It’s one of those Summer days ya read about. Hazy, hot, and humid. But with the memory of a long, cold winter still stuck in my craw, you won’t hear me complain. Well, not too much anyway. I just want to get into port so I can crack open a cold one. I can hear ’em rattling around in the cooler. It’s like they’re talking to me.
We leave the Gurnet lighthouse to starboard and look for the entrance channel to Plymouth Harbor. Our charts aren’t that old so we are surprised to find a nav aid positioned several hundred yards east of where it should be. The area is one big moveable shoal. It’s like entering Wellfleet Harbor. Charts are merely a suggestion.
With binoculars in hand, the XO is navigating us through an unusual intersection of nuns and cans (red and green channel markers). We hang a left at the Bug Light keeping Plymouth Beach to port, and find the Plymouth Harbor Channel.

The Bug Light.

I hail the Plymouth Yacht Club on channel 8 and they graciously arrange to meet us at the breakwater to show us to our mooring.

Old shallop moored in Plymouth Harbor.

And what a cool mooring it is! Right next to a historic old boat called a shallop, and within sight of the Mayflower II.

The Mayflower II.

There is a band playing on shore at what appears to be some kind of celebration. The music is not bad, fifty’s era rock. We open all the hatches and windows, grab some cold drinks, sit back, and absorb the beauty. It’s hot as a firecracker and boaters are out enjoying the day.

Plymouth Harbor scene.

The Plymouth Belle.

Dusk In Plymouth

Morning brings us another gorgeous day, and we’re both anxious for some shore leave. The XO finds a morning yoga class she wants to attend, and I need a good walk, so we bring Ol’ Salty to the PYC dinghy dock and go our separate ways. I find a wonderful park to explore.
After bacon and eggs on the boat, we shower at the yacht club and head off to explore downtown.

Downtown scene.

No trip to Plymouth would be complete without a visit to the famous–or infamous– Mars Records. Its gregarious proprietor, Tim Downey, regales us with tales of life in Plymouth, a town he is obviously proud of.

Tim Downey of Mars Records shows us how many records he has sold this morning.

I tried to buy this Beach Boys single for our juke box, but Tim refused to sell it to me. Instead, he offered to trade it for some Rock and Roll posters that I collected during my years as a rock musician.

The new addition to our juke box.

On yet another beautiful morning, while my wife sleeps soundly, I decide to walk the mile long breakwater. I’ll have to trek two miles to get to it.

The breakwater.

The top of the breakwater is flat and obviously made for walking on. Along the way, I really expected to see horrible and vulgar graffiti. But no! On the top surfaces of many of the massive boulders, I found uplifting messages instead. What a pleasant surprise.
My faith in humanity restored, I start my long hike back to Ginger Lee and my sweet wife. “Is she awake yet?” I wonder. My question is answered when she picks up her phone on the second ring.
“Good morning Hon,” I sing.
“Hi. Where are you?”
“Look toward the breakwater,” I answer. From where I stand, Ginger Lee is just a speck in a sea of boats.”
“Oh! I see you!”
“Hey take my picture,” I say and start waving my arms, phone in hand.
“You’re pretty far away, I’ll try max zoom.”   

Every summer we treat ourselves to an extended boat trip, and this year is no different. We will cruise as usual, but thanks to the economy, cruising has gotten a lot easier. Allow me to explain: Way back in the stone age, when fossil fuel was cheaper than bottled water, there were many happy boaters blissfully feeding their big V-8 engines with many gallons of high-octane. Marinas everywhere were filled to capacity. I had to carefully plan and make reservations way ahead of time, I’m talkin’ months in advance. Then the cost of fuel spiked astronomically and we lost many boaters. So many, in fact, that it is no longer necessary to reserve dockage so far in advance. I still like to reserve whenever possible, but the day before is usually enough time. It’s kinda exciting to wing it.
The XO: “Where are we cruising this year?”
Rick: “North.”
So we packed up our stuff, loaded it onto our boat Ginger Lee, and headed out. In order for us to go north from Wareham, we must first go east through the Cape Cod Canal.

The dinghy is loaded to capacity.

The XO drops the pennants. Let the summer boat trip begin!

The railroad bridge at the west entrance to the Cape Cod Canal.

