Summer Life in Baltimore

July 29 thru Aug 2

—Blogpost written by Bob

Sunday, July 29

A beautiful cool day awaits us as we start our day in our slip in Baltimore.  There’s several things we should do today: clean the raw water strainers, pull the dinghy up onto the foredeck, put up the forepeak tent, retrieve our car from the boatyard in Galesville, stop at our storage unit (to pick up some items needed for next week’s boat projects), and get some groceries.

We have two raw water strainers that require weekly
cleaning.  The one on the upper left is for our air
conditioner and the one on the lower right is
 for the cooling water for our fridge.

We got everything done except pulling the dinghy up on the foredeck and putting up the forepeak tent but there is always tomorrow.

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I had no idea what was going on in the world in the year that I was born, 1947, until I read the book, 1947: Where Now Begins by Elisabeth Asbrink.  Most of Europe was recovering from the devastation of World War II and the survivors of the Holocaust were being resettled.  Israel, India, and Pakistan were just beginning as independent nations.  The United Nations was formed.  The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had started because the newly formed nation of Israel occupied land previously belonging to Palestine (this conflict is still going on today!).  Many defeated Nazi officials were taking up residence in various South American countries where they could escape detection and prosecution.  Of course, the Nuremberg trials were ongoing during 1947.

If you were born in 1947, like me, this is a very interesting read. The book is organized into months of the year and within each month, happenings in several different world locations are covered.

Monday, July 30

I have a number of little projects I want to complete this week. I decided to tackle an easy one first: making replacement limit cables on our little side hatches. One of the cables recently broke and I’m sure the other one is not far from breakage too. The cables are constructed from 1/8 inch diameter vinyl-covered stainless steel wire braid—one end fastens to the hatch (which is spring-loaded open) while the other end is screwed to the aluminum hatch frame. The cable simply controls how far the hatch can swing open.

On the hatch frame end, I used electrical terminals intended to fasten heavy electrical wire to a terminal post except instead of simply crimping them on, I used a manual swaging tool for a more permanent connection. 

In this photo I was making the loop in the limit
cable--this was before I realized that I
had to make the loop in place.

I used heat shrink tubing to cover the end assembly and make it very professional looking.

To fasten the other end to the hatch, I looped a 2-1/2-inch bared end of the cable around the shaft of the hatch knob and then clamped it in place using the manual swaging tool.  Once the second heat shrink tubing was melted in place over the swaged connection, the assembly was complete.

The final limit cable installed
on the port side.

I managed to complete one limit cable by 11 AM.  To complete the project I needed more 1/8" diameter lifeline cable and the local West Marine store didn't have any.  So, another trip to Annapolis was required prior to completion.

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Before the rain started, Maggie applied the waterproofing to the forepeak tent.  We then lifted the dinghy up onto the foredeck using our spare halyard--this operation is always interesting, to say the least.  You don't want to be around our boat then we do this!  (The previous time, we accidentally dropped the dinghy onto the floating dock.  This time, we didn't make that mistake but we almost punched a hole through the bottom of the dinghy when it temporarily landed on the top of the lifeline stanchion.)

The dinghy is positioned upside down on our
foredeck and our forepeak tent is in
place covering the dinghy.

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There was a 40% chance of rain today--the sky was overcast all day.  Tomorrow, the chance of rain increases to 60% and then to 80% on Wednesday.

Tuesday, July 31

I decided to install our new galvanic isolator today.  (You might recall that our shaft zinc was consumed within a 2-month period while our boat was in our slip in Baltimore. The galvanic isolator is intended to prevent stray electrical currents from consuming our zincs and causing galvanic corrosion of our underwater metallic components, like our prop, shaft, and seacocks.)

Our new galvanic isolator (the black box)
installed on our boat's bulkhead.

I worked all morning installing the galvanic isolator on the bulkhead in the starboard cockpit locker--everything takes much longer working in such a confined space.  Whenever I do additional wiring I always clean up some of the old wiring.  I fed the new green wires back to the shore power connector but stopped there because it was getting quite warm (mid 80's with high humidity) outside.  I had to wait until it got cooler before I made the connections at the shore power connector.

Wednesday, August 1

Today is Lola's medical operation--she is being spayed.  We dropped her off at Annapolis Cat Hospital at 8 AM this morning--we can't pick her up until tomorrow morning.  I was thinking about her all day since she has become an excellent little buddy for me.

Planning to spend a lot of the day in Annapolis, we had a list of tasks to accomplish, including getting the parts needed to hook up my engine water temperature gauge.  I managed to get everything I needed except for the temperature sensor which had to be ordered.

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My photo of an osprey nest in the bow pulpit of a sailboat
on the West River made "Photo of the Week" in
the August 1 issue of Waterway Guide!

Thursday, August 2

We picked up Lola this morning and she was very glad to be home from the Annapolis Cat Hospital!  We are soooo glad to have her back home!

Lola looks a little funny here because
she just woke up from a nap.

While in Annapolis, I picked up the water temperature sensor that had arrived (one day delivery!). 

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I just finished reading 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea by Jonathan Franklin.  It is available in Kindle format here on Amazon.  Extraordinary is an understatement!  Two fisherman from Costa Azul, Mexico got caught out off the west coast of Mexico in an open fishing boat during a storm and all rescue attempts failed to find them.  

Their outboard engine failed and they drifted off into the Pacific.  While drifting aimlessly, one of the fisherman died--the other one, named Alvarenga, survived 438 days (over a year) when he finally was washed up on the beach on the Marshall Islands.  Alvarenga caught birds that landed on his boat and ate them raw, as well as fish he managed to capture with his bare hands.  He captured rain water that quenched his thirst.

As a sailor, this is a very interesting story of survival at sea.  I highly recommend reading this book!

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Thunderstorms started in mid-afternoon
and continued into the evening.

Stay tuned for the completion of some boat projects and starting others...


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