Early summer in Michigan

 Cynthia had several weeks of work in May and June, so rented a car and drove back, leaving the boat safe in a marina in New Bern (beside a wood-spar ketch owned by a fellow named Skip... how's THAT for coincidence?). Delightful neighbors: we shared stories and got lots of ideas for adventures and boat improvements.

Driving with two of us is always fast and easy and we arrived at the house in good shape... to find surprising destruction. Apparently a storm had passed through and done considerable damage to one of the big maples behind the house, sending several large branches into the earth like spears, but none hit the house.

Thank goodness we avoided anything like this we saw nearby:

Our neighbors kindly lent us a couple chainsaws and we rented a chipper and had a few days of fun work together. We delighted in the chipper, especially: it could chew up a branch twenty feet long in under a minute! We also took out some other dead and crowded trees while we had the chainsaws and chipper. Lucy went mad for one of the cedar trees, chewing on it and crying and barking, so we cut it down and  carpenter ants POURED out!

Done with that, she got excited about an old evergreen stump, so we pulled it out and let her dig madly at the hole...

and we then found that there was a big lump of pitch (sticky sap from the treee) in the soil, now well worked into her fur. Cynthia spent an hour or two clipping out the matted, sticky mess. Fortunately, Lucy needed a haircut and looked hardly the worse for the amateur emergency clip.

We mowed the path in the back meadow and added a couple more. The grass looked beautiful in the sunset light;

these brown and orange butterflies love the purple hairy vetch (there are three in the pic); 

Lucy would hunt through the grass flushing rabbits; and monarch butterflies danced around the milkweed, feeding on nectar and laying eggs; and the monarch larvae ballooned in size daily in a race to mature before predators removed them. 

We also found a few of these raspberry relatives near Lake Michigan and identified them as wineberries. Definitely edible.

Good memories.

Update on Sonoma citrus grafts

Back in April I posted about grafting various citrus onto the orange tree at my parents' place: https://hydrophiliapow.blogspot.com/2020/04/pandemic-stuck-in-sonoma-twiddling.html
A week ago I returned and pretty much rushed through greeting my dad in my eagerness to see the results. After cutting back some of the lush growth from the existing tree, I found satisfactory results... for a first time citrus grafting effort.



Four of the five varieties are still alive. Orlando seems the worst and I do not expect it to survive:. Alas!

Next is Satsuma (branch with rubber band), grown a bit over a foot and looking healthy. 

Then comes the blood orange graft, grown nearly four feet over the summer! See how nicely it is connecting to the old branch!

All the rest of the good grafts are Cara Cara navel oranges. Three of these are healthy and all have grown nearly four feet. 

We will want to be careful to prevent too many fruit too soon as this may break off the grafts at the slightly weaker junction. We also want to prevent the base tree from competing too much on those branches as most trees prefer to support themselves rather than transplanted varieties, so we will need to keep shoots pruned back. 

Over all, I'm satisfied and have hopes for blossoms in the spring and fruit a year after that. Just a year and a half to go! 

Christmas tree pruning by mystery herbivore

Clearly, I've been remiss: months have passed with no blog posts! In that time Cynthia and Lucy and I have visited Cape Cod, Maine, Norfolk, and New Bern. We've caught mackerel, king mackerel, pollack, bluefish, and a swordfish. We've enjoyed oysters, mussels, steamers, littlenecks, and quahogs. We've sailed in fog, bright sunshine, still nights, and storm. We've seen dolphins doing tricks for us and large groups of little whales. We've even seen approaching walls of wind just in time to batten down enough that little fell over or leaked when the wind struck and shoved us roughly far over on our side and held us there for ten minutes. And we've dealt with engine troubles, made repairs on leaking bits of decking, made progress on re-coring the deck, and installed a pretty sweet lithium battery bank that allows us to make far better use of our available electrical power. Currently, Cynthia and Lucy are near Philadelphia beginning a new job there, the boat is in New Bern, and I am helping my folks out in Sonoma, CA.

What to mention first? How about Pickering Island, ME?

