Life Around Me

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Life Around Me

The water in this bay seems to me, dead. I see tiny fishes below the boat, and where there are little ones, there are surely bigger ones, but I rarely see any life below. This morning, though, I caught a brief glance at a foot-long sea turtle, who poked his head up to take a breath, and that was fulfilling to see.

Around me, changing daily, are a breadth of boats - big ones, sailboats, yachts, catamarans. (Yesterday there was a very large cat next to me with a 2nd floor - a flying bridge with a large sitting area.) And the yachts come and go and are sort of a dime a dozen really. It is difficult to judge size from a distance, as these boats are so perfect proportionately, that until you see a human walking about, you cannot appreciate the size of some. As you see below, the marina on the Dutch side is filled with big and small yachts.

This one, below,is for Bart. It anchored late this morning behind me. Bart would be impressed with the crane the captain used to unload the TWO tenders. Was very 'industrial' looking.

So, with so many around, I don't even bother to look anymore ( Someday, I figure Britney Speers will come by, and find ME!) but every now and then one catches my eye. Below is the Princess Marianna, and is the 33rd largest in the world - built for a Mexican billionaire. When I see the resident helicopter, I know she must be a big one. The garage door on the port held about 8 jet skis that I could count, and the starboard side has the same door, but it opens up to a wonderful deck with beautiful patio furniture, and looks larger than my whole boat. From the internet, I learned that the spot to house the tender will flood to become a swimming pool. She is 258 ft long, and will serve 12 with a crew of 26, I think. There have been a LOT of private jets taking off here lately - maybe 2 or 3 dozen - Gulfstreams, Citations, I think Falcons, and I even saw a Lear, I think. I guess the 'season' has begun for the wealthy.

It is 84 degrees in the salon as I write this, and we have had 3 or 4 days of beautiful weather, although there has been a line of storms pass each night for the last two evenings, and each had the tornados that I pictured in last post. The wind has picked up and the swell as well, so the boat can be a bit 'roll-ey'. Still, better than what I read about back home. Today, I decided to give a try at laundry in the bathtub, and since the water was dirty afterwards, I presume it was a success, although I suspect that I will smell a bit like Clorox a few times, as the rinse cycle was a bit short. Below is my first attempt to hang and dry clothes outside. I wonder, in this wind, if they will be dry before or after they get blown into the bay. I have used 3 pins per piece but it looks like the whole thing could blow away before dry.

Two days ago, I had no propane, and when I looked, the wire on the safety solenoid had parted from corrosion and the solenoid itself is a pile of rust. So a nice ride to the Dutch side to Island Marine - a store I love for some reason - to find a new solenoid. Also looked at new spreader lights, and a regulator for SCUBA.

I picked up the stainless steel fabricator on the return, and we agreed to a plan for improving my davits and adding the post for the AirX wind generator. It means that I must remove the davits and take them in to him for modification, but will save me a bunch of $$. Today, I will dink in to get the news from the hydraulic mechanic, and hope to take Bernard with me as a translator. Yesterday, the Marigot Bay Fee Police found me and now I must go ashore and pay them their fee for anchorage here.

My keyboard has returned to the boat with Bernard's return home, and last night I enjoyed several hours of playing, trying to learn some new, 'old' songs. Ingie's husband, Tom, loaned me some CD's to burn, and 2 were Linda Ronstadt singing very old standards - almost 'torch songs' and I have really enjoyed listening to the set. There are several that I would like to learn on the piano, but my skills are very rusty, and the boat has been rolling, so I must play, and sit still, and make sure the keyboard doesn't end in my lap, or worse, the floor.

So, now I dink into the mechanic's and then will go in pay my tax to Marigot.

It is a great day.

