day 13 at sea

I took a four day detour up Jervis Inlet - North of Vancouver - and sailed solo up to Princess Louisa Inlet - these are dramatic glaciated fjords that make for some incredible sailing. This was the view from my forward hatch at my anchorage at the end of the Louisa Inlet. That is a 5,000 foot high granitic mountain rising right out of the sea. John Muir would have loved this place.






The mountains form a U-shaped valley, dotted with hanging waterfalls, indicative of powerful glacier activity - this place reminded me of Yosemite.

I finally got around to installing solar on the boat. I have yet to see what it can do on a sunny day, but after three hours of partial overcast - this one panel bumped my deep cycle battery up from 13.00 volts to 13.5 volts. This may not seem like a lot - but it means I am now energy sufficient. With the meager 8 amps a day I can generate with this panel - I can run my interior LEDs, anchor light LED, VHF and stereo and keep the starting battery topped off so I have enough cranking amps to start my 20 hp diesel after a long spell living on the hook.

I'm off the grid, YO!

day 8 at sea - crossing the Straights of Georgia -

So far so good - fair winds and head winds - rain and sun - flood tides and ebb tides. These first few weeks are serving as a shakedown cruise to ensure all systems are working before I head North into the British Columbia wilderness - where there are no hardware stores for fix its.

I had a full boat of crew as I left Seattle - that quickly dwindled down to just Theodora Tolkin and then she left at Pender Harbor- now it is just me.

After waiting out a gale in Nanaimo - we crossed the Straight of Georgia in calm weather.

For the record, this was the second time I have waited out a gale in Nanaimo only to cross the Straights with little wind the proceeding day. The problem is . . . I am neither a fan of calm winds nor Nanaimo (no offense to locals Dianna Krall and Pamela Anderson) - so if this happens again - I am crossing the Straights in the gale.

To be clear, I have a lot of love for Canada - but there is something wrong with Nanaimo - it got hit on the head as a child or something - sort of reminds me of Bremerton back in Puget Sound.

Pre-Alaska haul out

Pre-Alaska haul out.

It has been almost three years since I first bought the boat and had her hauled out to see what I had gotten myself into. This means I was only one year late for the bi-annual haul out when Alize was pulled out this week and thrown up on sticks and blocks of wood for a well deserved wash, wax and paint.












Nothing but good things to say about Canal Boatyard in Fremont. On time, reasonable cost, friendly guys - they let me do all my own work and they showed impressive concern for the environment impacts of boatyard projects.




The success of this haul out lies squarely on the shoulders of a few excellent friends who contributed multiple days of blood and sweat and risked their health through exposure to a vibrant mix of 3M toxic industrial products.

Most valuable player award is shared equally by Steve Springer, Josh Newman and Federico Prado.

Honorable Mention goes to Micah Wait for assisting western passage through the large Ballard locks and Teddy Tolkin for assisting eastern passage through the small Ballard locks.




This series of van/boat shots means a lot to Steve and I, but probably means little to anyone else. This is the first time the van and the boat have been in such close proximity. My move onto a boat was largely inspired by Steve's nomadic lifestyle. Once we get around to instating the 'Squalorship', a small stipend for doctoral students in the Biology Dept at the UW who do not live in houses, we will use this shot for the home page.

Teddy caused a feeding frenzy at the boat yard when she starting buffing the hull. Salty dudes that hadn't talked to me in three days started walking over to my boat to see if we wanted to borrow their step ladder...which we did.


So, at the end of the week - I view the haul out as wildly successful. Alize is no longer Alize II, just Alize. She has fresh sacrificial zinc anodes, the struts and shaft are true and the propeller blades are coated with Petite zinc paint. Her previous coats of SeaLife 1000 had held up very well, so the scraping and sanding prep for this coat was minimal. After spending the better part of Wednesday morning, we got the 42% copper into solution and applied 2 more coats of anti-fouling paint.
We washed the fiberglass hull above waterline, then due to a very kind gesture from the guys at Pacific Fiberglass - we were loaned an electric buffer and 3M Imperial Buffing Compound (not cheap) - so for the first time on my watch - Alize had the faded, oxidized outer layer of fiberglass removed - so as to reveal a fancy sheen (hard to see in these poorly lit images - but trust me, its there). Then we capped off the hull with a coat of protective 3M Scotchguard wax and put her back in the water.

New compass!

bulk head mounted Ritchie compass with inclinometer -

now, when i get lost, i will have one less excuse...

The defense, the defense party and the T-dock dissolution party

A lot has been happening in and around the Alizé II. First of all, I finished my 5.5 year pursuit of a doctoral degree in developmental biology - second of all, a bunch of family and friends got together to celebrate this event - third of all, our small community on T dock at Shilshole marina has begun to disband. Gary has left Seattle for greener pastures in Portland. So, we got together to mark the event.
the boss and I in a last minute strategy session minutes before the defense presentation.



a luciferase activity slide from the talk.

and then the Prosecco after the committee members signed their names to the final doctoral exam warrant.
Andrew Prendergrast baked me a cake designed with a melanophore, a xanthophore and an iridophore - the cell types I have been researching.

