness of the aortic valve and send that info to Dr. Christman. If the valve gets too thin, then something needs to be done. But until then, Mark has no restrictions—just lots of doctor appointments.
After the appointment we went to our storage unit and worked for about an hour. We had things in the car that needed to put in storage, so while we were there we went through some boxes and took away enough stuff to fill the back of the car. This stuff will go to the Swap Shop at the town dump and hopefully find a new home. Our hope is to do this each time we go to the storage unit. Eventually we will get rid of enough stuff to allow us to move into an even smaller unit. That won’t happen this year, but maybe next.
Little by little, we are getting ready for the sail south. We are gathering the things we need and searching through storage for things that we will take to Justin and Jo in Puerto Rico. Tomorrow is a consulting work day for Mark and my day to watch Ollie while Heather tackles major house cleaning projects. The weather is just gorgeous this week. The daytime temperature is supposed to be in the mid-70’s tomorrow, so maybe we’ll have to bring the house cleaning projects outside!
by Judy Handley | Sep 30, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 331, Year 8: Happy Birthday, Heather!
Date: Monday, September 30, 2013
Weather: Mostly Sunny Day with Daytime Temp in the Mid-60’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Happy birthday to our daughter Heather. It was a bit of a crazy day for her, but then when you have three little boys, most days are a bit crazy. She was up most of the night with Ollie who has another cold, so she got very little sleep. And now she has the cold as well. We can only hope that Ollie will be able to sleep a bit better tonight to give Heather a break. Ollie will not be able to go to daycare tomorrow, so we will go to take care of him. Heather has to drive to WGBH in Boston to record a television piece that she is now doing weekly and which airs on Friday evenings. I know we all lived through those years when babies are sick and jobs still demand your presence—but it is NOT easy. So hang in there, Heather. In another couple of years, Ollie will be three-and-a-half and life will be bit easier.
by Judy Handley | Sep 29, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 330, Year 8: New Dinghy Launched
Date: Sunday, September 29, 2013
Weather: Sunny Day with Daytime Temp in the High 60’s F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
If you read this log every day, you are probably saying, “Okay, okay, enough about this new dinghy.” But I must make one more report. The paint we put on yesterday dried just fine and it was ready to launch today. The short version of the story is that Sam and Jonah helped with the launch while Oliver slept in the van. We were able to easily carry it down the ramp and into the water. Now for the longer version . . .
As part of Heather’s birthday present, we took all three boys for the day. Sam, Jonah, Mark, and I drove into town after breakfast to pick-up Ollie. Heather and Jed were going out for the morning to do some looking at Cape antique furniture shops and then to have lunch before returning home to delve into a basement clean-out project. We took the boys to a local nursery to buy chrysanthemums and pumpkins to decorate the front of the house as a birthday present for Heather from the boys. By the time they picked out the ‘just perfect’ flower and pumpkin from each, Heather and Jed were long gone. So we went back to the house and place the gifts in front of the house as a surprise for when they returned. Then we were off for Woods Hole to launch the dinghy. Sam and Jonah were both very excited about this and had all sorts of plans for testing the dinghy in the water. Ollie, who woke up this morning with yet another cold, slept in the van while the rest of worked on getting the dinghy into the water. Thankfully we were able to park right next to the launching area and could hear Ollie if he awoke—which he didn’t. With me at the front of the dinghy and Jonah, Mark, and Sam on the back, we were able to carry the dinghy down the ramp and into the water. Then we had to figure out how to get the new dinghy across Eel Pond to Windbird and at the same time get all three children and the old dinghy there as well. Sam offered to paddle the new dinghy across all by himself and we accepted the offer. We had no idea he could really do it, but we told him to do the best he could and that we would come in the old dinghy with the motor to assist him. Well, before I could walk to the van to get Ollie and come back to the old dinghy, Sam was halfway across the pond. Once we were on our way, I realized that I just had to get a photo of Sam as he reached Windbird. He was rowing that dinghy in a perfectly straight line toward the boat. I guess six year-olds can do more than we normally allow them to do. Anyway, I was driving the old dinghy and Mark was in the front holding Ollie. There were so many bags between us that he could not easily get back to drive, so I told Jonah he was going to have to do that job. We got a little off-course, but I guess four year-olds can do more than we think as well. I got a couple of photos of Sam and then we all met on Windbird’s port side. Sam says the West Marine dinghy is amazingly easy to handle. Since I can’t row anything in a straight line, I guess I’ll have to try it to see if I agree. With both dinghies at Windbird, we were able to raise the motor off the old dinghy and put it back down on the new. The motor is almost as heavy as the dinghy, so we had to use the lift on the boat. There was no way to just make the transfer with the help of the lift. But with a little teamwork, we accomplished the task.
