sailing the NorSea


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WEEK 30 2010

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Saturday 31 July 2010
Saturday - I told the restaurant management that I'd be moving to the new slip, and moved all the gear from my dock box over. There wasn't too much - I cleared a lot of it out in the last few weeks.

Then it was back to Lancaster. Despite fires to the north and south in the last couple of weeks the town, and my home, was intact. And warm. It's been overcast and damp in Ventura, but it was sunny and in the 90's in Lancaster.

Friday 30 July 2010
Friday - No work at the client's office - their server is offline. So it goes, midday on a workday. Their IT department is not very impressive, but it is a small organization, perhaps they don't pay for the overtime to do it outside of normal office hours.




I have complained, at length, about the noise from the apartments near my boat slip. Because of the recession some slips opened up well away from the apartments, but nearer to the restaurant. The restaurant, it turns out, is CLOSED, so I made a trial at getting in/out of the slips there.

They gap between the separate docks is perhaps sixty feet. I wasn't sure I could turn the full keel NorSea sharply enough, at a very low speed, to get in, but it turned out to be fairly straight forward. I practiced on my original slip, with lots of room, until I though I could do it for real. Use about 750 RPM, start the turn with a helm hard over about three slips early - 50' perhaps - go to neutral just after starting the turn, a bit of reverse when lined up, and you are in.

After a few trials, in and out, I sailed out to Gloria, an oil well platform, and back. It was nice to get outside the breakwater again, though it's been long enough that I fouled up several basic maneuvers (right in front of a Coast Guard Cutter, too). But, like riding a bike, it comes back to you, and it was a lot of fun crashing about in the afternoon breeze. A small pod of dolphins dived under the boat at one point, which was neat.

I tied up at the new slip, rinsed the deck and sails, and the evening was relatively quiet - a bit of noise from a restaurant across the water, but not bad. Far better than the barking dogs and drunks in the slip back near the apartments!

Thursday 29 July 2010

Thursday - working on this and that, not a lot to say.



My apple tree in Lancaster has its fruit is infected with, apparently, Codling Moths. The apples have bugs in them, and are rotting and falling off the tree before it even ripens. These are the classic "worm in the apple" pests. Bah. I'll have to figure out how to protect the tree for next year.



Book #52 was The Fuller Memeorandom, by Charles Stross. This is another in his "Laundry" series, and written/plotted much the same as the others. We learn more about Bob (the protagonist) and his boos, Angleton (too much, IMHO, a mystery is more fun left mysterious), and the impending invasion of horrors from beyond time-and-space is (temporarily) thwarted.

Fun, though as with most British authors, he can't help taking swipes  at the United States and its non-lefty attributes. It is odd, given the Orwellian & fascist police state that Britain is becoming, but that is a lefty for you. Sauce for the goose is not the same as sauce for the gander.

This book was a Kindle download, to the app on my Motorola Droid. You can, it turns out, use a Droid to read a book. It's slow, but once you get used to the paragraph-at-a-time view and the tap to page it's almost like reading a paperback.

Wednesday 28 July 2010

Wednesday - down to work. I left late, and ran into several slowdowns and traffic stops on the freeways. The last was a half hour stop, engine off, while firefighters cleared a car fire on the freeway ahead.

It was only a short ways ahead, and of course the thought that passes through one's mind is "Why didn't I leave home two minutes earlier? I'd have been past before the freeway was shut down."

But that's sort of an Appointment in Samarra type of thought. Perhaps when the fire started the minivan swerved - and I'd have been in that lane. Or perhaps I would have stopped to help and been severely burned. Likely I would have been fine, but one never knows...

Tuesday 27 July 2010

Tuesday - did a bit of work at home, and smogged the Explorer. Still not feeling 100%. I probably shouldn't have done all that work on Sun and Mon. Oh well.

I had intended to change out the spark plugs, but after looking at the stuff in the way on the right side of the engine, didn't. It's probably not as bad as the old Pontiac's which called for removing the engine to change the plug, but there is certainly a lot of stuff there. I am going to take it in to the mechanic to get the cooling system flushed anyway, and a new serpentine belt put on it, so I'll ask him to change out the plugs at the same time. It's just about 200,000 miles, and time for a little TLC.

Even without the new plugs it passed, though I should look at the report to see by how much.

Later: It passed with flying colors, actually. The worst reading was the NO, where it measured 239 out of an allowable 761 at 25mph. Not too bad. At 15mph it was only 93 out of an allowable 508.

Monday 26 July 2010

Monday - finished moving the forty bags of sand and gravel out of the explorer. My back hurts.

Sunday 25 July_2010

Sunday - Feeling a bit better, did a selection of yard chores, including buying a lot of base and sand for placing those pavers I bought a couple of years ago.



Book #51 was  Blown Away, by Herb Payson. This was an interesting and well written story about a family sailing to the South Pacific in the late 1970's and early 1980's. It's episodic - most of the book was originally articles Herb sold to sailing magazines I suspect, but that adds a bit to the charm. One can dip into the book at any point and laugh at Herb's hapless antics. Herbs written several other books, I've read them (or parts of them) before.


Picture of the Week
Cayucos beach, with pier


Photo Notes: The beach at Cayucos, looking north from about 7th street.

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