StarPlath – Chapter 2 Canada or Bust!!!

8/14/2019 StarPlath Chapter 2 Canada or Bust!!!

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StarPlath Chapter 2

Canada or Bust!!!

July 17, 2009

Before we can head to Canada, we have to get the boat ready. We have a 2 year old boat andwe keep wondering if the boat will ever be truly ready. So somehow we spent January throughApril getting ready and when you live in Mexico, that means lots of trips to San Diego forparts and then trips to Ensenada where the boat is waiting to get ready! This is beginning tosound a George Carlin script but first

Christmas Family Portrait

I forgot to share our annual Christmas photos. Every year I try to come up with some kind of funhat or mask for this event. So herere our 90 year old moms all decked out (my mom and Libby

my sister-in-laws mom) Im sure their sense of humor is what keeps them young. We werelaughing so hard the photo barely got taken!!!

Not to be missed is the photographers portrait in his wrestling pose. And to think HomelandSecurity gave him a SENTRI pass to get into the US easily!!!


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The Frustrated Plumber

We have to basically be our own little city when youre not connected to the land we have agenerator for power, a water maker that makes ocean water into potable water, garbage storage,sewage treatment, etc. Everything has to be in working order or youre going to die (notliterally unless the water maker fails when you are a week from land and have used all the wateron board).

So Lance tries to keep everything ship shape because if the boat relied on me for fixing things

wed be sunk! For those who dont know, Lance and his dad Ed were catfish farmers when Imet them. These were in the days of aquaculture (circa 70s) but this was no ordinary fish farm.These were above ground tanks (picture giant aquariums) and the farm pumped 55 milliongallons of water a day through large filtration systems to put things in perspective, at the time,the city of Denver pumped the same amount of water per day. So to say Lance is a good plumberis to understate his ability and because of this background, he likes to fool with plumbing. Andon a boat or in a motor home, plumbing also includes the septic system (isnt that a pleasantthought that you get to drag around your septic system everywhere you go I call that an ickythought).


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Our system originally included a direct overboard capability so you can figure out what thatmeans. Waste could either go to the holding tank or overboard. Our first intimate knowledgeof how this worked came in Avalon on Catalina Island on our very first StarPlath adventure. Itwas Thanksgiving week and we were so excited to finally be using the boat. Unfortunately, I hadone of the worst colds I can remember but we had planned the trip and I figured I wouldnt feel

any better if I stayed home. On Thanksgiving Day, the harbor police came aboard to check ourplumbing. They do this by dropping dye tablets in your toilet and then flushing. If no colorcomes out into the bay, youre OK and thats what happened. No color and the harbor policewent away. About 3 hours later Lance was flushing the toilet and all of a sudden we have threeharbor police boats surrounding us and the entire bay is bright yellow under our boat. Im still inmy PJs because I feel so rotten. Im my usual calm self and start screaming for Lance to get upto the salon and talk to these guys. Theyre now on board and Im on the phone to James, oursalesman, screaming our brand new boat is broken! Lance and the harbor police cannot figureout what the problem is hes convinced them that the overboard valve is not in the overboardposition. I, in the meantime, keep screaming our boat is broken and when not screaming, I amcoughing and sounding like Typhoid Mary these police could not get away from me and off

our boat fast enough. Now any boater that goes to Avalon knows the worst sin in the world is todischarge into the bay. They have banned boaters for life and fined them $1,000+. The nextmorning, one of the harbor police boats shows up again and we go out to greet him figuring thisis when we get the bill and the ban. All he says is what happened yesterday didnt happen andsped off!!! For once I think my being so calm paid off.

It turned out that the valve was in the direct overboard position and we were just too new withthe boat to know it. Guess we had polluted the entire ocean from Dana Point to Catalina. By nowwere paranoid about the direct overboard valve. And now that the boat is 2 years old, theplumbing is started to smell at times. Lance has a very sensitive nose for bad smells (hes one ofthose that smells something bad and wants to share it with me by saying smell this itshorrible and I usually decline). So now Lance is focusing on the bad smells and driving me nutssniffing the holding tank area. He starts researching on the Internet and finds the website for thehead mistress as she calls herself. She has spent her career studying marine toilets (or heads)and thus her nickname now theres a career for you. Her recommendation was to use adifferent type of hose and so Lance tears all the hoses out and re-plumbs the system. And whilehe was at it he eliminated the direct overboard capability. So now we never have to fear anaccident!!!

Getting the Bottom Painted

The bottom of the boat has to be repainted every 2 to 3 years so we decided to have it done inEnsenada at Baja Naval which has a wonderful reputation. To do this they obviously have tohaul the boat out of the water. This is really scary to watch so we invited Miles, our neighbor, tocome down and watch this with us. There are horror stories of boats breaking the sling or fallingout of the sling and being demolished right in front of the owners! As a matter of fact this justhappened to a brand new 56 motorsailer that Nordhavn was getting delivered in San Diego. Thelongshoremen require that they unload the boat from the ship it was on and one of the operatorsraised his side too much and the boat dropped 40 onto the ships deck and then into the water. Itsank in 30 minutes. The boat was a total loss. Heres a picture that shows where the termsinking feeling must have come from!


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Fortunately, Nordhavns insurance covered the loss and the owner has been able to buy anotherone so their cruising plans werent ruined and later they can trade for their own new one whenits finished. Nordhavn is one classy company!

So here we are watching with awe and keeping our fingers crossed. Since the guys are smilingwere still doing OK.