When traversing the canal in a slow boat like ours, it’s important to time our trip so that the water is pushing us along. Fighting the strong current can knock our speed down to 2 MPH and literally waste a boatload of diesel.

Fishermen on the banks of the canal.

The power station near the eastern end. I believe it uses coal.

Near the canals eastern end, there is a marina with a fuel dock. A fellow boater told us he took a slip there once, and the wave action was so bad, that his wife cried all night. Ever since then, the XO has dubbed it The Harbor of Tears. I really like that moniker. I may even write a song about it.

“The Harbor of Tears.”

We didn’t hit the current exactly right and only averaged about 5 MPH, which is not so bad. Hey, it’s a gorgeous July morning, and we’re on vacation.

Erosion on the coastline. Notice the houses precariously close to the cliff.

Along the way, we amuse ourselves with our new toy: AIS (Automatic Identification System.) This gizmo is sort of like radar only better. Radar will show other ships and aids to navigation as a ‘blip’ on a screen, AIS will show the blip, the name of the vessel, its registration numbers; its length, beam, and draft; its position, speed, and destination. It also transmits our information to everyone, just like airplanes do. We’re not invisible anymore, unless we want to be by simply turning it off. It all ties into the Coast Guard MMSI (Marine Mobile Service Identity) system.
“But Rick,”  you ask. “Why is this good?”
“Well, dear reader,” I answer suavely.  “Because, God forbid, if there was a serious problem on this vessel, all we need to do is push a single emergency button on our radio and the Coast Guard would instantly know who we are and where we are.”

The Gurnet.

After a few hours the lighthouse on Gurnet Point comes into view. This iconic nav aid guards Plymouth Bay, and I figure this is as far as I care to travel today. I call the Plymouth Yacht Club and arrange for an overnight mooring, but the first leg of our trip is not over yet. To get to Plymouth Harbor, we must wind our way through the notorious shifting shoals, and it very near low tide.

Our trip so far.

I love when the Fourth of July lands on a weekend. Here in Wareham, the whole Tri-Beach Area (Hamilton, Swifts Neck, and Swifts) literally explodes with activity. It is the best weekend to stay on our mooring. And the weather forecast is an A for awesome.

Swifts Neck Beach is hoppin’.

Hamilton Beach is busy as well.

More Hamilton Beach.

Everyone is in full summertime mode.

Dog on a paddleboard.

Another dog on a paddleboard.

The XO goes for a sail.

There is a huge party on Long Beach.

A swimming kayaker.

A swimming powerboater.

A swimming sailboater with an overturned boat.

There ya go. Right side up again.

It’s hot. It’s humid. It’s sunny. The area is alive with happy people enjoying this beautiful Wareham waterfront. It’s more vibrant than I have ever seen it. This is our neighborhood. These are our neighbors. Everyone has the long weekend off from work, and we are all anticipating the illegal fireworks display that will surely come at the end of the day. The Tri-beach outlaws always put on a show that rivals the town’s professionally run exhibition that they usually have in Onset. The Parkwood, Broadmarsh, and Marks Cove outlaws will join in as well, making it a visual extravaganza. Here in Massachusetts, fireworks are against the law, but so was dumping the King’s tea into Boston Harbor. It’s that rebellious spirit that made this country great. After all, the Fourth of July is a celebration of our greatest rebellion.

Swifts Neck sunset.

Everybody loves Bassetts. What’s not to like? It’s the perfect anchorage, protected on all sides with beautiful beaches and scenery, and has excellent holding in firm sand.  It took us a long time to discover Bassetts, but once we did, it quickly became one of our favorites. Like Onset, we will weekend here a few times during the season. The cruise from Wareham is just about an hour, enough time for the engines to fill our water heater with gloriously hot water.

View north.

View south.

It’s a very popular place, especially on a nice day like today. The southern end is filled with the party people and children. There’s lots of fun and music, jumping, splashing, hootin’ and hollerin’. The locals with smaller boats will pull them right onto the beach. In my advanced age, I prefer the northern end of the anchorage, it’s more subdued, almost too quiet. You can hear conversations coming from other boats. I remind myself to keep my voice down.

Nice trawler from Quincy.

The XO will attempt to circumnavigate Bassetts Island.

