Summer in Baltimore

—Blogpost written by Bob

Friday, July 24

The rain started shortly after we woke up in the morning and it was expected to remain with us most of the day.  We put the front window of the dodger in place last night to prevent a reoccurrence of rain water flowing down through the courtesy light in the companionway like it did during a thunderstorm a couple nights ago.  (I'm going to try and find this leak using a hose when the weather clears.  There is a myriad of penetrations through the cabintop near the companionway and, of course, the actual rain water in-leakage may not be all that close to the companionway.)

The wet weather caused me to change my plans for the day.  After the morning rain shower the remainder of the day was gloomy, with rain clouds passing overhead but not much rain being produced.  The sun came out for a couple hours after lunch.

I spent a lot more time than usual reading the news on my iPad and catching up on some YouTube videos.  In fact, it took until near lunchtime.  I couldn’t seem to get motivated to get started on anything, which was very unusual for me.  I moved some projects on my list around so that I could do an indoor project: replacing a burnt end on our 30-amp shore power cord.

Two of the three connections
on the old plug were
severely burned.

I cut off the old end with a hack
saw and proceeded to install
a new female end on
the power cord.

It took both of us (and a lot of vaseline as a lubricant) to slide the waterproof cover over the new end because it fit so tightly.  This little task took two and a half hours!

The completed task and
full service restored.

A short while after I finished this little project, the rain clouds returned.  It was soon time for Happy Hour and it couldn't come soon enough for me.  At 6 PM a thunderstorm arrived and the rain pelted the boat's cabintop for about an hour.  This powerful force of nature created a nice ending to the day.

Saturday, July 25

Maggie left early this morning for a week at the beach for her annual family reunion.  I thought it was ridiculous to do this in the middle of a pandemic but there was no chance to talk reason with her when her family is involved, though two of her three sisters smartly decided to skip this year's reunion because of COVID-19.

In the morning I noticed a lot of red paint flakes on the deck--they were from the high wind and rain pelting the upside down dinghy stored on our foredeck.  This may actually save me some work since I was planning on lightly sanding the bottom to remove any loose paint before re-painting with teal-colored bottom paint.

Besides adding another coat of Cetol (outboard of the stanchion base I've been working on), I sanded the toe rail aft of the subject stanchion base.  When it got hot outside I moved my efforts to the interior of the boat.


Dust Mites?


I removed the mattress and the underlying v-berth platform so that I could make measurements for some plywood bracing I planned to add.  After making the measurements and putting the platform back in place, I noticed some very small bugs along the crevice on the starboard side of the v-berth. (I believe that they were dust mites--they were barely visible to the naked eye.)  

A greatly enlarged image
of a dust mite.

I sprayed the entire platform area with insecticide and closed the door to the v-berth.  After a couple hours I went into the v-berth and cleaned up all their little dead carcasses!  I then put the mattress back in place.

My sketch of the plywood
pieces needed.

In Search of a Bail for Over Anchor Roller


A couple years ago when motoring into high winds, our anchor came loose and banged up our bow pretty severely.  From that point on, we tied the anchor down so that we thought it couldn't come loose.  We had the fiberglass damage at the bow repaired during a schedule haulout.  It recently happened again this past season--twice even, despite the anchor being tied down.

Looking down onto our anchor
from the foredeck.

Several times the anchor was pushed upward by wind-caused waves and the anchor landed across the anchor rollers instead of resting on one roller as shown above.  Also, sometimes when a wave breaks over the bow, the onrush of water forces the chain stopper to open.  A bail over the port anchor roller would be a nice solution to the anchor haphazardly flopping around causing peripheral damage--it may not solve the entire problem but it may prevent costly damage to the fiberglass at the bow.

In the afternoon, I did a lot of online research into bails (a stainless steel loop) for this purpose.  More on this subject to follow.

Sunday, July 26

I slept a little later this morning and felt much more rested than usual.  The sun was shining brightly when I finally got up at 8:30 AM.  I'm still sticking to my pledge of not working on boat projects on Sundays.

Today was a completely uneventful day filled with some reading, some practicing on my new ukulele. and a little napping in the heat of the afternoon.  Until next week...


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