Victoria, BC, meet Ho-Beaux

Let's start this off on a high note... We are in Victoria, BC, on Vancouver Island! Here we are, in the mega-bad-assest, pimp-stylingest, high-rolleresque slip this boat and its crew have ever seen, in front of the Empress Hotel. Fitting accommodations for a self-proclaimed Commodore and crew, I must say. Except for the showers, four shared between all the boats in the harbour, hidden next to the Customs dock a few blocks from the Empress. A line of pre-coffee boaters had to be braved in the quest for cleanliness.



I'd like to say that, since our arrival Tuesday, we've been out enjoying the town and doing all the great touristy stuff in the area, but in fact Wednesday was spent with Karl deep in the dungeons of Ho-Beaux's bilges, trying to fit large tools into narrow spaces, with Mariann filling a supervisory and tool-delivery role. More on this in a minute.
98 percent of the sail across the Straights of Juan de Fuca was uneventful. That leaves two percent, one departing and one arriving. Leaving Port Townsend, we were happy to find a moderate breeze as we rounded Point Wilson, so we gladly raised the sails. Just past the point, a bank of fog enveloped us, so we turned on GPS. Hey, we're going 7 knots! In a slight breeze! Master sailors, we.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a giant, roaring, red, possessed navigation buoy flies at us from the fog bank! What demonic forces are allied against our journey!? Fortunately, our intrepid commodore and crew managed to start the engine. But still the buoy charged right at them, thundering like the wrath of Poseidon! At the last moment, we fooled the monster with a sharp swerve, and it missed us by mere yards.
After collecting ourselves and changing undergarments, we realized that maybe this fine sailing wind wasn't really wind, that maybe we aren't good enough sailors to go 7 knots in a 5-knot breeze, and that maybe rather than worrying about demonically possessed buoys, it could be more productive to worry about tide and current charts.
But lessons do evaporate quickly in long sunny days on the water. After we got Victoria in sight, we messed around with a new sail arrangement for a while rather than trying to beat the incoming tide. We paid for that mistake by an extra hour or so of motoring full throttle and making 2 kts headway. . .
Okay, this leaves the other one percent. Karl noticed when docking at the Canadian Customs dock (*) that reverse gear was a bit spotty. Strange, since we JUST GOT A NEW #$%@$%^ TRANSMISSION installed a couple weeks ago. Well, whatever, let's go to our slip in front of the Empress. Now, the Empress Hotel is the tourist center of this quadrant of the Milky Way galaxy, and people of all stripes mill about the waterfront where the boats pull up. Many of the docks are full, with well-to-do boaters sunning on the deck or enjoying an apertif. My, here comes a rather classic-looking sailing vessel, with a comely lass on the rail. It pulls slowly into the long slip. Now's the time when the Captain usually guns reverse to bring the vessel to a halt, and the lass ties the ropes to secure it to the dock. But wait, this captain just stares, horrified, as his gearbox clanks and bounces, but spins no propellers, while the boat heads for certain lawsuits.
See, here is why I highly recommend you select crew of only the highest durability. As an anchor drags along the bottom before setting, so did Mariann drag along the dock, until the sheer friction stopped the boat. Ho-Beaux has landed!
The end to the gear-shift saga isn't too interesting. It was a matter of slightly adjusting the shifting lever on the transmission (we hope), although as mentioned before, this involved fitting large tools into narrow spaces.

It was the (also brand new) alternator that kept us working all day. The cartoon that served as the installation instructions failed to show how to wire it appropriately, unless you speak alternatorese. The folks who sold it to us, it turned out, didn't speak alternatorese either. I think I finally figured out how to wire it so it both turns on and doesn't overcharge the batteries, so things like the VHF radio won't turn on in order to protect their innards. This involved dismounting the alternator and adding a wire. Hm, funny, this mounting bracket seems a bit loose. Oh, wait, it's CRACKED OFF AT THE BOLT.
So... this is either really unlucky (because the darn thing, after 30 years, cracked and broke off) or really lucky (because it broke off in Victoria Harbor and not the Pacific Ocean). I tried hand-drilling a new hole, but our bits were too dull. We carried the bracket into town to look for a repair or replacement. Now, I don't know, maybe this is a Canadian thing, but so far 100% (one out of one) of the machinists we've met have been very attractive young ladies who will repair brackets and such things for $5 Canadian! Fixed bracket in hand, drool wiped off of Karl's mouth, we returned to the boat and finished installing the alternator.
This is why we haven't yet done any normal touristy activities to speak of. We plan to see more of the local sights on Thursday, before departing for either Sooke Harbour or Port San Juan, depending on conditions, on Friday.
(*) Yeah, you pull up at this dock with a yellow phone on it. Pick it up, and you get Customs. "What's your boat name? Who's on board? Been to Canada before? Bringing in any beer, wine, or potatoes?" [Foreign potatoes are NOT WELCOME in Canada!!!] "Okay, thanks, write this number and put it in your window, have a nice day." No dudes with uniforms and guns. It will be interesting to compare this with USA re-entry.