Success!

I toss a couple of burgers on the grill, pop open a cold brew, and kick back on a comfortable deck chair. Jeez! I’m feeling pretty darn fortunate right now.

Zuccini and burgers.

After dinner swim.

Just in the nick of time, the ice cream boat approaches.

Many boaters come for the day, but only a few of us will stay overnight. You can always tell by the scope of the rode.
Dusk brings such breathtaking peace and stillness. The XO calls it “The Lemon Light”.

The Lemon Light.

I wake early to an awesome morning filled with rising sunshine and the plaintive call of a hunting Osprey. My wife still sleeps peacefully. I will not wake her if I can help it. I’m actually jealous of the fact that she can sleep until nine o’clock, something I have never in my whole life have been able to do, and I will often leave the boat to defend her right to do so. But my motives are somewhat ulterior: I do enjoy my own company at dawn, so I dinghy to the beach, where I am the only person in the world.As I walk along the deserted beach, I come across a Border Collie playing in the water. Jumping, splashing around,  swimming, and basically entertaining herself. It’s the cutest thing. I try to walk by unnoticed, but she spots me and yips playfully.I find an old tennis ball and throw it. She picks it out of the water, takes it to the top of a sandy rise, puts it down, and chases it as it rolls to the water. Happy to supply a new form of play, I move on and focus my attention on trying to beat my rock skipping record.

Trying to beat my twenty skip record. No luck.

Looking over a dune into Buzzards Bay.

The northern half of Bassetts Island is private property. There are a few houses. I’m not sure how many, because unlike the flashy mansions that line the shore on the mainland, they’re all well hidden by the trees, as if their owners don’t want to be flashy. I totally understand that.

Plenty of no trespassing signs on the northern half.

We hang around until we get hungry, but we’ve run out of food and the closest store is quite a few miles away. Nearby Kingman’s Yacht Center has an awesome restaurant, but on a nice weekend day like today, the waiting list is a mile long. With rumbling stomachs, we reluctantly pull up the anchor and head home. We will be back for certain. I hope this place never changes.

It’s two days before summer, and the weather is darn near perfect. We’re talkin’ seventy-five degrees, clear blue cloudless skies, and a gentle southeast breeze. It’s as if the weather gods are tossing us a bone to make up for the last three crappy weeks.
“Sorry about the past month guys. Please accept my apologies and have this beautiful weekend to enjoy on your boat. Your friend, W.G.”

Stuff for the weekend loaded into my big trike. That thing is like a pick-up truck.

Swifts Neck looking east. We lock our bikes to a fence and dinghy out to Ginger Lee.

Mean Ol’ Mister Humidity hasn’t shown his face around here yet. Oh I’m sure he’s on his way, and we’ll deal with him when he gets here, but for now, the XO and I are psyched to fire up Ginger Lee and cruise her to one of our favorite ports-of-call: Onset. The jewel of Wareham, Massachusetts.

On our way to Onset.

When we enter the Hog Island Channel, we’re surprised (and pleased) to see the Canal Patrol boat Parsons stopping boats for excessive speed and wake. The speed limit here is ten MPH and is a no wake zone, but nobody ever obeys this rule except boats like ours that can’t go fast enough to leave a big wake. In all fairness, the speed limit is not posted anywhere. When traversing this area, always assume you will be waked mercilessly and plan accordingly.

Patrol boat Parsons. Protecting all of us from big bad wakes.

Even in our slow boat, it’s only an hour cruise. At the entrance to Onset Bay, strong currents try their best to dash us against the unfriendly rocks, but we foil this evil plan and carefully follow the nav-aids to the back side of Wickets Island and pick up a town mooring.

Moored in Onset Bay.

The friendly Harbormaster stops by to collect her fee.

Everybody is out enjoying the nice weather.

Marine Unit One.

Even the Coasties are out.

We dinghy to shore in search of food. There are plenty of choices, but today it’s a toss-up between Mark Anthony’s and Quahog Republic. We settle on the latter because the XO has a hankerin’ for seafood and a mai tai.

Heading to shore.

Mostly hard dinghies here. It’s unusual.

We share wicked good parmesan fries. I have the “poor man’s surf and turf” which is a hot dog and a stuffie.

