Travels and Thoughts

WEEK 16 2008

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Oxnard Weather Underground

Lancaster WeatherUnderground

First Post, 17 March 2002

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Saturday 19 April 2008

Saturday - there was no wind on Saturday morning. None. Millpond calm. What the Hey? So instead of sailing it was work - cleaning, checking the level of oil after the oil change a couple of weeks ago, putting the name on the starboard side.

I'd forgotten why I hadn't done that already - because there is a great big bracket right in the way of the port-of-hail location. I tried to unscrew it, but it seemed as it if were either stripped or had a nut turning on the inside. Checking inside I could see that the lining was pulled away where I'd attempted exactly the same operation last year. I need to get a friend or relative down to the boat to hold a wrench on the inside acorn nut.

Nuts.

On the plus side, I now own a nice handhold marine VHF, the Icom M72. And an actual chart of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands & vicinity.

About 2:00 pm. as I was wrapping things up, the wind started. Nothing I could do - not with fresh decals on the side of the boat, so off to Lancaster.

For dinner I bummed a nice omelet (and two Newcastle's) at a friends place. I paid for it with a bit of computer wrangling. A newish laptop had lost wireless connectivity - it turned out that their trial version of Norton had expired - and shut down the network stack as it went. Sheesh. They had a free extra copy, so I installed that and everything was hunky dory. Applied Windows Updates, applied AVG antivirus, and Ad-Aware.

Friday 18 April 2008

Friday - warm, but not as warm as earlier in the week. I was going to go home in the evening, but worked late and realized I'd forgotten the charger for the mobile mapper, so went back to Ventura and stayed the night there. Maybe I'll go sailing Saturday, then head to Lancaster, where I'm sure the spring grass is 6" high already.

Pollywog Friday:

Thursday 17 April 2008

Thursday - warm, in the 80's. Worked a long day.

A user's review of the ICOM M72 handheld VHF transceiver:

Me and a few other Indian Engineers were hanging out in a friends dinghy. Suddenly a shark jumped up and bit a friends hand off as he was playing in the water. We were able to radio in the Coast Guard despite the heavy accent of the radio operator. The coast guard came, and we danced the night away in joy of being rescued after we left our friend off at the local hospital. Thank you West Marin for this wonderful product

Wednesday 16 April 2008

Wednesday - busy day. Not a lot to say.

Wishful thinking indeed. Ain't it the truth. I actually tried putting a cat basket next to my monitor once. The cat preferred sitting on my mouse hand. When I transferred the mouse to my left hand he sat - or at least rested his head on - the keyboard.

Anti-piracy patrols in the Persian Gulf. These Cyclone class ships are actually smaller than my father's WWII era Flower Class corvette. Twice the speed, but only 2000 miles range instead of 3500. She looks about as wet though - look at the sea pouring off the foredeck.

Tuesday 15 April 2008

Tuesday - tax day. I dropped off checks at a drive-thru at the local post office - , didn't even have to get out of the car. The girl that took my envelopes looked like a young Valerie Bertinelli. I feel old, some days - she (Valerie) is the same age as my sister.

Bermilla, a sailing log. Kind of interesting.

Things I hate to do: find a pin on my carpet, pick it up and wonder "How did that get there?" - and then drop it.

It's down there, somewhere.

Monday 14 April 2008

Monday - Book #14 was Spindrift*, by Brian Hancock. (Yes, I know, same title as this years Book #8, by Alan Steel. Titles can't be copyrighted.)

Anyway, it was on audio and was quite short, only two tapes, though unabridged. A fun listen. Hancock's South African accent is a nice change after the narrator of Chernow's book, and it's a lot lighter and quicker in tone. Sea stories, mostly, and a couple belong in a nautical "I Learned About Sailing From That" sort of category. "I Learned About Flying from That" is a guest column that used to run in Flying magazine, wherein a pilot would relate some dangerous or surprising aerial adventure, with a safety-of-flight related moral.

I see Hancock has another book, The Risk in Being Alive, though it's not in audio. The title probably relates to a quote in Spindrift - "To live is to risk, to live more is to risk more".

Heh. I thought I remembered another book by that name, a Phyllis Whitney novel my sister K owned. (I was always a pretty non-discriminatory reader) And indeed, it shows up at Amazon, third return of a search for 'spindrift' in books. Can't remember what it was about though..

Sunday 13 April 2008

Sunday - one of those days where you just keep going, until you realize it 10pm, past bedtime and you still haven't finished stuff you'd intended to do.

I did get a haircut, but the cactus in the side yard remains.

Ben Eriksen has sold his NorSea 27 and bought a Bristol Channel Cutter. Too bad, I enjoyed reading about his live-aboard adventures. Well, the BCC is a good boat too, maybe he'll blog about her.

Picture of the Week

Photo Notes: Piru hillside, Real Canyon.

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