Friday, September 28, 2007
2000 hours
We did splash that Friday. Unfortunately, a couple of leaks became immediately obvious, so we got hauled right back out of the water again. It's good to find problems like that before you sail away, we agreed -- but it still felt like defeat. Most of the crew got up at 2:00 that morning to install the propeller shafts, or had been woken up in the process, and we had all worked extra hard to get everything seaworthy again in time to leave that day. I was hunkered at the end of the haulout dock on Hermes the boat-bike, taking photos of the Chieftain's re-introduction to the water and grinning like a madman, when I saw several of the crew get back off the boat, their faces and posture telegraphing the bad news.
It really was just a temporary setback, though; we were put back on the blocks, but remained in the lift so we could easily return to the water the next morning. And then we set to fixing the leaks, which (with the help of a welder from the next boat over) proved to be completely doable before nightfall.
The second splash was successful, but the subsequent transit was hard on us all. We were fatigued to begin with, and the immediate transition from a boat that doesn't move to a boat that moves a lot was rough. This was also my first ocean transit, as we left the Sound and headed for Grays Harbor, and I spent most of it feeling cold and queasy and, well, miserable. I felt sick before we even got back in the water, though, so I have hope that ocean transits without pre-existing tummy upsets may be easier. Or if not, that I'll learn to suck it up and make myself useful. In the meantime, my current blog subtitle will just have to be poetic license.
We reached Westport in under 24 hours, and spent the next couple of days recovering. Our new captain, who got on just before the transit, brought a cold that promptly spread to 4/5 of our exhausted crew. Still, Westport was kind to us. I'd forgotten how much fun it is to sail in Grays Harbor: good wind and (unlike Puget Sound) just enough swell to remind you that you're really on a boat. Besides, Westport has the Knotty Pine, my favorite dive anywhere. Every booth in the joint is layered thick with memories for me, and I took care to add a few more this time around.
Now we've begun a 3-week period of vessel maintenance in Aberdeen, or as sailors from the region call it, Aberdoom: Where Dreams Go to Die. It is ironic that the home port for these boats is the most unpleasant and ill-appointed I've ever stayed in. We're moored behind the Walmart, at the mouth of the muddy, smelly Wishkah River, on a tiny crumbling cement dock. There's no fuel dock, no pumpout, no marine supply store, no shore restroom facilities except the port-a-potty and the Walmart. Several other major chain retailers are conveniently close by, but what I've seen of the rest of the town is run-down and seedy and thoroughly depressing. It seems oddly appropriate that Aberdeen's most famous resident is known for sad songs and suicide.
But there are compensations. We are finally reunited with the Lady Washington and her crew; the two boats are rafted together, so we can conveniently attend each others' parties, steal each others' snacks, and perform daring raids with Nerf dart guns. And maintenance is both more fun and more relaxed than haulout. I spent today scraping, sanding, and refinishing the gorgeous teak rails around the perimeter of the boat, and I expect to spend the next several days on it as well. I find it very soothing.
And in other happy news, I have a new little brother: after a wait of many months, my family has been approved to adopt an eight year old boy. I can't wait to meet him!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
On the Hard.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
1750 hours
We are hauled out. This means we are sitting on blocks in the yard, literally.
Seeing the boat come out of the water was a thrill, yards all cockbilled, hoisted up on a massive lift and rolling, suspended, over dry gravel. And living on a land-boat was an exciting novelty at first. The public doesn't complain because we're not open for tours. Daily boat-cleaning chores are cast aside. We climb a 20' ladder to get on and off the boat. It's like living in a big crazy treehouse, only without the tree.
But we have been hauled out since the 10th, and we are all getting land-sick. We have all of the inconveniences of the Chieftain with few of the conveniences. That big ladder? Every time we want to wash dishes, or clothes, or our hands, or use the head, we have to climb down it and walk a long way across a gravel parking lot to the facilities. Dirt and mud from that parking lot gets tracked all through our usually tidy boat. And though it's refreshing to have a break from dealing with the public, we've been working a lot of long days trying to stay on our haulout schedule.
We've been successful in staying on our haulout schedule, actually. We were given a very short timeframe to do a lot of work, and we met it. The bottom has been cleaned and painted with a substance that is hostile to the growth of marine life (read: extremely toxic). Hull paint has been touched up along the waterline. All the throughholes in the hull have been opened, checked and cleaned, and the propellers, shafts, and bearings have been pulled and prepped. The Coast Guard has inspected us twice, and seems to think we're more or less all right. The problem has been with the stuff we can't do ourselves, the propeller parts that have to be professionally machined in a properly equipped facility. This continues to hold us up, so that our departure date hovers out in the future, always moving away as we approach it, like the end of the rainbow.