A statue of an Indian maiden watches over beautiful Onset Bay.

All is well in beautiful Onset. Off in the distance, the sun is slowly sinking toward the rugged tree-line, painting a sparkling yellow trail to our transom. There is still a surprising amount of activity: beachgoers are reluctant to pack up their belongings; boaters are still out and about; paddle-boarders and kayakers are out there too. Not one of us wants to let this awesome day slip into night, as if there will never be another so perfect. But, of course, there will be many, many more. It is just the dawn of summer, when Onset, and all the wonderful waterways of Wareham, come alive.

It is a beautiful day here in New London, Connecticut. The temperature is just about right: mid 70’s with absolutely no humidity. I’m feeling pretty good and having the time of my life watching everybody around me work their boating jobs. How does the saying go? “I love work. I could sit and watch it all day!”
Captain Skerry and his pilot, Captain Phil, sit in Patricia Ann’s wheel house. They are discussing what to do about the current happenings, which is nothing. There is absolutely nothing happening. The Coast Guard is supposed to show up with a bomb-sniffing dog and check out the tugboat, apparently normal procedure for any boat working so close to the nation’s gazillion dollar top-secret toy: a new Virginia class nuclear powered submarine. The Coasties are wicked late.

Waiting for the bomb dog.

Finally, Captain Phil calls the front gate.
“Any sign of the Coast Guard?” he asks. Shaking his head, he hangs up the phone.
“Maybe we should call them,” Captain Skerry offers.
“Got a number?”
“Ah, no.” Captain Skerry says. He leans forward, grabs the radio mic and keys it.
“Coast Guard, this is Patricia Ann at the Thames Shipyard, over.” Phil makes a joke about the Coasties sometimes not being so vigilant about answering their radio calls. I can confirm that. I remember more than a few instances where radio calls were not answered. Two of them were emergencies. The Coast Guard performs a valuable service to all boaters, but I guess they can’t always be available. This time though, they respond.
“Patricia Ann, shift and answer two-two alpha, over.”
Captain Skerry changes the channel and asks for the land-line number; Captain Phil pecks the numbers on his cell as soon as they crackle over the radio speaker.
“We’re one of the tugs supposed to move that submarine today. We were told you’re coming at 1100 hours for an inspection,” Phil listens for a bit, then rolls his eyes.
“So you are not coming. Right? Okay, I’ll call them. Do you have the number?” he asks, scratches it down, then hangs up.
“Apparently The Coast Guard doesn’t do that sort of thing. Ever.” Phil announces.
“But the Navy said…,” Captain Skerry started.
“Lemme call ’em,” Captain Phil interrupts, dials the number (yes, the Navy has a phone number) and explains the situation. He listens for a while, smiles, covers the phone, leans over, and says. “The Navy says they don’t do inspections. It’s up to the Coast Guard!”
It’s kinda funny–two big time government agencies tangling it up a bit–but Captain Phil hangs in there. Armed with only a cell phone, he bravely battles through the conundrum calmly and diplomatically.
“Okay. The Navy is coming,” he says, holstering his phone like a smoking six-shooter. “By boat,” he adds.

The Navy pilothouse skiff arrives.

Pondering how to get a 100 pound dog over the rail.

It takes four people to lift the dog over Patricia Ann’s tall rail. The handler leads the dog once around the lower deck and that was it. They put the dog back into the skiff and head over to the tug John Paul.

“Boomer” the Navy bomb sniffing dog.

It was all over in a matter of minutes. Captain Skerry backs his tug out and we’re off to move a sub. It’s wicked exciting.

Following the ferry.

We not going very far, just across the Thames River to the docks at Electric Boat.
Talk about shock and awe, I sucked in a huge breath when I saw this magnificent vessel.

The E.B. docks.  They plan to move the sub sideways away from the dock to the other side of the red buoy in the foreground, then forward into the channel.

Security is high. This is one of four gunboats.

Captain Skerry maneuvers Patricia Ann’s bow to the dock adjacent to the sub. We’re gonna drop off Captain Phil, who will pilot the sub down the Thames.

Dropping off Captain Phil.

Once Captain Phil is on board the sub, the fun begins. Captain Skerry is directed to position Patricia Ann perpendicular to the sub just under the sail. He will pull the sub away from the dock.

