Pruth to Shearwater – Getting to the fixing of things!

After breakfast on Tuesday we untied from Ruby Slippers and headed out of Pruth Bay.   Once out in the open water (open to the Pacific Ocean from the west) we had following seas and a bit of westerly wind.   We were motoring but we also planned to stay close to s/v Sea Otter who was also headed to Shearwater.   Sea Otter’s crew was concerned about their fuel, thinking they had about 10 gallons of fuel left which they hoped would get them to Shearwater.  So, we pulled out sail and for the first time in a long time, we were sailing nicely downwind under our brand-new mainsail and practically new genoa.  It felt so nice.   We ran the genset to charge the batteries while we sailed since the engine was shut down and the genset is more efficient for that purpose.

After we rounded Bayly Point the wind subsided so we slow-motored, trolling for salmon with just one line this time.   We caught a decent sized rockfish but threw him back.   After we passed through the little bay there a couple times we sped back up, motoring north to slowly catch back up to Sea Otter.

About two-thirds of the way up the island the wind came back and filled the sails again, just as we got close to Sea Otter.

We haven’t had cell service for several days, leaving us with the InReach for texting and the random free Wi-Fi in Pruth Bay to keep in contact.  I tried to edit some video but the glare on the screen in the cockpit makes it hard.  Last night I uploaded an auto-edit video from the drone to show a little of Fury Cove but I really don’t like the auto-edit feature in the DJI app or the Garmin VIRB app for one reason, the same reason for both.  The scenes they cut are way too short, 4 seconds, and at it seems for both apps there is no way to adjust the clip length.  Combined with the transitions, the actual view in each clip is too short and you can’t even figure out what you are looking at in some cases.  The Garmin VIRB app has various auto-edit themes with various numbers of cuts, but they all seem similarly short, the difference is mostly in the number of clips, affecting the total length of the video, and the type of transitions.

Strangely, the kids haven’t played with their iPads for a couple days now, and they really haven’t complained about it.   In fact, their bunks are a complete mess and they refuse to clean them, and don’t seem to care that we won’t let them play with their iPads until they clean up their stuff.    Last night, because it was buried under everything else, a picture frame was cracked and Ellie cut her hand on the glass.  What followed was a tense evening with the girls demanding a sleepover (both in one bunk) despite being clearly overtired, and after we separated them and put them to bed they had their sleepover anyway.  The sleepover of course went sideways with Morgan trying to get back to her bed and Ellie kicking her to KEEP her in her bed.  Once re-separated they both settled down and read for a bit, then slept.

Today while we sailed, they finally cleaned up their stuff, with some moral support from mom of course.

I also broke out my new favorite thing..  Mr. Clean Magic Eraser (Extra Power).   Two years ago while we were in Gorge Harbor a neighboring boat crew showed me how the Magic Eraser would remove scuffs from the white fiberglass on their stern (left by bumping the BBQ against it while stowing it.)  I remembered this when I happened across a couple packages of Magic Erasers in our laundry room while we packed up the house last month.  Of course, I may have ordered them from Amazon at some point after Gorge Harbor.   Anyway, we have many scuffs and scratches in our cockpit from moving gear through over the past 3 years, and an extra number from the day I barely succeeded at putting the dinghy motor on the stern rail unassisted.

So, while we sailed and motored up the channel toward Shearwater I got out the Magic Erasers and a bowl of water and erased a bunch of scratches and scuffs around the cockpit.  It felt so nice to see the fiberglass looking clean, shiny, and mostly scratch free.   Now we need to wash out the cockpit with some water and maybe soap to really get it looking nice.   Of course, that cleanliness will last all of 5 minutes.

Later, the wind died down and we motored the rest of the way to Shearwater.  Sea Otter had sailed so much of the way that they were no longer concerned about their fuel.

We got to Shearwater Resort-Marina at 5pm.  Their marine store was open till 5:30 and I was able to pick up the new windlass, some silicon and Sikaflex, and a caulking gun.   We helped Sea Otter raft to us since there was not enough dock space for all of the boats to have their own.   We walked up to the Bar & Grill and had some dinner, noting the bald eagles nesting in the very short tree not more than 40 feet from the dock ramps.   They were CLOSE—and BIG.

The next morning I started work on the windlass.  After realizing that I couldn’t put the power cables into the motor housing through the water tight seals with the lugs still attached, I had to get help with new cables and new lugs, installing them directly into the windlass while attaching the cable lugs to the end.   Luckily the Shearwater Marine store had the parts and a little\]machine shop.  They found the parts, drilled out a couple lugs when they didn’t have enough of the right size and made the crimp connections.   I picked up some more fishing gear, electrical tape, Goof Off, and a few other items on the way out.

Back at the boat, I fixed the badly corroded and broken wire connector inside the windlass housing under the deck, removed the duct tape I had added, and spent about an hour scraping off silicon and cleaning the deck surface with Goof Off.   I broke for lunch at the Bar & Grill and then went back to work.  I had to drill a new hole for the chain counter sensor because it had a different orientation on the new unit, but the luckily the bolts lined up the same as the old unit.  Then I vacuumed up the sawdust, fiberglass dust, and silicon mess–a process that blew dust from inside the Shop-Vac all over the bed.

After a quick test fit of the new windlass, I propped the motor/gearbox housing up on two rolls of duct tape and dropped the windlass deck unit down into it.   Success!  I got the nuts on and tightened up, did a quick test, connected the sensor wire and voila!  New windlass installed and working!   After that I cleaned up, washed down the boat with Shearwater’s unlimited lake water, and took a shower.

In the meantime, we removed the old particle filter from the watermaker, flushed it for about 20 minutes, and seemed to have removed most of the smell.  So, we let it run for a couple hours while we went to happy hour on the dock at m/v Lioness.   Devon fried some clams and despite her opinion that they were horrible, several people claimed they were awesome!

After happy hour, most of the crews met at the Bar and Grill for a few drinks and some more food, then back to the boats where I cleaned up the cockpit some more before bed.

Tomorrow we get fuel and head north again.