For me, it's really only mildly annoying. It could be a lot worse: Port Townsend really isn't a bad town to be stuck in, as seaside towns go (despite the dearth of wireless internet within a mile of the shipyard), and our workload has lightened considerably since we finished painting. But other crew members were expecting to be in Westport by now, counting on it in fact, and they're starting to trickle away by ones and twos, off to schools and jobs and family, disappointed and vexed at having to find transportation by land instead of by sea.
Summer is losing its grip, skidding away from us into the mist. Rainclouds and flocks of geese pass overhead as we commiserate about how much we miss being rocked to sleep at night. This evening I rode the tiny one-speed boat bike (Hermes, messenger of the gods) a mile and a half up the path beyond the paper mill, pedaling hard, inhaling the scent of rain-washed autumn herbs. On the long lazy slope homeward, I gazed out at the little boats coming in from the sound. None of them were as cool as my boat, but they were out on the water, and I envied them that. I want to be on the move. I want to chase after the geese, clutch at summer's outstretched hand and slide on southward into brightness and warmth.
Postscript: The propeller shafts are back and getting a sleek coat of fiberglass at this very moment. We should "splash" sometime Friday. In other news, I just found out about the free wireless at the Safeway across the street from the yard(!).
1750 hours
We are hauled out. This means we are sitting on blocks in the yard, literally.
Seeing the boat come out of the water was a thrill, yards all cockbilled, hoisted up on a massive lift and rolling, suspended, over dry gravel. And living on a land-boat was an exciting novelty at first. The public doesn't complain because we're not open for tours. Daily boat-cleaning chores are cast aside. We climb a 20' ladder to get on and off the boat. It's like living in a big crazy treehouse, only without the tree.
But we have been hauled out since the 10th, and we are all getting land-sick. We have all of the inconveniences of the Chieftain with few of the conveniences. That big ladder? Every time we want to wash dishes, or clothes, or our hands, or use the head, we have to climb down it and walk a long way across a gravel parking lot to the facilities. Dirt and mud from that parking lot gets tracked all through our usually tidy boat. And though it's refreshing to have a break from dealing with the public, we've been working a lot of long days trying to stay on our haulout schedule.
We've been successful in staying on our haulout schedule, actually. We were given a very short timeframe to do a lot of work, and we met it. The bottom has been cleaned and painted with a substance that is hostile to the growth of marine life (read: extremely toxic). Hull paint has been touched up along the waterline. All the throughholes in the hull have been opened, checked and cleaned, and the propellers, shafts, and bearings have been pulled and prepped. The Coast Guard has inspected us twice, and seems to think we're more or less all right. The problem has been with the stuff we can't do ourselves, the propeller parts that have to be professionally machined in a properly equipped facility. This continues to hold us up, so that our departure date hovers out in the future, always moving away as we approach it, like the end of the rainbow.
For me, it's really only mildly annoying. It could be a lot worse: Port Townsend really isn't a bad town to be stuck in, as seaside towns go (despite the dearth of wireless internet within a mile of the shipyard), and our workload has lightened considerably since we finished painting. But other crew members were expecting to be in Westport by now, counting on it in fact, and they're starting to trickle away by ones and twos, off to schools and jobs and family, disappointed and vexed at having to find transportation by land instead of by sea.
Summer is losing its grip, skidding away from us into the mist. Rainclouds and flocks of geese pass overhead as we commiserate about how much we miss being rocked to sleep at night. This evening I rode the tiny one-speed boat bike (Hermes, messenger of the gods) a mile and a half up the path beyond the paper mill, pedaling hard, inhaling the scent of rain-washed autumn herbs. On the long lazy slope homeward, I gazed out at the little boats coming in from the sound. None of them were as cool as my boat, but they were out on the water, and I envied them that. I want to be on the move. I want to chase after the geese, clutch at summer's outstretched hand and slide on southward into brightness and warmth.
Postscript: The propeller shafts are back and getting a sleek coat of fiberglass at this very moment. We should "splash" sometime Friday. In other news, I just found out about the free wireless at the Safeway across the street from the yard(!).
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