Patricia Anne in position.

Tug John P. Wronowski ties up parallel to the sub near the stern to push it forward or backwards as needed.

John P. Wronowski tied to the stern.

Once they clear the dock and the buoy, they push the sub to the middle of the channel. Tug John Paul gets tied to the port side of the sub, near the front. The Wronowski repositions itself to the port side as well, but near the stern. They untie Patricia Ann and we follow them up the river to the sub base in Groton, CT.

Ready for the push up river.

Heading up the Thames.

Going under the bridge. Wow, that’s close.

Pushing the sub into port.

As promised, it is quite a show. I mean c’mon, escorting a 300 foot submarine up the Thames! Not many civilians get to witness this sort of thing. For me, it’s an incredible once in a lifetime experience that borders on the surreal, but for Captain Skerry, it’s just another day.

Relaxing with a couple of beers at the end of the day.

A guy won’t get too many opportunities to accompany a tugboat captain as he moves a Virginia class nuclear submarine.
“Ya oughta come along Rick. Should be quite a show,”  Captain Skerry said in a Facebook message. I couldn’t get my fat little fingers to the keyboard fast enough to reply “Hell ya!”
I first met John Skerry in the spring of 2010. He had a Trojan F-32 for sale, so the XO and I (and our dog Ginger Lee) headed off to the town of North Kingstown in Rhode Island to check it out. The boat had been refitted with Lehman 120 diesels, an intriguing and unusual set-up. Trawler motors in an old sport fisher? I think I was more intrigued by the fact that his name, Skerry, is also a name for a sailing dinghy. Long story short, we bought the boat, named it Ginger Lee, and lost contact with John until the summer of 2015 when he found us moored in Wickford Harbor. We’ve been friends ever since.
I had arranged to meet John at 8:00 AM at a Park and Ride in Rhode Island. About an hour and a half drive.
It’s 6:30 on a coolish, slightly foggy morning. The sky shows streaky glimpses of blue as I leave my driveway in Wareham. “It’s gonna burn off,” I say to myself, and I am right. By the time I reach my destination, it’s a full-blown sunny day. I hop into John’s F-150 and we drive to New London, Connecticut. On the salty shores of the historic Thames River, I’m transported into a world that few people ever get to experience up close, the world of working mariners. Captain Skerry’s world.

Captain Skerry takes in the view from his tug Patricia Ann.

The Thames Shipyard is a hundred acres of working waterfront that includes not only tugboats and dry-docks, but both car and passenger ferries. It’s the beginning of Memorial Day weekend and the parking lot is filling up with ferry passengers and cars. John cuts a long line of idling cars and gets waved through.
“Is it crazy yet?” he asks the young attendant.
“Gettin’ there,” is the expected answer.
First, we tour the relatively new fast ferry. Impressive for sure.

Fast Ferry.

Fast ferry bridge.

Engine room control panel.

But not nearly as impressive as the deluxe tour of (in my opinion) the star of the fleet the Cape Henlopen. This massive car ferry was built in the Forties and was actually on the beaches of Normandy delivering tanks during WWII. The fact that it’s still in daily operation today is a testament to the talented employees of this ship yard. Everything is maintained, repaired, and refurbished on site.

Captain Skerry’s workplace.

The Cape Henlopen car deck.

In the middle of the car deck, John opens a door marked DO NOT ENTER and I eagerly follow him down a long, steep, metal stairway into the bowels of this historic ship. It is wicked loud. I mean heart-stopping loud. I was in a rock band for forty years, so I know loud. The heat radiating from a massive diesel engine is alarming, and it’s not even running. John shouts in my ear and I can barely hear him. Apparently all the noise is coming from a pair of room-size 250 kilowatt generators. That’s a huge amount of power. To put it in perspective, I have a 3 kilowatt emergency generator that runs my whole house, heating system and everything.

Big engine

Big Generator.

Water system detail.

We follow a prop shaft to the aft of the boat. John points out an interesting feature: this huge ship can be steered manually. If the hydraulics fail, a person could crank a gizmo and steer.

Shaft

The shaft brake. It’s like a disc brake on a car but much bigger.

