Day 336, Year 9: It’s Official . . . Fall Has Arrived

Day 336, Year 9: It’s Official . . . Fall Has Arrived
Date: Monday, September 22, 2014
Weather: Clear, High Temp in the mid-70’s F, Windy Tonight
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

Fall has officially arrived and you can feel it in the air. The birds are flying south, the leaves on some trees have started to fall, and some nights are quite chilly. It was a warm day today and it is still 60 degrees F outside right now. But the weather forecast says it will get down to 49 degrees overnight and will only warm up to the mid-60’s tomorrow. We are rockin’ and rollin’ tonight with winds coming from the west, but by morning the winds will be coming from the northerly quadrant and Quissett Harbor will be a bit calmer. But the northerly winds do mean cooler weather for a couple of days.

We are still chipping away at all the boat jobs that need to be done before we leave here. Next Wednesday is the day when Mark will hopefully get the ‘all clear’ from his doctors and we need to be ready to go as soon after that as weather permits. So we are down to the wire with lots of jobs still not done. I started the Dorade box varnishing project today and Mark made a final decision on which company we will go with for boat insurance for the next year. We thought we were going to be changing insurers, but in the end, we are sticking with Blue Water. Mark is currently working on a consulting job, so he is spending time on that. We actually went to Heather and Jed’s this morning as it is easier for him to do the internet and phone work that he has to do there. We also decided to do the varnishing job there. And since we needed to babysit Jonah and Ollie while Heather went to Scouts with Sam this evening, we had dinner there as well. While Heather and Sam were gone, Jonah built a train track for Ollie. Ollie loves trains and yesterday he really wanted to bring the GeoTrax up from the basement to build a track. So we did this tonight and working with very little help, Jonah got the track built for Ollie, tried it out to make sure it worked, and then turned to Ollie and said, “It’s all yours.” It was very nice thing for him to do for his little brother and I think Jonah was pretty proud of the fact that he can now build with GeoTrax all by himself. It can be quite completed and just last winter, Jonah was still depending on Sam to build for him. Jonah has made a giant leap forward.

Tomorrow we head to Heather’s so that I can hopefully get another coat of varnish on the Dorade boxes before we have to pick the boys up from school. Sam and Jonah have an early release day which means we pick them up at 12:40 and head straight to Woods Hole to pick Ollie up at 1 pm. We are then going to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s (WHOI’s) Exhibit Center to see the Remus-100 autonomous underwater vehicle that was attacked by Great White Sharks off the island of Guadalupe in Mexico. This underwater vehicle was WHOI’s official SharkCam and was equipped with six cameras. But no more. The shark damaged vehicle resides in the Exhibit Center in Woods Hole, so we are going to take a look.

Day 335, Year 9: Farewell to Summer 2014

Day 335, Year 9: Farewell to Summer 2014
Date: Sunday, September 21, 2014
Weather: Overcast with Rain in Late Afternoon, Warm and Humid
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