As we began working our way from Maine back toward Cape Cod, the winds were light and variable and the fog thick, but the tide swept us along.... until it turned. So we chose a nearby island, scanned it for habitation using Google maps to see if it would be a good place to take Lucy for a walk... and found interesting signs of old foundations (bottom left corner).

We motored in until we found a good spot to anchor, launched the dinghy, and rowed to shore, Cynthia casting for fish and pulling in a mackerel as I rowed.

On shore, we scouted around until we found a path to the ruins and followed it in, Lucy bouncing about, eager for any sign of squirrel or mouse. We came to the clearing and found numerous stone foundations,

old apple trees, hunting stands in a few trees, and this little "Christmas tree"... with a very poorly pruned top.

I found the tree fascinating. I'm sure no one pruned it, so the trimming was probably the product of some herbivores browsing on it. Deer are the most common, but the height of the pruned section (about 3.5') argued for a shorter critter... like goats or sheep. I've heard sheep will eat evergreens and that there are sheep on several islands in Maine and I believe that goats and deer would eat at least up to five feet from the ground, so I think we found pretty strong evidence of sheep on this island. I DO love a bit of deductive reasoning!

And here is a random pic from chilly Maine:

Rudder repairs

Back in February I broke my rudder, but still was able to fix it well enough to sail back to FL, where I figured repairs would be far easier. Once in the boat yard, we were told that repairing the rudder would be far easier and cheaper than building a new one and that they would guarantee the result, unlike what I'd get if I built myself a new one, so I reluctantly gave the go ahead.

Of course, I couldn't let go entirely of the chance to play around with designing and building a new rudder, so I did the research and the math, bought some cheap plywood, and tried to make a rudder mock-up... and really liked it!

Still.... they were already working on the repair and who am I to ignore the experts?

Once the rudder subcontractor opened the rudder, they discovered that it had been repaired at least twice in the past and, in one of those repairs, the rudder post was actually bent... or had perhaps been bent from the beginning. The interior of the rudder also had what seemed like a lightweight foam rather than the very dense and strong foam that is standard and the rudder post was secured in the rudder with this and some lumps and chunks of fiberglass. Lousy repairs.

I also had the main contractor look at the leaking around the rudder port (the fitting the rudder post passes through to go into the boat and prevent water from entering) and he said it had been severely and poorly modified by some prior boat yard, so we decided to replace that as well.

Then along came Covid-19. I decided to visit my folks in CA before things got bad enough for travel to shut down and while the yard was working on the rudder, but travel shut down once I was there, the yard shut down in FL (but continued to charge large amounts), and, although the rudder post and port arrived, the rudder repairs seemed to drag on with no communication.

FINALLY, the rudder subcontractor sent me a text showing the rudder installed!

Hooray! I flew to Cynthia in MI and the two of us drove (with Lucy) to FL.... where we tested the rudder and found it would not turn. The rudder sub had repaired it WRONG, possibly installing the nice new straight rudder post in the slot that worked for the bent rudder post. AND, while the typical repair charge is for about 30 hours, he wanted over 90 hours!

After a few days of grinding teeth and listening to various people come up with WRONG diagnoses and solutions, I finally told the main contractor to reinstall the rudder port to my alignment (He had installed it to the rudder...which was wrong. I used a long shaft to align it correctly.)

and told him that would absolve him of further responsibility. That made me happy... but I still needed to deal with my main nemesis, the rudder.

I showed the rudder fellow that the port was now aligned and told him this meant the rudder was the only problem. He disagreed and fiddled with it for a couple hours....

while I sat and watched and literally ground my teeth. Finally I called him over and told him, in a calm voice, that I was furious about the whole thing, furious that he had promised three times that the repair was well within his ability to get right. I told him I really wanted someone else to fix the problem. He told me that he still did not think it was the rudder, but I could certainly have someone else work on it and, if I could make things work without changing the alignment of rudder port and shoe (top and bottom fittings), I would not owe him a penny. I shook his hand and told him that I thought that was a fair and honorable plan and we parted amicably.