Rudder mechanism. Note the direction pointer at the top so it can be manually steered. This thing is as big as a truck.

Manual steering actuators. You wrap a chain to connect those two orange things and crank that arm in the foreground. It looks like it’s been used before.

We climb out of the engine room and head up to see the wheel house. After the sauna-like engine room, the cool ocean air whacks me like a Gatorade shower.
Captain Skerry has been haunting this shipyard for so long it’s hard for him to move anywhere without stopping to say hi to someone. “This is my friend Rick. He’s the guy who bought my boat,” is my introduction, repeated many times. And everybody knows exactly what he’s talking about. Our old F-32 is apparently well-known around here.

The Wheelhouse.

1940’s com phone. Still in use.

We eventually make our way over to the tugboat side of the yard. Things couldn’t be more different. There’s no hustle and bustle; no public to deal with. The docks are strewn with all manner of stuff: welding equipment, 55 gallon drums, cables, lines, and spares. And then there are the awesome tugboats themselves. Who the heck doesn’t like tugboats?

Working docks. Tug John Paul.

We hop aboard Captain Skerry’s 105 foot tug Patricia Ann.

Rubber all around.

Fortified bow.

Stern bitt (the big black thing they tie lines to and that looks like tt) They plan to replace it with a power winch. (next photo)

Old Navy power winch.

Old school wheel house.

I love this engine room. I could live here.

2400 ponies.

Fully stocked galley.

Bunks. I COULD live here!

After touring the tugboat Patricia Ann, all I can say is: I want one.

Captain Skerry and tugboat Patricia Ann

Normally, by this time of year, our boat Ginger Lee would have been floating for a month now. But the weather hasn’t been kind to us boaters. It is May 20th and I can’t think of any day so far that was nice enough to go boating. There were a couple of days in March, and maybe one in the beginning of April. Cold, raw, and windy has been our month of May. That is, until today. It’s an awesome morning: sunny and plenty warm enough to make any mariner happy. My wife and I are smiling because today is the day we launch.
A couple of days ago we cut away Ginger Lee’s warm plastic cocoon that has been protecting her for seven months. It was a chilly day that required a heavy hoodie.

Cutting away the shrink-wrap.

Thank goodness the weather has turned. The boys at the Moby Dick Marina fire up the tractor and run it over to our boat. We’re gonna be the first one in this morning.

The first and most important pre-launch activity: inserting the drain plug.

Positioning under the boat.

Removing the wood blocks and jack stands.

Backing fifteen tons of boat down the ramp.

Splashdown.

Oh goodie! Both engines start right up. While they warm I check the bilge for leaks before they retract the trailer. There’s a packing gland that needs adjustment. No problem: I get my tool and handle it in five minutes. The XO unties the lines and hops aboard. The shakedown cruise begins.

Cruising at last.

I hail the New Bedford bridge on channel 13 and ask what time they will be opening. “In nine minutes” is the response. I guess the radio works. The new depth sounder is working as well. The old one, however, is not waking up. That’s okay, we only need one.

This working barge in New Bedford Harbor has trees growing on it.

The New Bedford Bridge swings open.

Nothing has blown up and we’re still floating. So far so good.

The Mayflower II docked for repairs.

The hurricane barrier.

After passing the New Bedford Hurricane Barrier, I give my wife the helm for the three-hour tour to Wareham. She is the long haul driver. Meanwhile, I get busy checking stuff out and quickly discover the little red bilge pump light is not working. The pumps work, the light doesn’t. A minor problem but I make a note to replace the bulb.

The XO.

Suddenly the new depth sounder starts going bonkers. It reads over three hundred feet of depth. It should read about thirty feet. I shut it off for a few seconds and turn it on again. The image on the screen freezes. I push all the buttons to no avail. It wont even shut off, so I unplug the power cord.

Bonkers depth sounder.

I can’t get the new sounder working so I open the console access panel to see what’s up with the old sounder. I wiggled the power wire it loudly comes to life. BEEP!

The correct depth.

