Winter Preparations Shrink Wrapping and The Cookbook

So, as winter nears, we are going through the same old preparations as we have done in the past 8 years,  again. Some friends have left, and we have some new friends and neighbors, but mostly we seem to behanging out with the same group.

Every Friday evening, the marina opens up the pool, heated up to about 100 degrees, and we have the pool party. That is our social hour where a group of us get together under the steamy  tent that covers the pool and enjoy the "Biggest Hot Tub in Boston"

Danielle trying to decypher the hand-written version of Lisa's cookbook

Our friend Lisa "Just Married" is writing a cook book. She asked, and we volunteered to be the "Test" cooks. She gies us the instructions, and we prep and cook the food. She observes us and takes notes in order to improve her receipes. Last week it was Danielle's turn, so Brian, her husband and I just sat and enjoyed the wine, watching the Lisa watching Danielle cook !

Lisa is carefully watching and taking notes while Danielle is cooking

Carefully inspecting the sauce or juices to make sure that everything is perfect

Some people go really full out high class in ensuring their comfort in the boat. Chris on Secco loves to have the best quality of everything. So he decided to purchase and install a 48,000 BTU/hour Hydronic Hurricane Heater for his 45Ft 2013 Jenneau. He has been working on it during his off time for the last 5 weeks. I must say I admire the guy. Professional installation takes two guys one full week of laber, costing $8000.- Add to that the cost of over $10,000 for the unit and the accessories, you have a expensive, but very comfortable unit. You save big on electricity, but end up using 5-10 gallons of diesel a week. However the main purpose is that you end up with a evenly heated dry boat.

Here is the distribution center of the Hurricane hydronic heater.
It combines the engine and hear water with the in-board hot water heater

We have a shrinkwrap group. It started as 6 boats 5 years ago and now grew to 17 boats. We but the shrinkwrap wholesale and help each other out in "shrinking".  Waterdancer already has it's shrinkwrap on, but the shrinking is not complete, because it has been blowing here for days.

Waterdancer with it's unshrunk wrap on

Last Weekend was nice, so we started early Saturday morning in a nice sunny day and finished in pouring rain Sunday night. So far we have about a dozen boats covered, and half of them are completed. I am hoping to finish Waterdancer this weekend. I ended up borrowing a different type of heat gun from Mark, and so far managed to burn 3 holes into my wrap ... oh well !

The Crew working very hard on covering one of the boats.  Thank you Roxy for the bagel and coffee 

Here is Imagine with a very creative door !

We were soaked on Sunday. So Jose of Ipanema was kind enough to invite us to his boat (which was the one we got soked in) and had a great Pork Chop dinner.

Enjoying delicious pork chops on Ipanema

 Danielle had cooked some pork too, so we had a wonderful evening where we pretty much depleted most of his Caribbean rum collection and red wine stash!

Symbolic depiction of Jose's red Wine Collection

6th Annual Here Comes WInter Party

Today was our 6th annual "Here Comes Winter Party" at Constitution Marina. We have this tradition that every year, the week after we move over, we throw a party for the winter liveaboards. The idea is for folks to meat each other, talk about winter living, and exchange tips, and simply have a fun time.
Danielle usually provides the case of champagne, and a spiral ham, and people contribute.

I can see Cat, Mark, Nadine, John, Mark, Brian Buzz, Lisa, Roxy, Kirsten, Brian and many others

Walter, Lisa, Richard Nadine,Martin, Mark and others
 

Although it was raining in the morning, the clouds dissipated in the afternoon, and we had a very large crowd showing up. Initially we gathered inside Waterdancer, but eventually the party spilled out to the docks. Everybody contributed with great food and various bottles of champagne, as well as some very creative Bloody Mary drinks.

In the mids of things, Buzz and Martin went to help Paul and Elizabeth move the stuff out of their van. They are our very dear friends who are moving to land. They will be dearly missed by the Boston Liveaboard community, but it was a step that they needed to do, and they are very happy about it. Based on reports we received from Buzz and Martin, we are very happy about it too, because now we have a great space to party  on land, especially when a storm hits. !

As the sun started to go down, we moved the tables over in front of Pipe Dream, our neighbors. We were hoping that the crowd would get them out to join the party, but they were nowhere to be seen. In any case thank you for letting us use your dock space.