All three Goldpebbles were up and at ‘em by 7 am this morning after having a good night’s sleep. That’s a little earlier than Mark and I prefer for a get-up time, but it’s much better than 6 am which was the get-up time earlier in the summer! The boys played chess with Granddad while I got breakfast ready and then we ate and ate. Actually Jonah, the light eater, ate the most for breakfast which tells me that the cold that Ollie, and now Sam, has is taking its toll. At 9:30 am it was time to take Mark to shore so he could go to work, so all of us went in to drop him off and then we headed across Quissett Harbor to the beach in the dinghy. At the beach we unloaded the construction equipment (big dump truck, loader, and cement mixer) and the three boys ran up and down the beach squealing with joy. There was a warm wind blowing and the water actually felt warm, so colds and all, all three boys fully enjoyed the water play. At one point they stopped long enough to wave goodbye to summer so I could get a photo. We talked about the fact that summer officially ends tomorrow evening but that this trip to the beach was probably our last of the 2014 season. We were all having so much fun that I didn’t notice a semi-submerged rock in the area where the boys were playing. Then I saw Ollie stop running to try and climb up the gentle slope of the rock covered with shells and little barnacles. I started toward him to remind him not to climb on wet rocks (one of our beach rules), but I was too late. He took one step on the rock and slid backwards. I thought his face was going to hit the rock, but thankfully that didn’t happen. Ollie screamed with pain and I scooped him out of the water and up to dry rock where I had a big beach towel. I could see that the inside of his right hand and the area around his wrist was bleeding profusely, so I just wrapped it in the towel so he wouldn’t have to see the blood. But I was shaken. That sick feeling you get in your gut when a little one is injured set in, but I tried to look brave and asked Sam and Jonah to fill up their little buckets of sea water to help clean the blood from his hand. Ollie was crying but stopped long enough to listen to a lady walking by who was trying to distract him. She told him how special having the big construction vehicles on the beach was and he stopped crying to listen. So I knew he was probably fine, just shook up by the fall. Sam helped me wash Ollie’s wrist and when he was calmed down, I started to get up with him. The towel opened and it was then that I saw all of the blood on his little feet. Again Sam and Jonah came to the rescue with fresh salt water and when we washed the blood off his feet we saw that the problem was a long cut on the downside of one of his big toes. The blood all over his feet just made it look worse than it was. But at that point I decided that we needed to get Ollie home to momma. I asked Sam and Jonah for their cooperation in getting things ready to do and they immediately flew into action. They cleaned the sand off all the construction vehicles and shovels and literally threw them into the dinghy. Since the tide was going out, the dinghy was sitting high and dry on the sand but Sam turned it so the bow of the dinghy was headed out into the water and he pulled like crazy to get it into the water. Without me saying a word, I got into the dinghy holding Ollie and both boys jumped in and Sam started paddling us away from shore. Once we were out of the shallow water, Ollie asked me to start the engine. I think he wanted to get across the harbor to the van as quickly as possible. Once we docked the dinghy, the boys got all of the beach gear out of the dinghy and started carrying to the van. They were such troopers. We got home and Ollie cuddled mommy while she soaked his foot and hand and arm in warm water. He was fine and I was very proud of the way Sam and Jonah took charge and helped me get everything from the beach to the dinghy dock and then to the van. They carried everything leaving me free to just deal Ollie and I hardly had to say a word to them. They just knew what needed to be done and they did it. The amount of blood from both Ollie’s hand wound and the slit on his big toe was enough to let us all know that Ollie’s needs came first and that we just needed to do what needed to be done to get him home. The big boys sang to him all the way home and he sang along. It was very sweet.

I spent the afternoon at Heather and Jed’s sanding Dorade boxes to prepare them for their first coat of varnish tomorrow. When I arrived with the boys, H & J had finished putting the second coat of paint on the walls of the den and by the end of the afternoon they had totally finished getting the new shelves in the living room ‘re-stocked’ with the stereo and video equipment that used to be housed in the den. They went to pick up a new table and chairs for the den that Heather had seen advertised on Craig’s List and they got that room ready to use once again. They have to wait for the new cabinets for the den and the new sofa for the living room, but they have both rooms looking great in the meantime. Jed leaves for Japan tomorrow and will be gone for ten days. I know Heather will be happier momma in his absence now that the renovation projects are completed and just waiting for furniture.

Our farewell to Summer 2014 was a bit more traumatic than I had hoped, but the rain held off so that we could have a great morning on the beach. Well, it was great minus Ollie’s mishap. In every other way, however, it was a perfect day for the end of summer celebration.

140921 Day 335 Cape Cod, USA–Summer Farewell

Day 334, Year 9: Another Goldpebble Overnight

Day 334, Year 9: Another Goldpebble Overnight
Date: Saturday, September 20, 2014
Weather: Sunny with Blue Skies, Warm Like Summer
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

The weather is a bit crazy. Yesterday was very cool, but today it was just like summer again. Jonah and Sam both had soccer, so we went in early for Jonah’s soccer and then went to Heather and Jed’s to finish sanding the Dorade boxes before going back into town for Sam’s soccer time. Before we left the boat this morning, we got into the cabinet where we keep all of our paint and varnish and discovered that we have no Epifanes Rapid Clear. Since Mark sanded the boxes down to bare wood, my normal process would have been to put two coats a day of Rapid Clear on the boxes for three days in a row and then start putting on coats of Epifanes Clear Varnish. I would put on at least four coats of Clear. BUT when we looked in the cabinet, we had no Rapid Clear (dries in 6 hours) and no one in Falmouth has it either. The West Marine warehouse doesn’t even have any, so I would have to wait until Tuesday to get it through Amazon Prime or just use the Clear Varnish that I have that takes 24 hours to dry. Either way will take seven days to finish the job, but I have just always preferred getting in the double coats of Rapid Clear on the first three days. But waiting until Wednesday to start varnishing is just too late. So I’ll start tomorrow and use what I have.