Finally Mariann co-Authors a Blog!!!! (And we leave Seattle)

So we've finally severed the umbilical cord and left Seattle. We quietly slipped out of town around 9:30am the morning of Friday July 27th. We felt like we'd had way too many farewell-events already and didn't want to do it all over again by having everyone come down to the dock to see us off. (We'll swing back into town toward the end of August, so it's not really the "real deal" going away until then.) We made it to Port Townsend by 6:30 pm, after a pretty average day on the water with a lot of motoring in the AM and increasingly more interesting sailing the closer we got to the straits (of Juan De Fuca). Interestingly, the wind died abruptly when we rounded the headland at Port Townsend Bay, so we doused our sails... Then, of course, it picked up to 10-15 knots a few minutes later. The excitement peaked upon arrival to Boat Haven Marina when we encountered some militant dighy sailors who did not like the fact that we had taken down our sails for the final approach into the marina. They charged us full speed and maneuvered last second to clear just in front or behind us. They repeated this 10 times or so while yelling things like "Sailpower!" and "You're a sailboat!". We were pretty tired and tense at this point as there were about 30 little sailboats and 2 ferries to worry about so we didn't find this too funny at the time.

We pulled into the marina, which seemed to have a narrow separation between piers. After an, um, "experience" a couple years ago at Elliott Bay Marina trying to turn around in a stiff breeze, we've been reluctant to drive our full-keeled "don't-feel-like-turning-on-a-dime-or-at-all" old lady into such situations. So, we turned around in the wide entranceway and decided to anchor for the evening. Problem was, it turned out, that anchoring conditions were marginal throughout the bay: 8 to 10 fathoms (about 50 to 60 feet). Mariann learned the important lesson that even if she's been able to feed out the anchor and chain by hand so far in our anchoring career, 60 feet of chain plus a 45 lbs anchor gets to be a bit much to hold on to. Now we know why people spend lots of money on electric windlasses. . . It took us 2 tries to set the anchor to where it maybe didn't drag (Karl claimed it did slightly, Mariann thought that it didn't). We each spent half the night in a sleeping bag on deck making sure we didn't go anywhere (very fast anyway). The winds died down around 2 am, and we motored into the marina the next morning.

Dinghy Nazis aside, Port Townsend is one of the more interesting towns in the area. In particular, it is home to the Best Breakfast of All Time. Yes, this slightly sleepy burg holds the gateway to breakfast nirvana: the Landfall Cafe. What makes one breakfast stand alone atop all others? Pancakes. Unlike mortal pancakes, these cannot be expressed in words. You'll have to come see for yourself. Order a coffee, followed by a breakfast sandwich, and a full stack of pancakes (to share). Of course we also paid homage to the town's two breweries. We ordered a beer sampler at the Port Townsend Brewery's tasting room, and we both declared the Hop Diggety IPA the clear winner. No strangers to the Water Street Brew Pub (located close Point Hudson Marina where we spent 3-4 months working on our rigging 2 winters ago, we had to have a brew there for old times sake. Other than those highlights we've spent most of the time in town getting crew and boat ready for ocean sailing. Tomorrow (Tuesday July 30th), we plan to leave for Victoria to clear customs into Canada before continuing up the West coast of Vancouver Island.

We had some photos to illustrate this story, but the crew was so eager for shore leave that they forgot to bring the camera to the bar with Internet. Here are some historical pictures to keep you entertained.

Check back for more nail-biting excitement in a few days! As we get some extra time on our hands, we'll add some more pictures and more details about the boat and our trip as well.