So far, the only thing that’s not working is the brand new instrument. I call the help line number listed in the manual and the nice people at Hummingbird talk me through a few diagnostics and a reset procedure. The unit comes to life and is working perfectly. I thank the nice man and hang up. Two seconds later the new instrument goes bonkers again. Oh well, it’s obviously something I can’t fix now and we have the old unit which is just fine.
Bird Island Light, our gateway home, presents itself dead ahead. A massive swarm of birds rises from its rocky shoreline as if they were welcoming us back. It’s been so long  since we cruised these friendly waters. The New England boating season is way too short.
Home safe. No one died! And mostly everything worked.
Avid kayaker Joe Mullins paddles over to greet us, children play loudly on the beach, and happy boaters are coming and going. What a great day!

Captain Joe Mullin.

Swifts Neck Beach and Hamilton Beach.

We dingy to shore and walk across a the salt marsh to our house. I’m a happy guy. It’s finally tee-shirt weather. Let the 2016 boating season begin! 

This is the new couch for the salon. The old one was so bad we had to cover it with a sheet. As a sleeper sofa, it was small, uncomfortable, and weighed more than a car. Good riddance. We pitched it off the boat onto the hard ground and it landed with a satisfying crunch. Now comes the tough part: installing the new couch.
How do you lift a seven-foot couch up over a railing that’s ten feet off the ground? Very carefully. The XO got the bright idea of using the old couch to stand on. She heaved it upward while I stood on the deck and pulled it over the railing.

It fits perfectly.

We pick a cool but sunny day to perform our next trick: the dreaded painting of the bottom. Unless you remove your boat from the water after every use, this is a chore that all boaters must do. For us, it’s every two years. This year we’re trying a new water-based multi-season ablative from Petit.

The new water-based anti-fouling paint.

The XO masks off the waterline while I scrape and wire-brush a few parts of the hull that didn’t come clean from last falls powerwashing.

Masking the waterline.

Scraping.

I love this new paint! It rolls on wicked easy like interior house paint. We get the whole job done in an hour, and clean up with water. The stuff we used to use was so sticky and gummy it took forever to apply it, and smelled so toxic we needed masks.

The XO cuts a stunning figure in her Tyvek bunny-suit.

This new paint rolls on beautifully.

Finished. Nice tape line.

Normally, this time of year, we would have completely removed the winter shrink wrapping, but we’re leaving it on so we can coat the deck and gunwales with Kiwigrip. It’s a thick, non skid coating that we hope will improve the look and feel of our aging gel-coat.  We did all the online research (and by “we” I mean the XO) and this stuff comes highly recommended.
It’s early, and being a weekday, I’m the only soul in the whole marina. It’s time to prep the decks for the Kiwigrip. “This shouldn’t take too long,” I say to myself as I crawl up through the forward hatch. With the shrink-wrap still on, the strong April sun is turning the enclosed space into a sauna. “Jeez it’s hot in here,” I say out loud as I pull off my sweatshirt. Escaping the morning chill feels good on my bones for about five minutes, then It’s time to do something about it. I snap open my pocket knife and cut two vee shaped vents into the white shrink-wrap.
I mix up a small batch of Marine-Tex and fill all the small holes and cracks, then mask off all the areas I don’t want coated, and scrub everything with a Scotch-Brite pad and Zep cleaner/degreaser. That last sentence describes six-and-a-half hours of knuckle scraping work crawling on my knees. I drag my aching body home and plunk myself on the couch with two Aleve and a cold beer. I’m not gonna move for the rest of the day. Except maybe to get another beer. 

The next day the XO and I are back at Moby Dick Marina to apply the Kiwigrip. The manufacturer says you need two people: a “slather-er” (the actual term used in the instructions) or someone to goop the product on with a trowel, and another person to immediately give it texture with a roller tool before it dries. I will call that person the “texture-er”.

The slather-er applying Kiwigrip with a serrated trowel.

The texture-er using the special tool.

Kiwigrip has the consistency of canned vanilla cake frosting. It’s real easy to work with. We do a small 2 foot section, remove the masking tape, and move on down the line until it’s all covered. It probably took a couple of hours. The end result is lookin’ good. I’ll let ya know how it holds up to the marine environment. But since it was developed in New Zealand for racing sailboats, I remain optimistic.

A finished section of the starboard gunwale.