Between Jonah’s 9 am soccer and Sam’s 1:30 game, Heather took the top two supers off both of her hives. She was trying to get the supers of honey off before the bees start eating it, but the bees were really not happy about this. One thing led to another and she ended up with about a dozen bee stings. She finally had to just leave the supers on the ground in front of the hives in hopes that the bees would go into the hives by evening and she could then bring the supers inside. We’re not sure how that episode ended as after Sam’s soccer game, Mark and I kidnapped the Sam, Jonah, and Ollie and brought them to Quissett for another ‘Goldpebble’ overnight. It was almost 4 pm by the time we got here, but there was still time for an hour on the beach before we headed to Windbird for dinner. After dinner we had movie night, watching one of our favorite videos about elephants and orangutans—Born to Be Wild. And now all three boys are fast asleep—looking every bit like sleeping angels. Ollie missed mommy a bit at bedtime but Jonah came to the rescue by bringing Ollie a little stuffed parrot we call Windbird. That did the trick. And when Jonah got a bit sad missing mommy, Sam invited him to come to sleep in his bunk and he hugged him until he went to sleep. They have their share of brotherly ‘disputes’ but they certainly take care of each other when needed. Mark works tomorrow, but if the predicted rain holds off a bit in the morning, the boys and I will play on the beach before heading home to get out of the afternoon rain.

Day 333, Year 9: New Navigation Set-up

Day 333, Year 9: New Navigation Set-up
Date: Friday, September 19, 2014
Weather: Sunny with Blue Skies, Strong N Winds Bringing Us a Chilly Day
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

We have thought and read and discussed and thought and read and discussed some more trying to figure out the cheapest and best way to have good navigation software on Windbird. We used MaxSea on our computer at the nav station with a monitor in the cockpit all around the world and it was great. BUT our old MaxSea software only works on a computer with Windows XP and all of our computers with the that operating system have now died and gone to heaven. For the past couple of years we have been using Open CPN software with our old C-Map charts plus the free downloadable NOAA vector charts. But recently we found out that old C-Map charts have voids in the Bahamas and other places and NOAA charts don’t cover all of the Bahamas, so we have been looking for a way to use new C-Map charts that are affordable. There are two ways to do that. You can buy a 10” tablet for $450 and then buy new C-Map charts for under $50 or buy new MaxSea navigation software for $450 and then buy new charts for $210. And we need two different sets of charts. As much as we love MaxSea, we decided to go with a new tablet, free downloadable software and affordable charts. Plan2Nav is the free software for tablets from the folks who make C-Map charts. So that is what we are going to use. The new Samsung 10” tablet arrived today so Mark has a new toy to keep him busier than ever. We could have used the software on Mark’s 7” Nexus tablet, but if something happened to his tablet, we would have no back-up. Thus the new tablet. And we got the 10” instead of another 7” because it is much easier to see. If we had bought another 7” tablet we would have stuck with Nexus, but their 10” doesn’t get the same rave reviews. Therefore, we went with the Samsung. And the case Mark bought for it comes with a keyboard. I have a feeling this will become his computer as well.

My mornings continue to be filled with cleaning out more and more storage areas. Mark headed to Heather’s early this morning with our Dorade boxes to sand them but he didn’t get very far before he had to come back and pick me up so we could get Ollie from daycare. Heather really needed to stay at work this afternoon, so we headed to H & J’s with a sleepy Ollie. He napped all afternoon while Mark sanded and I launched an all-out attack on Heather and Jed’s den. They have been trying to get it completely emptied for a few weeks now so they can paint and then get the new furniture. When Heather got home from work, she pitched in and we did it. Hopefully by the end of the weekend I will have a first coat of varnish on the Dorade boxes and Heather and Jed will have the den painted. Tomorrow is soccer Saturday and then the boys are coming here for an overnight, so I might not get the final sanding of the boxes done until Sunday afternoon with a first coat of varnish on Monday. But hopefully the absence of the boys at home tomorrow afternoon and evening plus Sunday morning will give Heather and Jed a chance to paint.

140919 Day 333 Cape Cod, USA–New Navigation Set-up

Day 332, Year 9: More Cleaning, Organizing . . . and Shopping

Day 332, Year 9: More Cleaning, Organizing . . . and Shopping
Date: Thursday, September 18, 2014
Weather: Sunny with Blue Skies, Daytime Temp Low 70’s F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