Stupid Movie Night

Tonight is Stupid Movie Night, the irregularly-held evening where we gather together to appreciate the finer points of ridiculous, cheesy, badly produced, overblown, or, yes, stupid movies. As the movie night begins in less than an hour, there is not time to write the full story today. I will say that tonight we are taking a bit of a departure (we have periodic recovery nights after the most agonizing experiences) and watching Rambo 3, which, although the whole 1980's-American-action-hero-versus-an-entire-army thing is pretty stupid on principle, is supposed to be a pretty good example of the genre.

For stupid movie connoisseurs, today brought TREMENDOUS news! The DVD release of Gymkata is scheduled for January 30th!!! This epic event may require a second watching in celebration.

A Very Special Day

Saturday was a Very Special Day (TM) in Carrotland. There are four things that made it special. The first is that a bud was in town for the weekend (let's call him... Ben) and a big group went out in celebration of this miraculous event. The second is that I had the worst beer of all time. The third is that M and I sang karaoke, which again all the yunguns was talking about but we hadn't done before. Fourth, yesterday was the official kick-off of me saving the world! Hooray.

Important stuff first. So, we went to Dad Watson's in Fremont for dinner and beers. I will take you on a pictorial journey.

A variety of vegetables:

More vegetables:

Ben has been away for some time, and I wanted to make sure that this "Ben" that showed up was not in fact an androidal space alien spy sent through time to capture and probe us. So I asked him to show me the essence of Ben, January 2007, summed up in a photo. (Ben is on the left; unfortunately, results of the test were inconclusive.)

Yes, and the worst beer in the world was at Dad Watson's. Most of their selection is great, but I tried a Pickleweasel Pale (name should have tipped me off), one of their limited-batch offerings. It tasted like a skunk blended with basil. (To be fair, others thought it tasted like basil blended with a skunk.)

Later we went to the Steel Pig on Aurora. Hey Seattle, since you haven't noticed yet, the Steel Pig is excellent place, if you have a large group of friends, because it is never crowded, and they have karaoke, pool, South Park pinball, and shuffleboard (though the shuffleboard table is sticky in places, making it an "advanced" difficulty).

Some singing vegetables (Karaoke Master Joe is in the middle):

All the ladies of the group got onstage for song. The shimmer from the heat blurred my photo. Yow!

Then we did an aerobics class, apparently. I don't remember this part.

These dudes were part of another group at the Steel Pig. They're doing a rap-core version of Mariah Carey (?), the shoop-shoop-a-doop song. It was suh-weet.

When Karaoke Master Joe was nailing Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (U2... quite an impressive singing performance, I must say, hence the Karaoke Master title), the dude on the left in the previous photo busted some break dancing moves. This is probably something nobody has seen yet, or ever will see again.

Finally: rewinding time a bit, during the day Saturday I began researching how to save the world. It is a big task. The first step of the plan is to identify which aspects of the world economy (human consumption patterns) are drawing down natural resources most severely. Then, I will identify what combination of technology development and conservation could result in reducing resource use to a sustainable level, for each class of resources. If I am successful in this initial stage, I'll publish essays on my website.

Try searching [environment sustainable technology] on Google Scholar, if you're interested in this type of stuff.

Thanks for tuning in!

Arthroscopic Surgery on Ho-Beaux

It has been really cold and icy in Seattle the last couple days, and our electric space heater isn't big enough to heat the boat. We have a thermometer in our bedroom, and this morning it was 45F. In the bedroom. And I'm supposed to motivate myself to get out of bed. Fortunately, being occasional outdoors-people, as well as current (M) or ex- (K) yuppies (can't be a yuppie if you're not employed, natch!), we have plenty of REI thermal under-gear within reaching distance of bed. I couldn't find my 42.7-46.5F cross-woven wick-tech polypro, so I settled on the less-optimum medium-grade polyester thermals and a button-up fleece.

Given this experience, I thought today would be a good day to fix our second heater, a propane stove thing installed shortly before we bought the boat. We had used it once, when I tested it after replacing the propane lines a couple years ago. It hasn't really been functional, though: the problem was that the DC electric fan that circulates the hot air never worked.

The culprit:

So, uber-motivated this morning, I traced the wires from the heater fan, into an adjacent cupboard, through a hole in the floor (pause to unlock the floorboards... hmm, this is strange, why is it heading away from our electric panel?), along the side of the water tank and... spliced into a coil of ancient-looking wire that ends in a wad of duct tape. This sort of thing is common on Ho-Beaux. We like to blame it on the previous owner. (Sorry, Chuck, but you were the only one we met.)

