Blowing like a You-Know-What

After a very unsettled day yesterday, May 8, it suddenly calmed down. However, the NWS had posted a gale warning starting after midnight. Danielle just told me that the gale will continue at least until 4 pm. Oh well, not much to do but lie in bed and catch up on the blogs.

Last night, at precisely midnight, the wind started howling. It was getting to be a wild ride. No problem to sleep though, except some occasional wave slapping.

Below is a video that I took this morning. The boat is continuously heeled over by about 5 degrees. We also had to rescue Donnie's boat where a fender had jumped off. Not a good thing.

Winthrop Sunsets

One of the great things of being in Winthrop are the sunsets. I decided to take a sunset picture and publish it on Facebook every time I get a chance. Below are a few taken in May 2010

Move to Wintrhop

On May 1, 2010, we moved to Winthrop. The 3 WYC winter liveaboards, Andrew, Chris and us, packed up our boats and moved over.

It was a great day, and felt good to be back in our summer location.

The club docks are still worked on. We are replacing several big floats, and all docks get painted every year.

Chris and Hillary decided to go sailing for a while since their boat was fully comissioned. I was able to barely get my headsail in, to be able to have some control in case there was a problem with the headsail

Spring happenings

Last night the shrinkwrap came off, and tonight the frame will go. I brought over the powerwasher and cleaned up some of Dinghy Dong (that's one of Danielle's naming conventions)
In other news, we had a great party last Friday, and on I was able to pick a good slip at the Withrop Yacht Club for the following season.
Last sunday, we took our Friend Paui's 51 ft powerboat and went over to Marina Bay to meet up with our old friends Jeff and Cheryl. It was a beautiful pre-season trip.

I have been working on a great Blogging/Cruising Site that I will publish soon, but that has taken a bit of a delay for now since I am facing a deadline for my real customers, Continental Airlines, as well as developing a website for my Dockmasters postion at the yacht club.

I decided that I need a new camera. The IPhone pictures are just lausy quality unless the lightning conditions are ideal. Once I get that, I will be posting more pictures

We are still in Woonsockett, trying to try to try to start cleaning up the house so that we can go back to Constitution Marina.

For those who don't know... Danielle's mother, Nancy, passed away February 8th. She left the rental house and their belongings of 32 years.

It has been very hard for Danielle. She lost her father last year and her mother this.

We are hoping that life will get back on track by late April.

Vets That Do House Calls

Last summer, Danielle made a great discovery. There is actually a vet that is doing house calls. HarborVets is a pair of local veterinarians who come to your place. Regardless if it is a boat or a house. They are very compassionate, competent good doctors, and I can highly recommend Dr. Emily Neenan & Dr. Maija Mikkola Curtis.

Here is Dr Maija "Dr Mik" with Sammy. I have no personal benefit but like to support the efforts of people who I believe are doing a good thing.
Maija was recently the runner up (to Angell Memorial Hospital) as the Best Vet in 2008 by the Readers' Choice Awards of Beantown Tails Magazine!

Shrinkwrap Is All Done

Well, we are here at Constitution Marina with Waterdancer completely shrinkwrapped. A friend mentioned one day, that there is a devious satisfaction of playing with a shrink-gun that can instantly combust anything in it's path if brought too close. 300,000 BTU/hour is a lot of energy.

We have a new door this year. It is a screen door but I am planning on getting a Plexiglas cover for it. When it gets cold and windy, it is amazing how much heat a good wrap with a solid door can retain.

There have been days when it was sunny and 20 degrees outside while we were warm and cozy in the cockpit without any additional heat.

Now I need to clean up all the mess and tools that are all over the cockpit. The boat actually provides for a nice social area in the winter time. Having the cockpit as a living area under the shrinkwrap is great.

I am glad that I was able to finish the shrinkwrap though. It is raining cats and dogs here, a huge storm moved up from the south. The winds are not too bad, but it is wet, very wet. Somebody posted that it had rained so much in the DC area , that the fixed docks got flooded, and some liveaboards could not get off their boats !

From weather.com

Last evening, the winds peaked with this storm as Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, Cape Henry, Norfolk and Oceana gusted to between 70 and 75 mph, causing many power outages. Into tonight, winds will gust to between 40 and 50 mph from Nantucket and Long Island to the Jersey shore and the Delmarva Peninsula. The risk for power outages will expand northward with these winds.
Strong winds will focus on southeast Massachusetts on Saturday, possibly gusting to over 50 mph on Nantucket.