The Curran family with Ashlyn, my soon-to-be-baptized god-daughter.


My dad enlightening some friends to something, maybe Woody Guthrie, maybe ice climbing, maybe soft drink sales projections - who knows?
My Dad having a moment with my boss.
We rented out the back room at the College Inn that evening and had Indian food brought in.
Tor Linbo envisioned this as a 'Last Supper' moment. So he framed this image accordingly
the 2010 Raible Lab photo

and
the T-dock dissolution party.

a new marine head

This is the latest Twist n' Lock Jabsco Manual. She is a real beauty. To welcome her in properly I also replaced the adjacent plumbing. The install was a bit of a task - but I think a new head is critical for a happy boat.

The old electric head often became a point of tension with my crew in the past. It was pretty awful - wires were corroded - the motor was weak - fuses blew - outflow was shoddy, inflow was worse - the whole concept of an aged electric head is just a bad idea on a sailboat.

I captured the following video about a year ago.
I think it highlights the tension and discomfort that was created by the old electric system.

Although the crew was trying to stay upbeat - i think you can tell that mutiny was just around the corner.

A really mellow New Years on the Alizé that gradually became the opposite of mellow.

So - it was a simple idea, ring in the new years while bobbing around on an anchor. The weather was wet and mild. It was cold but a dead calm - no wind. We had loads of great food and drink, we had a stack of Uno cards, good music, good friends - this was lining up to be a real easy going New Years celebration.


So, we put on the rain gear and crossed Puget Sound to my favorite little nook, the mooring balls on the South end of Port Madison - very quiet, very quaint - a sleepy little spot.
This was sort of the high water mark for the evening and for me. At this moment you will notice we have full electricity in the cabin. The dinner came together without a hitch. I still have a look of confidence in my face - that will soon disappear (as will the electricity).
Okay, at this moment I am realizing I have a fever from a cold that I had previously been in denial about. This is not interesting except - due to the head cold, i wasn't thinking straight and forgot to switch batteries to the deep cycle. So...we lost electricity and that means we would not be able to start the engine in the morning. So we would have to sail back to my slip under sail. No big deal, I have done it before, as long as the winds are agreeable - everything will be gravy.

Aside from that - morale is soaring.



Midnight came, and under lantern light we wrote down our new years resolutions and burned them in the fire. My resolution was to remember to switch my battery to the deep cycle.




And then we played Uno which everyone excelled at, except me.




Then the next day, things became harrowing. As we began our sail home, the quiet Puget Sound picked up from a dead calm to a freakish gale. I had to drop all sails and put up a reefed main to keep the Alizé from heeling over uncomfortably.

With only a reefed main I couldn't make progress sailing upwind, so I resigned to running downwind. This meant saying goodbye to Seattle. If I had the engine, which i normally do, none of this would have mattered because I can grind the diesel into the wind.

In an attempt to keep the boat from breaching in the 5-6 foot breaking surf, we continued to run downwind. My hat flew overboard. The boat began hydroplaning, thereby exceeding hull speed. Lisa became sea sick. I will admit that I really didn't have much of a plan at this point.

We continued to run downwind. Fortunately, there is a lot of water downwind. If we had to, we could have hydroplaned all the way to Canada. This would not have been pretty, but I took comfort knowing that it was an option on the table.

Ultimately we made an emergency sail into Edmonds Marina at hull speed and hoped for the best. Which is what we got. Nobody had any a priori knowledge of the layout of the marina, but we soared in and were relieved to find this large fishing boat with huge metal handrails all around its deck. I plowed in, turned the bow into the wind to kill the speed, then tipped it towards port so that the crew could grab onto the rails and lash lines around cleats so as to secure our vessel before the winds grabbed us again and spit us into the breakwater.

And that was it, our ride was over. I felt like Sandra Bullock in Speed. Freeny said he felt like Keanu Reeves in Speed, but I have always had a thing for Sandra Bullock, so that's where my mind went.

Incidentally, nobody was taking pictures for this part of the sailing trip. So, the only images we have are these, the aftermath shots once our vessel was strapped to the Edmonds Marina.

fireside chats

What's good enough for FDR is good enough for Alizé. This was the debut sail for the new fireplace. Things went well, in that the only thing that burned down were the cedar logs we picked up at 7-11. In the future i will find a cooler source for my fuel. Maybe driftwood, maybe dura-logs, maybe old shoes.

How to install a Dickinson Marine Heater - an easy guide.