Relief pouring off me, I pulled out my instruments of destruction and went to work on opening the rudder to extract the hardware: rudder post and bottom pintle. The main contractor lent me various tools that made things far easier than my familiar sawzall and in a couple hours I had opened the rudder (finding quite a poor repair inside),

released the post, and reinstalled the post in some more epoxy to prove the rudder post alignment was our only problem. The next morning the rudder turned beautifully, proving my point. Now... how about that new rudder?

Most rudders are built on a core of foam and covered with fiberglass, just like a surfboard. I wanted something more sturdy and something I could easily create in the boat yard, so followed my earlier thoughts about creating it out of a board called Coosa, a foam-cored fiberglass sandwich. I had found the price would be rather high, about $800 for the two sheets, but worth it. Then my friend John, the main contractor, said he could get me two boards for about $300 total! Very nice!

Cynthia and I laminated the Coosa with layers of epoxy and fiberglass, adding a foam edge in the areas I would grind to shape the rudder curve. Screws held everything together while the glue cured. We first created the center layers and a reinforced area for the bottom pintle, then cut out a recess to fit the rudder post, embedding the rudder post in thickened epoxy and installing the rudder to ensure alignment.

Once the rudder post glue had cured, we installed the encapsulating third core layer with more epoxy and glass, then created the reinforced area for the center pintle

and installed it with bronze bolts. We then installed the final two layers of Coosa, glass, and foam on each side of the rudder....

Once this set, we went at it with the sawzall, trimming off excess. Then our friend Tony took up the grinder and shaped the rudder roughly,

then the three of us faired the rudder with thickened vinyl ester resin and installed a layer of glass mat, saturated with more vinyl ester resin.

The next morning, I brought out the sawzall to trim and Tony suited up and brought out his grinder, then the three of us installed three layers of 1708 fiberglass on each face, Cynthia and I assisting and learning while Tony impressed us with his rapid application of large amounts of glass. Then.... we again waited for the glass to harden completely by the next morning.

Once again: sawzall and grinder. 

Then some more fairing and sanding. 

Finally, primer and paint.

Now, to my delight:

the rudder can be removed without needing to bend fittings;

the rudder sits farther back from the keel, so we can paint and clean things better;

the rudder sits farther back, so we do not need such a large scoop out of it

for the propeller to be removed and installed;

the rudder sits farther back, so the same size rudder has a little more steering power;

the rudder has an airfoil shape rather than being a lumpy thick board;

AND I've had a lot of fun learning and working with Cynthia and friends... and I've saved some money.

Lap-goat in Michigan

Here I am in MI, a kid sharing my lap with Lucy.

How did I get here? Well...

Flew from CA to MI to see Cynthia and await rudder repair news.
Received the news that the rudder was done.... which ended up with firing the contractor and building it myself. Yes, I'll write it up.
Sailed to NC and put the boat in a slip near New Bern... beside a ketch with wooden spars owned by a fellow named Skip.
Drove back to MI where Cynthia has gone to work where she met a fellow medico who owns goats and invited us to visit. Delightful lady, goats, and visit.... and Cynthia had very fresh and tasty goat milk on her cereal this AM.

Pandemic: stuck in Sonoma, twiddling (green) thumbs

Cynthia warned me that testing was very spotty, but I still thought I could get to CA and back to the boat before things got serious. I chose... poorly: the counties near Sonoma issued stay-at-home orders a week after I got here.... and, so, I am staying here a bit longer. Besides, I've still been waiting on the go-ahead to repair my rudder from the insurance company. In the meantime I've been here with my folks, all of us feeling a bit of cabin fever despite the nice weather and wonderful location.

So, what to do here? Various projects, including “top-working” the orange tree, grafting different varieties onto it in place of the existing “meh” naval oranges. We ordered five different varieties from the state citrus grafting supply, they arrived as green sticks in well-labelled plastic bags a few days later, and we then spent a few hours working on the orange.

step 1: cut the branch, split open the bark and gently peel it back

 Step 2: insert the carefully cut short stick of buds under the bark

 Step 3: wrap the graft in rubber bands to hold the live surfaces together and wrap it all in parafilm to prevent drying out. Label the branch (blood orange, here)

 Step 4: shade the grafts from the harsh sun for a few weeks, until the graft heals together

 Step 5: take a photo of the very odd-looking tree!