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This is the sophisticated block system that our 50,000 pound boat will rest on!!!!


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And these dinky little supports didnt give us a lot of comfort

The boat looks really BIG when its out of the water!


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Were all smiling now. These are the guys that took it out of the water a scary job!

Dinghy Davits

When youre in Canadian waters (unlike the open ocean), youre putting around to little islandsand anchoring from shore for the most part. Your dinghy is great for taking you to shore forhikes, Tavie walks, etc. But getting our dinghy off the top of our boat is a Keystone Kopsroutine. The thing is heavy (350 pounds) and the boom thats holding it has to be steadied soyoure trying to hang on to the dinghy to keep it from spinning and at the same time youre

having to tighten or loosen lines with your other hand and someone has to man the remote for thewench, etc. Then when it gets to a certain level, I have to run down to the stern to guide it pastthe paravanes. So you can visualize what a hassle it is. And then you go through the reverse toget it back on the boat. It takes 45 minutes to get it off and about 30 minutes to put it back up. Soalmost everyone has dinghy davits in the Northwest. They are attached to the back of the boatand the dinghy can then be deployed with very little effort. So Lance the engineer starts drawingplans. It took him about 3 tries and the drawing looked like a mini-Eiffel Tower. Through BajaNaval we found the best dinghy davit maker in Ensenada (and maybe one of the best in theworld). Allejandro who speaks very little English works out of a shack and has no formaltraining but hes incredibly bright and self taught. He could read Lances engineering drawingwhich I could not. He then went to the boat with the drawing in hand and caught a mistake in

Lances drawing. We were extremely impressed because it required visualizing how the davitswould work. Anyway, we are using them everyday up here and we probably wont put thedinghy back on the boat until our summer cruising is finished.


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Eric & Christi & Kosmos

One of the benefits of traveling by boat is that you get to meet so many interesting people andEric and Christi onKosmos are two of them. They are very young and had a dream to go aroundthe world on a boat. And they did it!!! You can read their blogs athttp://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/So on one of our trips down to the marina in Ensenada, we saw a43 Nordy parked next to us and it wasKosmos. They were now less than 60 miles from

completing their trip (they left from San Diego). So we got to visit with them and hear some ofthe stories first hand. What an amazing feat! Congrats to them

The Car to Morro Bay

If youre lucky in life you get to meet some really unselfish people and getting the car to MorroBay involved 4 of them so were very lucky indeed. I had mentioned in my last chapter that wemet Jeff and Kathe in Morro Bay. Jeffs a retired veterinarian but he retired very young. He has a40 trawler similar to our boat. He would come and visit while we were moored at the Morro
http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/%20http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/%20http://kosmos.liveflux.net/blog/%20


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Bay Yacht Club when we were there last fall. He had made the trip to Seattle twice and actuallysaid that if we ever needed crew to take the boat north, hed go. Im sure hes still regretting thisoff-hand remark because we decided to take him up on it. It can get really rough starting inNorthern California and Tavie and I hate rough!!!

So the decision was that I would help Lance get the boat to Morro Bay and then Jeff would geton board and Id continue north in the car. So I had to get the car to Morro Bay to Jeffs houseand then get myself back to Ensenada. I drove to Morro Bay and my cousin Pauline came andhad lunch with me. Shes the Cairn breeder responsible for the love of our life (Tavie) and livesnear Morro Bay. She then followed me up to Jeffs house so I could drop the car off and then shetook me to San Luis Obispo so I could rent a car (she drove about 60 miles in all). I then left thecar at Jeff and Kathes house.

Now Im on my way back to Ensenada and in keeping with my usual boring life, I was checkinginto the La Quinta in Sherman Oaks (or somewhere in that area). A young man from Oklahomawas checking in ahead of me. Suddenly, the building felt like a Mac truck had hit the back of the

building and then the shaking started. The clerk and I both knew we had just felt an earthquakebut the kid from Oklahoma was in shock. I was sure it was a huge magnitude by the feel of it - itturned out to only be a 4.5 BUT its epicenter was one mile from where I was!

My original plan was to drive the rental to Chula Vista, take the trolley to the border crossing inTijuana and then a Mexican bus from Tijuana to Ensenada. And then steps in our 4th goodSamaritan, Miles, who came and picked me up in Chula Vista (about 70 miles for him).

So thanks to Jeff, Kathe, Pauline and Miles for helping us get this trip started!!!

Lance Plums His Face

One week before we plan on leaving, Lance needed to have a face peel. The doctor assured himit was much easier than the one he had had 3 years ago. He also had to have a basal cell cancerremoved from his arm. Well, the peel turned out to be much worse than his earlier one. He wasmiserable and looked the color of a deep red plum and puffy like a plum. He was so miserablethat all he could do was sleep so I was madly scrambling to get all the food and clothes ready.Then he was supposed to have the 10 stitches removed from his arm in two weeks. Since wewere going to be at sea, I was supposed to be the remover more on that later. Fortunately, aftera week he was feeling better and so we left pretty much on schedule.

Tavie

Whats a StarPlath chapter without a picture of Tavie? Well, here she is getting in the mood for asummer of plundering the high seas!


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Thats all for now. The next exciting adventure will finally find us actually heading to Canada!!!Know you are all waiting with anticipation for the next chapter. Did they make it?

Smooth sailing on land and sea,StarPlath Crew (Lance, Stephanie & Tavie)

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StarPlath – Chapter 2 Canada or Bust!!!