Are you planning to install a Dickinson marine heater? My marine fireplace has kept my sailboat cabin warm on many stormy nights and added a bit of old world charm in the process. However, putting a source of fire on a boat can be a bit intimidating . . .so, I put up these installation directions to show how to do it safely. In this post, I'm installing the Dickinson newport solid fuel heater (i burned driftwood as I sailed north to Alaska) but the instructions I give and the accessory parts are similar to the other versions of Dickinson marine heater (the Dickinson marine diesel heater and Dickinson marine propane heater).


I initially wrote this post in 2009, but I continue to update the post so all the links are accurate. The good news is that 10 years after the install, I still had no leaks in the cabin. 

freshly installed Dickinson marine fireplace in my Newport 30 sailboat

The Dickinson marine fireplace installation

Steve and I mounted the heater unit on the starboard teak bulkhead in the main cabin with a sheet of stainless steel behind it - the stainless sheet acts as a heat guard to protect surrounding wood. This 3 inch stainless steel flue pipe fits over the stove top. I think, all told, I used 3 of these 22 inch sections of flue pipe, in order to connect my heater with the cabin ceiling. I hack-sawed them to the right length, then you can fold and squeeze one end into the reciprocal end of the other.

All the flue pipe and other fittings mentioned in this post are Dickinson brand. You may be able to get away with buying 3 or 5 inch stainless pipe from a metal shop and save some cash in that regard.

You want to run the 3 inch flue pipe up to the ceiling of your cabin in a way that allows at least 4 feet of exposed stove pipe. This serves to get the most heat out of the pipe and also to prevent the pipe from being too hot when it runs through your deck. To achieve this, I  used the 45 degree stainless steel elbows to curve the pipe to the exact spot I wanted the pipe to exit the roof. As seen in the above picture.

5 inch hole drilled through balsa core deck

To install the 3 inch flue pipe through my fiberglass deck, we first drilled out a 5 inch hole with a 5 inch circular drill piece. This gives an inch of space surrounding the flue pipe - which serves as a heat break, it keeps the hot pipe from touching your boat deck. Next we epoxied over the exposed balsa core of the fiberglass deck - to seal against rain that might sneak in (i live in Seattle..).

teak winch mount sanded to lay flush on deck

Then I ran the flue pipe through the deck using a 3 inch deck fitting with dress ring. This is a critical piece. There's a rubber gasket that comes with this deck fitting that also helps keep out rain. Here's the link to the deck fitting. It comes with circular steel plates to flush it up clean with the deck and ceiling surface.




 A teak winch pad was installed on the exterior of the boat, to keep the chimney top at level. There's a curve of my boat deck, so the teak winch pad counters out that slope. You can use the same 5 inch circular drill bit to take out the circle in the middle of the teak winch pad. I then sanded the teak pad until the curve was flush with my deck, thus keeping the chimney top level.

we drilled in holes, then coated base with 4200 marine sealant

You can find teak pads at West Marine. We ordered this one and saved a bit of cash.


     

Then I popped on this medieval looking clover leaf smoke cap, that keeps out the back-draft. I found this at a used boat shop.

clover leaf smoke cap fit on a teak winch mount

Dickinson Marine Heater

It's now 2019 and I have nothing but cozy fires to report. The only downside is you need to keep well stocked with small pieces (6-8 inch) of wood or wood pellets, or my favorite - chunks of duralog. Any type of compressed fuel log, is nice because you can just use a big screwdriver to break off baseball size chunks. This means not having to wield a hatchet in the rain while you're standing in your fiberglass cockpit at 10 pm (I've been there...)

Additional Dickinson units

You can find product spec. info and pricing for additional heater models and all the accessory parts I talk about below at the Dickinson Marine store on Amazon. Certain high quality boating stores may also carry these parts. I found everything I needed at Fisheries Supply in Seattle. Now, I'm based in San Diego and we have Marine Exchange down in Shelter Island area. If you don't have a store like that where you live, then online is probably the way to go. 

Good luck with the install and stay warm!

still keeping the cabin warm 10 years later

My dock mate just dropped off a pile of dense, chopped up burl wood. We burned these while out on anchor on a chilly evening in Mariner's Cove. You can see this dense fuel burning in the picture.

The heater still works fine. The pretty painting of a Spanish galleon on the ceramic tile has faded. But aside from that, the structure remains un-compromised.

My girlfriend and I spent the evening drinking wine and reading books on old trading ships. 

No complaints...

Huge Day for the Captains Log

that is shala in the upper left corner out sailing last summer, she is featured in the Underway section of "Latitude and Attitudes", which is the creme de la creme of the 'pirate/Jimmy Buffet' genre of sailing publications, so ya know...

my boat is finally on the express trains to complete stardom

very exciting

Rescuing an abandoned crab pot

pink salmon running off Meadow Point