I also was hoping that we would have some of the new liveaboards joining us, but that did not happen. But the usual suspects were there and the party went on for 10 hours.
We had literally over 30 guests show up. Thank you everybody for a great start for a great winter

Halloween 2013

The liveaboard lifestyle is a community. Like we do every year, we decided to have a boaters Trick-Or-Treat event going on Halloween night. We announced that all boats who would like to have the kids knocking on their hulls, should have their navigation or anchor lights on.

The full set of pictures can be seen in the Halloween section of our album.

As darkness fell, the kids living in the Marina started to visit the boats. A good handful of boats that participated. This event is special, because it reinforces the feeling by the kids that our boats are our homes.
They live in their own home (boat) and go visit other boats which are their nighbors, for trick and treat.
We have about 8 or 10 kids that are living aboard.  They pretty much all came by at one time or another. We still have bags of treats left, that we will probably bring out in this weekends Sunday Brunch Party.

Danielle my darling of course did all the work, got the candies, arranged the music, and prepared the boat while I just sat around and took pictures.

And Winter is coming...

Updates on our International Friends

On Friday the 25th we had some more international visitors. Dennis and Ank from the Netherlands were on their way down to the Carribean. They contacted me, and were able to sail down and grab my mooring for 2 days. They arranged a dinghy spot at the town dock, since the marina was already closed. 

They will be sightseeing in Boston for a few days and then continue their trip down to the Carribean .. nice !

Their blog can be seen  here : http://www.sy-bodyguard.nl/Index_sailing.htm

Meanwhile our old frends Hjalmar and Britt Marie are continuing down the coast and are in the DC area.We have become Facebook friends, so we are keeping up with them,  http://flying-penguin.se/

I am also happy to see that S/V Mooreglade made it back to England this year. I had not heard from Ted for a while. We have really enjoyed welcoming theses international friends here at the WInthrop Yacht club and be able to host them during their voyages.  http://blog.mailasail.com/moorglade

 Moving to Constitution

Saturday (yesterday) was a busy day. It was time to move over to Constitution Marina int our winter spot. Dennis and Ank decided to to join me, after all what better way to go to Boston than by Boat

Approaching Boston Inner Harbor

Barge has perfect timing to get pushed across the harbor

. After passing a traffic jam right in front of the Boston Harbor Hotel with a fleet of raceboats, and a huge barge trying to anchor, we made it into Constitution by about 10:30. Danielle took the dogs and did some shopping for the parties that were to follow today. 

It always adds to the sailing fun when one runs into a swarm of adrenaline-pumped little racing sailboats.

I don't think this Barge worried too much about anything. I had Ch 16/13 monitored all the time and did not hear any warning about them coming up

Dennis and Ank, my crew from Winthrop to Boston

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Clambake at Susans

We left our Dutch friends on their way to floow the freedom trail while Mark, Danielle and I went down to Cohasset to visit our friend Susan during their anuual traditional New England Clambake.

For my non-New-England friends, here is the description of a Clambake:

This begins with gathering seaweed at the shoreline; seaweed is an important adjunct to cooking the food.

Also important are several round medium-sized stones, or sometimes cannon balls, which are heated in the fire and used to re-radiate heat during the cooking process.

Once the stones and seaweed have been collected, a fire pit is prepared.

The stones used for cooking are then placed in the center of the pit and a wood fire is started, The fire must burn until the stones are glowing hot. . A layer of wet seaweed is placed over the stones, followed by traditional regional foods such as steamers, mussels, quahogs, and lobsters. Side dishes usually include potatoes, corn on the cob, sausages, carrots, and onions. Alternating layers of seaweed and food are piled on top and the entire mound is covered with canvas that has been drenched in sea water to seal in the heat and prevent the canvas from burning. The food is allowed to steam for several hours.

The pit is dug, and the stones are heating up

The rocks are almost ready

Here comes the Seaweed

And it is covered

Now we wait for the Losbsters while we enjoy soups and other food from the grill

Cover is on

The top cover comes on

And some great clams and soup

The clambake was great. Susan has a bunch of really nice and eclectic friends, both from the movie industry and the sailing cruising world. If you know Susan, you would say "What else do you expect" Se we had a great time to talking to everybody, especially Susan's parents and all other guests. Danielle really enjoyed it. it was her first clambake, and the music was great. The lobsters, vegetables, breads, clams and mussels were absolutely delicious. As a matter of fact, my mouth waters as I write this.

Time to check the Lobsters

Time to get the bugs out

And here it is folks !