It is times like these that make me very glad that I don’t live in a huge home. Day after day we continue to work to get all of the storage areas on this little boat cleaned out and reorganized, and day after day we find we have more to do. We are making progress, but today was an especially productive one. Last night after reading the weather forecast for the next week, I decided that today was the day to take everything out of the v-berth and put it out on deck in the sun. So this morning we started that job. First we removed all of the stuff on the v-berth cushions and then we took the cushions outside on deck. Next we removed the wood panels under the cushions and took them outside. The final task was to remove everything stored under the v-berth—the spinnaker, the storm sail, the drogue and parachute which we have never needed to use and hope that we never do, and the four huge off-shore life jackets we are required to carry for off-shore travel. No one every uses them unless your boat is sinking, but they have to be there and you want them there, just in case. We also have at least 500 feet of various lines that we store under the v-berth . . . just in case. These are lines that we have replaced, but the old line was good enough to keep. All of this is stuffed under the v-berth and needs to be aired out periodically. So this was the day. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny but almost 15 degrees cooler than today. That’s quite a dip. But today was sunny and warm and a perfect day for drying things out. As soon as we got everything on deck, I left to go to the Post Office and to go shopping. Mark has been posting items for sale on eBay and he has been successful in selling a few things, thus the need for my stop at the PO. And then I went off Cape to the closest Home Depot that had the foil-backed bubble wrap insulation that I need to line all of the storage areas. My shopping trip started off targeted, but somewhere along the line I got derailed. I decided that as long as I was near a Carter’s kid clothing outlet that I needed to stop there, and then I decided that as long as I was there, I might as well drive another 20 minutes to Hyannis to buy the food items I need for provisioning for the winter that are only available at either Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s. And then as long as I was in Hyannis, I decided to drive home by Heather’s to deliver a few items that I bought for her. And as long as I was there, I encouraged her to go running and then pick up Sam and Jonah while I watched Ollie nap. I won’t bore you any longer, but you see how my day went. By the time I got back to Windbird, we had to move fast to get things put away before the sun went down. Thankfully Mark had cleaned the area under the v-berth and it was ready for us to put the new bubble wrap insulation in place and repack. So we did. And while I was out shopping, Mark installed a new Seagull water filter, took off the Dorade boxes and removed the cowl vent hardware so the wooden boxes can be sanded and varnished, put a new clothes line in the shower, and spent a couple of hours on consulting work. It was a productive day but the boat cleaning project is still only half done. So we will continue tomorrow. We have four more days of summer and I plan to be done with cleaning by the official moment of fall equinox on Monday evening. As I drove around today, I saw a few trees that have started to turn and back here in Quissett Harbor the first boats are being taken out of the water. Definitely a sign that summer is coming to an end.

140918 Day 332 Cape Cod, USA–First Boats Out of the Water

Day 331, Year 9: Beautiful September Weather

Day 331, Year 9: Beautiful September Weather
Date: Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Weather: Sunny with Blue Skies, Daytime Temp 70 degrees F
Location: Quissett Harbor, Falmouth, Massachusetts

We have had incredibly beautiful weather in September. In fact, we have had great weather all summer. But these sunny September days with the temp hovering around 70 degrees F and cool nights in the 50’s have just been delightful. Unfortunately we spent most of the day inside the boat today–me cleaning out more cabinets and Mark working on his computer–but we ventured out into the cockpit to enjoy the sunshine from time to time. In the afternoon we took a break and went into town to do some shopping—boat necessities at West Marine, boat cards at Staples, odds and ends at Walmart. We then came home and Mark connected the new heading sensor to the compass. He hasn’t tested it out yet, but if it works, the job is done. We went to Heather and Jed’s for dinner with the boys while Heather and Jed went to ‘Meet the Teacher’ night at East Falmouth Elementary School. They had a 6 pm meeting with Jonah’s kindergarten teacher and a 6:30 pm meeting with Sam’s second grade teacher. Both boys seem to be settling into school with no difficulties which is always good news. And both Mark and I are blown away by Sam’s reading. He struggled all of last year and resisted reading aloud to us this summer. But all of a sudden, he is reading everything. Both last night and tonight, he read to us and to Ollie. Such a delight!

I heard from Jo this morning telling me more details about Ziggy’s first day, and it sounds like he is going to love school even though he is fighting it a bit initially. He so desperately wants to make friends that I think the fact that he can do this at school will outweigh any misgivings he might have about leaving mommy and daddy to go to school.

Before I can line any more cabinets with Reflectix, a thin foil-backed bubble wrap insulation, I have to drive off Cape to buy more. We checked the hardware stores and Walmart in Falmouth with no luck, and even the Home Depot in Hyannis doesn’t have it. So first thing in the morning I’ll drive north to Wareham (about 30 minutes north of here) to buy the insulation so I can continue my work. Mark is going to split his day between consulting work and odds and ends boat work. On goes the fun.