After lunch, Mark took Sam and Jonah out into Great Bay for the dinghy sea trials and they made a visit to Devils Foot island. Ollie’s nap was interrupted by the move from the van to the dinghy to the boat, so I stayed aboard Windbird in hopes of getting him back to sleep. That didn’t work, but we had a good time playing together. When the ‘boys’ returned, they had good reports about the dinghy’s performance and their walk-about on Devils Foot. On the way back into town, we drove around a bit to get Ollie to sleep and then we took Sam and Jonah to the Falmouth Conservation Land to see the sheep. They wanted to see what the spring lambs looked like now. We couldn’t tell which were the mothers and which were the babies, so Sam and Jonah decided that lambs grow very quickly. We then drove into town, ordered a sushi feast for Heather’s birthday dinner, bought a birthday cake and 38 candles, and headed home for a birthday celebration. Tomorrow is Heather’s birthday, but she has to work and tomorrow night is a school night. So we decided to celebrate tonight. The sushi was delicious and we all got a kick out of the sight of a small birthday cake with 38 lit candles. It looked like the cake was burning. And since the icing was whipped cream, the heat from the candles actually started melting it before Heather could blow out all those candles!
We saw some photos on Facebook of Ziggy and Coco in their new home in Puerto Rico and they certainly look like they have quickly made the adjustment to living in a tropical paradise. I copied some of the photos and am sharing them here. Culebra sure looks beautiful and Coco and Ziggy look so happy.
by Judy Handley | Sep 28, 2013 | Cape Cod, USA, Sailing Logs Year 8 |
Day 329, Year 8: Dinghy Disaster Narrowly Averted
Date: Saturday, September 28, 2013
Weather: Partly Sunny and Warm, 70 degrees F
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
You would think we might have learned a thing or two about boats by now. But, no. We haven’t. Or maybe it is that we have no common sense. But in any case, the idea to paint the new dinghy bottom late in the day yesterday caused a near disaster. We got up this morning and drove into Falmouth to see Jonah play soccer. Mark then took me to storage to wait for a gentleman who wanted to buy our bandsaw and Mark went back to Woods Hole to put on the keel guard. The plan was for him to then return to pick me up so we could go see Sam play soccer at noon before returning to Woods Hole to put the second coat of bottom paint on the dinghy. But when Mark returned to Woods Hole, he found the dinghy with dried drips of bottom paint all over the tubes. Evidently the paint did not dry at all before dew fell. The dinghy was sitting with the bottom-side up and the droplets of water ran down through the paint, over the taped edge, and on to the new hypalon tubes. It looked like a heavy rain fell as we were painting it. Mark was mortified when he saw it, but he immediately began wiping off the drying drips. He had the bottle of isopropyl alcohol and paper towels that he was supposed to wipe the area where he was going to apply the keel guard, so he used that to try and remove the paint from the hypalon. He didn’t even take time to call me and by 12 noon, I decided to call him to see if he had forgotten to come get me. He sounded panicked and just said to me that bottom paint had dripped all over the dinghy tubes and that is was a mess. He added that he was having some luck cleaning up, but that he needed to hurry, so we hung up. Then I was panicked. I was imagining the worst from his tone of voice. About this time the man came to pick up the bandsaw. He was ‘only’ an hour late in arriving, but I used the time to sort through things to see what more can be discarded. And as soon as he left, I locked up the storage unit and ran to catch the 12:30 bus to Woods Hole. By the time I got there, Mark was finished with the clean-up and had applied the KeelGuard. The clean-up job was not perfect, but just a little more work was needed with a toothbrush and the alcohol to get into cracks and crevices. Where the bottom paint should have been there was a runny mess, but at least it was dry. I used every last bit of paint and barely got the bottom covered again. Thankfully the sun was shining and it was relatively warm, so it dried very quickly. Just in case there is something wrong with the paint or the way we applied it, we turned the dinghy right-side up for the night. If it drips, at least it will drip down. We still can’t believe we made such an ill-advised (the grandkids tell me I’m not supposed to use the word ‘stupid’) decision. But total disaster was avoided. We’ll have to check first thing in the morning to see what happened overnight with today’s paint job. Hopefully, it will be fine and we can launch the dinghy tomorrow. We are very anxious to see how it performs in the water. It looks long and sleek versus our current dinghy which is shorter and stout in appearance. The difference between 16-inch and 17-inch tubes is huge, but we’ll live with how this one performs, like it or not. I’m hoping to be able to give a good review, but we shall see. Coming into this, I must admit I prefer short and stout in dinghies.
Our daughter Heather’s birthday is on Monday, we are taking the boys for 24 hours. I picked Sam and Jonah up at 5 pm and was met at the door with Ollie who had on his backpack (but nothing else but a diaper) and was ready to go just like the big boys. Unfortunately, he’s just not ready to do without momma for an overnight, but we will pick him up in the morning. While I was gone, Mark used a borrowed battery tester to see how our batteries are doing. They were all fully charged, so it looks like the new batteries are performing nicely. When I returned with Sam and Jonah, Mark met us to introduce the boys to the new dinghy. They inspected it and are now anxiously awaiting the launch. When we got back to Windbird I started cooking breakfast for dinner. This was a special request of Sam and Jonah, so we had bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and French toast. Between the two of them, they ate almost a whole package of bacon and ate all but 4 of the link sausages. Since Jonah doesn’t eat sausage, I guess Sam was the culprit. They still had room for a small piece of a chocolate chip cookie cake but neither could finish the small sliver I gave them. I think they were truly full. After dinner they cuddled up with Granddad and watched the first part of The Blue Planet while I did a little galley clean-up and made the beds. They both conked out almost as soon as their heads hit the pillow. But they’ll be up early and we will all head to shore to check on how the dinghy fared overnight. Sure hope I can give you a good report tomorrow night.