Halloween Party

After dark fell, we had a small fire pit to hang around, and eventually headed back to Boston, since we had the traditional M/V Imagine Halloween party to go to. We met all our old liveaboard friends, as well as some new ones, with some absolutely hilarious costumes. There was again great food, conversation, and everybody danced the night away until about 1 am when we stumbled back to Waterdancer.

Halloween on M/V Imagine

October 2013

It is October, Out Scituate trip was the last outing we had.
There was already a day of pretty hefty winds, and many members of the club came over to A dock, which is facing South and is especially exposed to Southwesterlies. We managed to secure some of the boats which had chafed lines.
It is always unsettling to see Waterdancer hop like a 30,000 lbs mechanical bull on docks, with the stern sometimes going up 4 feet and landing in the water, missing the docks, thanks to the cobweb of lines that I put on. Our marina is pretty solid out there, but I still sometimes wonder, looking at the twisting and bouncing, on how there is not a catastrophical breakdown.

There was a dock party on Friday, Oct 18 at Constuitution Marina, which we were planning to attend with Waterdancer, by rafting up to our friend's boat, Venesaur, but that was nixed by Sebastian, the CM Dockmaster, and I was not planning to pay $2+ per fot for a one night stay after having paid for all winter.
So we drove over, most of the party was at W & J's Boat, since J was going out of the country for an extended business trip.

Coming back to WYC, I moved Waterdancer to an inside dock, in order to be more protected. In this season, the blows from the Southwest can be fierce, and we had a pretty strong blow on Monday, October 7.

All last Sunday, the 20th we had westerly winds. I took the opportunity to go out with Tapalong and take some club fall pictures.
However it subsided in the evening and I was  able to move our friend A's boat over to the inside corner with the Tapalong, since his transmission is off right now.

The weather is now calm. (October 21)  We are planning to put Tapalong onto the dry this week, and move Waterdancer to CM, for her winter spot.

We are slowly getting into our winter mode, cooking at home, and enjoying the (occasional) tranquility. Last night Danielle roasted a great (and big) chicken, so looks like I  will have roasted chicken for my lunch at work for a few days :)

Halloween is coming up, and there will be the traditional Halloween party. Also, S is throwing a clambake in Cohasset, which is one of my favorite coastal towns in New England

Scituate

It is almost October. The summer season is over. We have been getting our feet wet to adjust to the winter season by visiting our friends at Constitution Marina.

Dinner at CM the week before

So with a few fellow friends, we decided to make one last sail to Scituate. Ususally Scituate is not a destination for us. It is more a stopover if we have a late start, or if we quite did not make it to Boston. It is about 3 hours away. It has some nice restaurants, but we usually like to hang out on our boat, so the small, crowded mooring field offers good protection, and friendly people, but not much else.



In any case, after a mandatory swap of the outboard on the dingy to my old 2HP Honda, (I broke the starter cord on the 15 hp) we headed out around 10:30.

Entering Scituate Harbor

Although the start was calm and beautiful, as we entered the Boston Harbor Light area, the entrance rollers started. We had about 10-12 knots of easterlies with an offshore storm. Needless to say, Waterdancer hoby-horsed and then rolled on the short chop all the way past Minots light.

Choppy seas going to Scituate, (not really visible in the picture)

The wind was reasonable enough to sail, but with the dirty bottom, and the choppy seas, we decided to motorsail all the way in.
After (what seemed to be ) a 30 minute wait for EX-Rider, we finally got a mooring. Our friends Steve & Jan and Martin & Darcy arrived about 30 minutes later on the 43 Chris Craft and grabbed the mooring next to us. A bit later Rick and Rob sailed in and grabbed another mooring.

Scituate Harbor

We all got together at on Seize the Dream, and started to pull out the snacks, and food. Eventually we decided to just stay on the boat instead of going to the restaurant.
It was a great night, and we went back  Waterdancer around 10:30.
Next morning, I wend over to Seize The Moment and we had some breakfast.

Trip back, passing Minot's Light

We left around 12:30, and had a much calmer trip back.
Once in Boston, we went inside of Calf Island. That has been an area I wanted to explore, since I had never been there. It was an interesting place, protected, with rocks all around us.

Calf Island

Afterwards, we had a great sail up the North Channel, then back to the club. We spent some time on our mooring and then came back to the docks to settle in for the night.

More of Calf Island

Sailing in the North Channel

Le Boreal on her way to Colombia

Wing-On-Wing in Boston Harbor

On our mooring, S
unday evening