1 comment:

Shelby WilsonJanuary 7, 2010 at 8:52 AM
Hi again Dennis, just checking in, did you get the 15hp fixed yet?? figure it out?
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About Annah Foster

Annah Foster is a 1980'ish Morgan 462. She is a USCG Documented vessel and the year on the document is 1979, which I believe is the year the keel was laid. She is known as a ketch, which means she has 2 masts, and the aft mast is forward of the rudder. She also is a center compartment boat, which means the helm is located between the 2 masts, which are, by the way, the main and the mizzen. She is equipped with roller furling on the jib/genoa sail which is the big triangular sail on the front. Her empty weight, or rather displacement, is 33,000 lbs, which is fat for her length. Mr. Morgan believed in thick fiberglas for strength and I am told that at places it is often found to be 2 inches of solid fiberglas. Her keel has encapsulated lead weighing 8,000 lbs.

She boasts 2 staterooms, - v-berth forward with separate head and twin beds aft with separate head, including the famous bathtub. The configuration of the aft stateroom could easily be changed with a change in the mattresses to an almost queen berth, port to starboard, but currently she has twins, running fore and aft, with 2 large mattress cushions separating them. There is also a ladder and sliding hatch aft for egress in an emergency, to the aft deck, which I call the back porch. I bought some director's chairs for it and have sat there many evenings enjoying a drink and sunset. The aft deck is also the location of the propane gas grill, storage for the 2 outboard motors, Yamaha 4hp 4cycle, and a Yamaha 15hp 2 cycle, which power a new Apex Lite 10'6 inflatable dinghy, which can hang from the installed davits.

The main sail has 2 reefing points on jiffy reefing and the mizzen has 1. No lines lead to the cockpit but the jib, main and mizzen sheets.

She has a Switlick 6 man life raft mounted aft the mizzen mast. And, an emergency tiller aboard.

She is equipped with a Perkins 4 cylinder diesel engine, powering a Hurth transmission and turning a 4 bladed Max Prop, which feathers when sailing, and reverses pitch in Reverse so that she has the same thrust as in Forward. One unique design flaw is that the propeller shaft exits the boat at 3 degrees off center, making the port prop walk in reverse, even worse. The engine is equipped with about a 90 amp alternator with a very good voltage regulator.

She also has a Westerbeke 5.7 kw diesel generator, which produces 110 v AC power, and charges the batteries thru a 40 amp charger. I also have a Honda 1000 watt gasoline powered generator for emergency 110v, and an automotive battery charger aboard.

She came with an old Windbugger wind generator, not quite perfectly mounted. Stowed in the V-berth, there is a replacement AirX marine wind generator and 8 foot mast waiting to be installed, along with the controller, and 2 solar panels, which are half the possible wattage the controller can handle.

She has 3 4-D AGM batteries for the house bank and a type 18 start battery - all are 12volt.

The 4 gallon water heater will heat with both engine cooling water and 110v AC power and is equipped with a mixing valve to prevent scalding.

Tankage - Water - 110 gallon port and 85 gallon center tanks
Fuel - 175 gallons
Range when new at 2250 RPM is almost 800 nm.

Currently, her refridgerator and freezer are 110 volt AC, with several holding plates each which must be manually started and stopped. She has waiting to be installed, 2 Cool Blue 12 volt systems, with automatic controls, but truthfully, I don't know where the new holding plates will fit.

Electronics -
She is equipped with 2 VHF marine band radios, one at the helm and the other at the nav station, with repeater at the helm, and a hand held low power VHF 'walkie talkie'. Also, at the nav station, she has a Single Side Band HF radio - SSB with a Pactor 2 modem making her capable of downloading NOAA weather fax and Sail Mail emails and Grb files. onto a dedicated IBM laptop. She has as primary a Raymarine E-80 Chartplotter at the helm and a smaller Garmin Chartplotter for back up at the helm, a handheld Garmin Chartplotter, and an older Furuno GPS at the nav station. She has an older Raytheon black and white 24 nm radar at the helm, with a repeater at the nav station. She has a RapidFix 406 EPIRB, emergency locator beacon, that is hand activated. She has a new Clarion AM FM CD player, with input for computer or MP3 player on 3 sets of individual speakers - cockpit, salon, and aft cabin.

For those who do not know me, I named her for my parents - Annah Margaret and George Foster Doak. It is through their beneficence that I am able to live this dream and I felt that I should dedicate my boat to honor their memories.