Moving Back To Constitution Marina

How many times have I blogged our move from Constitution to Winthrop, and then back from Winthrop to Constitution, in the past 5 years, I don't remember.



There are both sad and sweet parts to both of these trips. It always is a bittersweet occasion of leaving the summer life, the Tiki Bar, the Winthrop Sunsets and our summer vacations behind, and moving back into the town life.

Well, it was that time again. Danielle had been sick with a cough, so we had to delay the trip till Monday.
She drove over, and I took Waterdancer. It was a tranquil, lone trip. Quiet seas again, only interrupted with the excitement of undoing the dock lines only to realize that the boat, with engine running, was in gear.. (Talk about a leap of faith I had to do)
Waterdancer, Sailor, Sammy and I had a quiet trip around the airport and arrived in Charlestown mid-afternoon.




We tied her up at her new spot and went to have a sandwich at Sorrels, a little coffee shop in the neighborhood.
Afterwards, we jumped into Tapalong, which I had towed over, and rode back to Winthrop, It was time for Tapalong to be up on her trailer and brought over into her winter spot.

So here we are, looking forward for another winter season, shrinkwrapping, cooking, partying, and hanging out with our old and new friends here at the Marina.

Towing S/V Ruby to Admiral's Hill

My friend Bill's Catalina 30 had her engine pulled out because of some problems. So there was the daunting task on how to move the boat over from Winthrop to Admiral's Hill where she will be on the dry.

Well, good excuse for a day on the water. We grabbed TapAlong, our 13 Whaler Dountless, tied her to the aft quarter of Ruby, with many, many, many fenders, and had a nice 2+ hour trip through the harbor to Admiral's Hill. The weather was georgeous. We left around 3:30 pm and arrived there just about at sunset.

After securing the boat we jumped into the Tapalong and carefully powered back, in 20 minutes. We had to be slow because inner Boston Harbor is a no-wake zone, and there was a lot of debris in the form of railroad ties in the water.

But the deed was done, and we celebrated with sandwiches and beer at the clubhouse

Bonfire on Rainsforth Island

October 10, 2009

This is the third, and probably the last time that we sailed over to Rainsforth Island to have a bonfire. It was pretty gusty, W winds 25 kts gusting to 30. We had about 6 boats joining us.

I grabbed a mooring one of the Boston Harbor Island moorings for which I have a season pass..

I do admit that when I have a chance to grab a mooring, I do it, even though I trust my anchoring skills and Waterdancer's anchor. It is a 45 ft plow with about 200 ft of chain. We have never dragged... but then again, part of the reason is, because I grab a mooring if I can :)

It was a wet dinghy ride over to the campsite which was on the eastern cove. Every time I go through Quarantine Rocks, I slow down, even with the dinghy. They look intimidating at low tide. Worse, at high tide they are not visible, and you can go over most of them, but it is risky business.

We had a great night, boiling some lobsters, cows and fish. Danielle distributed her rum again :).

There was another group camping on the other side of the island, which is something that I always feel uneasy about, but .. nothing we can do.

The one concern I have with Rainsforth is that there is a group of people, mostly from the Quincy area, who live there pretty much through the summer. So I feel somewhat stepping on their turf when we take over the campsite. But up to now, whenever we encountered them, they have been nice and courteous, so there have been no issues.

All in all, it was a great night around the fire, many stories told, quite a few braincells killed.

We went back to Waterdancer around midnight and started up the generator.

Winter is coming. The temperatures dropped down to the low 40ies. Thank you reverse cycle !
I usually don't sleep that well with the generator running, especially if the winds die. You can smell the exhaust fumes as they sweep through the portholes and other small openings if not disbursed by the wind. I have nightmares of getting CO poisoning, even though I have 2 smoke detectors, and 2 CO detector's on the boat.

Next day, we motored back to the club. We did not sail, because we are whimps! . I did not want to deal with the sails for the half hour ride. If we had been on Harmony (26 Bristol) , ow Nomad (36 Catalina) we would have at least pulled out the jib. Oh well..

Speaking of winter ...
That day, October 11, was the annual Turkey Roast at Constitution Marina. That usually marks the beginning of the winter season. Just like last year, Paul on Venesaur opened up his boat to the entire marina. I estimate that we had close to 40 people on the his boat.

Let the winter begin....