I love grafting, the surgical splicing of one tree variety onto another, aligning the growing layers (cambium) so they tie together, watching the buds swell and sprout, seeing the new flowers and fruit over the years. Delightful.

Mostly I've grafted apples and plums and this is my first time for citrus.

Now we wait... and hope that the grafts survive and grow nicely rather than drying and dying. So far it has been about three weeks and, while everything seems alive, nothing has shown signs of growth. Fingers crossed!



I've also been working on mastering and improving an old family favorite, molasses cookies. So far I've eliminated the need to refrigerate the dough and roll it in sugar. This means I can go from ingredients to ingesting in a half hour! 

Perhaps, I will soon head to MI to see Cynthia, although taking two or three extra flights scares me quite a lot in this time of coronavirus. Perhaps, now that we have the insurance go-ahead on the rudder, I can head back there to finish the repairs and sail the boat away, staying aboard on anchor in FL or NC.... although cases look like they are blowing up in FL and the boat yard launch facilities have closed down. Interesting times...

I MISS being afloat. I dream about diving into the clear water...

Gratitude in the midst of interesting times

I wrote this a couple weeks ago, but didn't get around to posting it. I'm currently winging my way to CA and Cynthia is back at work in MI. Boat should be back in the water in three weeks.... I hope.


OK, we are back in Florida, boat pulled out for repairs, me on antibiotics, Cynthia applying ice to her twinging back, and generally dealing with a bit of a downpour of issues. Details? Well...

1) Cynthia had her best lionfish day EVER, spearing 42 of the buggers and making a large improvement to the health of the reefs near Rock Sound in southern Eleuthera. I mostly assisted by sitting in the dinghy, taking the spear she handed to me, shucking the fish into a bucket, and handing the spear back. On this day, the bucket became so full that a fish flipped out and struck my leg, sticking me with three of the venomous spines. After about eight hours of agony, the pain decreased... but my leg became hugely swollen the next day and infected in the following days. Fortunately, Cynthia had antibiotics on board and I am mostly recovered after about three weeks of treatment.

2) In my damaged state, I backed the boat into a reef and cracked the rudder. Fortunately, the propeller still worked OK and steering worked enough that we were able to steer into Man-O-War Cay. Some steering adjustments let us limp back to FL despite the bent rudder and the rudder is now being repaired. I am SO tempted to create a better rudder (I've already designed the airfoil shape), but realize that I have a tendency to imagine jobs going far more smoothly that they will in reality, so will probably just allow the experts to handle it... and save this for a future job.... probably when I bring the boat out for work again in a couple years. Here is the interior of the existing rudder as well as some of the cracks:

3) Anchored in Fort Pierce, we weathered a day with winds gusting over 50mph, by far our worst storm aboard. Winds blew so hard that the boat heeled ten degrees and, once, started dragging anchors. Fortunately I had Cynthia on board and together we secured the boat.


I find it amusing that my response is gratitude. I'm thankful that through luck, an over-built boat, and some effort and partnership, we were able to handle the rudder issue safely. I'm thankful for Cynthia's skill and preparation that helped me get through this lionfish venom and infection. I'm thankful for good contractors at the boat yard who, I believe, are working to get us repaired and launched asap. And I am thankful to have our friends, Georgia and David, here in Vero Beach, providing us a home in their house while the repairs are underway. I am thankful for ice and good yoga videos and a comfortable bed to help with Cynthia's back.... and mine, for that matter. And there is SO much more that it would get boring to list it all.


Cynthia has been stripping off the horrible peeling finish from all the teak around the toerail.... and finding it terribly tedious, but very satisfying.

I've been making lots of repairs and improvements, like rebuilding a rotten beam in the galley that has been leaking and nasty since before we bought the boat: also very satisfying. Here I am fitting old paneling over all the structural wood I've added.

So.... Cynthia goes back to MI about March 8. I hope to launch the boat by March 26 and leave it on a mooring in Vero or Fort Pierce. Maybe Cynthia and I can sail in April...or maybe July.... either in Bahamas or here or NC.... we shall see. I look forward to seeing sunrises and sunsets again.