There is no cold like the cold inside your boat in winter. I don’t know if it’s psychological or not, but I swear it’s 40 degrees colder in here than it is outside. My breath is great plumes of white steam. With shaking icicle fingers, I quickly fire up the alcohol heater, and within ten minutes I’m able to take off my heavy coat. Five minutes after that, I strip off my hoodie. It’s time to get busy. The new 49 gallon holding tank has arrived from California.

New 49 gallon tank.

From the extensive Ronco Plastics online catalogue, I picked this tank out because it’s made to fit in the front vee section of a boat. For no extra charge, Ronco installed the inlet and outlet fittings to my specifications.
Let the fun begin! First I remove the vee-berth cushions, wood covers and supports, and expose the old barrel-shaped tank. Captain Skerry (the previous owner of Ginger Lee) tells me this tank was installed by the guy he bought the boat from. He also called him a hacker. The markings on the tank say it used to be a machine oil barrel. Obviously, the guy got it for free and converted it to a holding tank. Probably to save money. All I can say is that it worked well enough, it was just too darn small.

The old holding tank.

I cut the PVC tubing with a jig saw and quickly stuff rags into the openings. No sense in stinking up the place. Even though we pumped this thing out last fall, there is still some residual material. I yanked that sucker right outta there and tossed it outside. Now comes the big moment: seeing how well I measured the space for the new tank.

Trail fit.

It’s perfect fit. Yay me! It would cost over a hundred bucks to ship that tank back to California.
Okay, back to work. I fabricate a support bed out of thick plywood, settle the new tank onto it, and plumb everything in with 1-1/2 septic tubing I bought from West Marine. The tubing was so stiff from the cold that I had to use a heat gun to make it pliable. Two ratcheting straps, the vee-berth support spar, and the sides of the boat hold everything firmly in place. Finally, I install a holding tank vent filter, it’s function is obvious.

Finished. The inlet tubing loops above the waterline. The outlet drains from the bottom, and the tubing runs underneath for complete emptying.

It’s time to tackle the malfunctioning starboard fuel gauge. I’ll start with the part inside the fuel tank called the sending unit. Lucky me. It’s located on the end of the tank nearest the access hatch. After energizing the ignition, I remove the wire connected to the center of the old sender and touch it to the ground wire. The gauge moves from overfull to “empty”. This tells me three things: the wiring is good, the gauge works, and the sending unit is bad.

The top of the sending unit. It’s the round plate with a wire attached to it.

I can see that the five screws that hold the sender to the tank are going to be a problem. They’re kinda rusty, and none of them are budging. They’ve most likely been in there since 1974, the date stamped on the tank. The condition of the screws doesn’t surprise me. On a boat, fastener removal is nine-tenths of the job. In fact, I’m more surprised when stuff comes apart easy. Great care must be taken to not strip out the slots or break the screw heads, lest I’ll be drilling and tapping the afternoon away.
I consider my options: It’s a fuel tank so I probably shouldn’t use my blow torch, that leaves penetrating oil. I soak the tops of the screws and wait a few minutes. With a good Snap-On screwdriver, and a lot of muscle, I’m finally able to get one screw to move ever so slightly. Here’s the plan: turn the screw out a bit, spray with oil, screw it back in, then back out a little more, spray, etc., etc., repeat for all five screws. Not one of those little buggers gives me a friggen break, but after an hour of hand numbing work, they all came out unbroken. I WIN!.

The old sending unit. It’s basically a float connected to a variable resistor.

The shiny new unit.

I install the new sending unit, hook up the wires, and turn on the ignition, but the fuel gauge still moves to over-full. Why? Because the new sending unit is not speaking the language of the old gauge. In these modern times, pretty much all sending units and gauges adhere to industry standards, but in the stone age (early 70’s) who knows what heathen voodoo gods made these things work. That’s exactly why I bought a new gauge. Hey, I’m not as dumb as I look. Of course, it would have been peachy keen if didn’t have to change out the gauge, but that’s not the case, so I’d better get started.

Heathen, voodoo talking, stone-age gauge.

Modern era gauge.

I pour four jerry-jugs of diesel into the starboard tank to check my work and everything is working properly. I think that’s enough fun for today. On my way home I’m gonna pick up a large ham and provolone sub from my favorite shop. And a bag of chips too. Why not? I deserve it!

Zipper access door. This is how I get into our shrink-wrapped boat.