I clipped the wire where it spliced into the dead-end coil, and fed it up to our electric panel. If we are ever hanging out, and you happen to fall ill with cartilage damage in your joints, you are in luck! Because I am a master at arthroscopic surgery.

Here is what it looks like behind our electric panel:

One of the switches on this panel is labeled "Fan". This switch is the fifth one back in the set at the right of the picture. Not the set in the middle that you can almost see, but the set at right that is buried under the writhing mass.

The "Fan" switch actually did have wires attached to it already, however tracing these (with some difficulty) leads into the main electrical conduit, where most of the wires in the picture go. There it vanishes. Flipping the "Fan" switch has never done anything, so I think a safe assumption is that those wires are spliced into a coil of ancient wire, that ends in a wad of duct tape.

I appropriated the "Fan" switch to be the new home of our heater fan wires! Now the interesting part: to remove two small screws buried deep in the wire's nest; to insert each screw shank through a small circular metal ring attached to the end of each heater fan wire; to line this assembly up with the threaded hole; and to re-tighten the screw.

While doing this, there is a choice. You may have any two of the following four simultaneously: either (1) a pair of needle-nose pliers stuck into the nest, (2) a single finger stuck into the nest, (3) a screwdriver stuck into the nest, or (4) light to see by. Arthroscopy! And, as I say, I am by now a pro. (I should make $200K per year at this, really.)

So, now I am relaxing over a post-spaghetti glass of wine, and it is warmed to almost 60F in our salon. What was I saying about the romance of the sea?

Life Aboard

This edition of Damaged Carrots is titled Life Aboard, in which I will try to provide an introduction, to the uninitiated, of what living aboard a 36-foot sailboat is all about.

But first, let us get acquainted. I am Commodore K. Myrth Carrot (K for short), Captain of Ho-Beaux. It is nice to meet you. And this is my... um... first mate Mariann Carrot (M for short). She and I crew Ho-Beaux, currently stationed at Shilshole marina in Seattle, Washington, USA. Ho-Beaux is scheduled to ship out for Sandefjord, Norway in the summer of 2007, carrying a cargo of two Carrots (slightly damaged). More on this voyage in future postings.

Now, living aboard. People ask: "So, K, what is it like living on a sailboat? How exciting!" (Generally, they have this sort of intense look in their eye, imagining the romance of a life at sea.) Some even say: "Cool, I was thinking of doing that myself someday, if I can get [significant other and/or family dog] to go for it!"

To these sorts of questions, which, to be fair, are exactly the sorts I would ask if our situations were reversed, I get a somewhat cynical tilt to my brow: "Nah. Living on a boat sucks. Don't do it."

"Well ... If it sucks, why do you do it?"

Yes, this probably needs more explanation. I guess my point is that sans un plus grand but, living aboard a small boat is just about like living in a small trailer home... Not a choice made by most of us who aren't NASCAR fans. I mean, it is nice - reeealllly niiiiice - to spend an evening at a hotel, or at someone's house, because generally the room you're staying in has more enclosed space than the boat. So, for the layman (those who are not self-proclaimed Commodores or their first mates), I would recommend taking stock of how much stuff you have, and estimating how much of it you would have to get rid of if you were moving into your bathroom. If this does not phase you, then, hey, life is short, go for it.

Let me reinforce the point, though, by taking you on a seated tour of our salon, which is our living room / dining room / kitchen / office. (We also have a small bedroom up front, and a shower-sized bathroom, which actually does double as a shower.)

This sequence of four photos shows me on my settee, writing a mediocre blog. It pans across our salon, towards the companionway where we enter the boat.

A few things to notice:
- Every horizontal surface is covered with stuff. (Including books that will help me save the world.) This is because there is nowhere else to put it.
- The microwave is sitting on top of the stove, and must be moved onto something else each time the stove is used. (Marie Callendar's microwave lasagnas kick ass, by the way.)
- The dishrack is full of washed dishes, and yet the sink is full of unwashed dishes.



Ah, the romance of the sea! But I am being too facetious for my own good. Really, I love this life, even having been liberated of most of my (ultimately useless) material things, however the only thing that makes the years spent confined (rather than making craploads of money on appreciation of the value of a home in Seattle) is that we will be taking this ship on a great adventure. Stay tuned!