Journal Entries

August 2007

28 June - I am slowly getting my anchor setup completed and today I replaced the rusty old shackles and swivel. It's pretty scary that I've been relying on the existing swivel. You can see from the photo below that they were way overdue for replacing. I take the approach that anything to do with anchoring can't be too big. Unfortunately I'm limited to the small shackle since the pin needs to go through the chain. The shackle does however have a working load of 1.5 tonne. This is definitely the weak link in the anchor setup.

I also had to get the engine sorted and I started to remove all the old oil lines for replacement. Unfortunately I didn't have a socket set onboard and I had to buy a new set. I'm very proud of my new socket set which I got on special for $25.00 at the local hardware store. I saw this set for double the price elsewhere. I'm told Stanley is a reasonably good brand and made by Sidchrome. I feel very blokey now.

I immediately put the socket set to good use and although the engine is very accessible on a Westsail I would have preferred to be double jointed or a midget to access some of the pieces. I was trying to get a nut undone right underneath the engine and it was taking forever and driving me CRAZY!!!

The object in the photo below is the oil cooler. When I tried to remove the oil lines from it there was some flexing in the walls. I think it's fairly corroded and I'm trying to source a new one.

Cutty is not yet trained to work on the engine (although she would have as much idea as I do) and she sat up on deck patiently looking down on me in the engine bay.

Here she is with one of her favourite toys. This fluffy bone has a squeaky thing inside and she chomps down on it continuously for up to 1/2 an hour at a time. The constant squeaking gets a bit monotonous but I'm figuring she will get over it at some point or the squeaky thing will wear out.

Just me and my girl.

3 August - Cutty was due to get her second lot of vaccination shots today. We had to go to a vet in New Farm which is about a 30-40 minute walk from the city. I thought it would be a good idea to stop at the dog park on the way to give Cutty a good run. There were a few other dogs there including a nice boxer. Cutty is surprisingly rough when she plays with other dogs. Portuguese Water Dogs are not as delicate as they appear and since they are traditional working dogs they are quite strong. Here she is giving the boxer a bit of a rough up.

After the park we went to the vet and she didn't even notice that he stuck a needle in her. We walked back to the city via some local markets where I had a coffee and a bite to eat while Cutty slept for a while. It was a big day for her today.

8 August - If you have been reading my ship's journal for a while you will have realised I have an obsession with anchoring. Ok, I admit it, I have anchor issues. There I said it. Yes, I like to know that this yacht is going to stay put when I need it to. I now have 4 anchors onboard. I have read that the old admiralty style anchors provide excellent penetration of rocky or weedy bottoms where CQR/Plough and Bruce anchors have problems. This is the anchor of choice in places like Tasmania and colder waters. I have been looking for some time but the regular admiralty anchors available seem to have a weak spot. They are generally welded at the end of the shank and this bothers me. My new anchor doesn't have this problem since it is solid cast bronze. It is a 70lb work of art.

I haven't been able to establish its history yet but it has the markings "CLH 1953" in raised lettering and stamped into the shaft is "23/3/1953" being the day it was cast. It also has the weight 70lb and an admiralty diamond shape. It's really quite a piece and like nothing I have seen before. I was very fortunate to come across this anchor as it's been in storage for over 50 years and has never been used. I would be very grateful if anyone can provide any information on it or suggestions about its origin. Unfortunately it doesn't have the stock but this will not be difficult to have made.

11 August - I had many things to do today and Cutty and I set off early to the chandlery to check out some LED lighting and a water pump. On the way I also wanted to stop off at the Maritime Museum in Brisbane to see if I could get any clues as to the bronze anchor mystery.

I spoke to a couple of people at the museum but none of them could shed any light on the question.

There are some interesting items at the museum including this tiny yacht which sailed out from Canada. It's only about 8ft long. I will never again complain of not having enough room onboard El Viajero.

This old pearling lugger named "Dolphin" is also on display. I love the old working boats and if I were to have another boat I think I would go for something like this. It served some time in WWII when it was converted to do some patrol work up in Papua New Guinea.

Note the admiralty anchor on the front. It's not Bronze!

This is the old dry dock once used for servicing boats in the Brisbane river. The boat in the foreground is an old beacon light boat and in the background is a decommissioned navy ship.

After having no success at solving the mystery of the bronze anchor we continued on our way to the chandlery. It was a fairly long walk and Cutty was indicating she could do with a rest. Her way of indicating is to simply flop on the ground. This can be inconvenient especially if crossing a road. I found a nice comfortable spot on a seat overlooking the river and gave her a rest. I am sure she was thinking, "Why do you make me walk so far?"

We took a scenic detour on the way home and cut through the mangrove forest pathway. It was apparently a good spot for another rest and Cutty again made the most of it.

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13 August - What a hectic week! We were heading down to the Gold Coast this weekend and I needed to get lots of things done before I left since I wouldn't be back till Monday night. I did all my washing, checked the lines on the boat and finally got everything ready by 11pm Saturday night.

It's now Monday afternoon and I had a bit of running around to do. There was a place out at Manly I wanted to visit to try to pick up some bits for the boat. It was such a beautiful Queensland winters day and I took the opportunity to have a relaxing lunch by the water. There is a little cafe/kiosk at the end of the Manly jetty and it's a great place to sit and watch the yachts come and go. I had also had an urgent call from the office and needed to attend to some emails. You have to love technology. Here is my working lunch (fish burger) and my temporary office by the water.

After lunch we took a walk down to the dock and sat in the sun for a while.

Cutty is just the cutest dog ever!

We finally got home and despite having a few dramas with the dinghy (which I left tied to the dock for the weekend) it was good to be home.

I recently fitted some new LED lights and they just weren't bright enough and were very blue/white in colour which is a bit harsh on they eyes. They were a very small cluster of only 6 LED's and although they do only draw .05 of an amp I wasn't completely happy with them. The technology is improving all the time and I just fitted some new LED lamps. These have 48 superbright LEDs and draw .3 of an amp. They are excellent and as bright as my old fluorescent lamps. Below are some pictures of the new lamps.

I'm not a fan of the plastic, silver covers but I have an idea about making them more fitting with the rest of the interior.

and in the dark

Since we were at Manly and fresh fish is readily available I bought Cutty a big leather jacket to have for dinner. Fish is traditionally a staple part of the Portuguese Water Dog's diet since they were onboard fishing boats.

The breeder advised me that these dogs love to eat fish and to feed whole fish. I was initially very concerned about fish bones but based on her re-assurances and the fact she has had many Portuguese Water Dogs I now feed Cutty whole fish. She seems to really enjoy it.

One big fish, going...

Going...

Gone...

What about that little yellow fin?

19 August - It's raining! Things are a little bit wet right now and I'm having to cope with ferrying things back and forth in the rain. Today was a busy day. Hit the markets early for our usual breakfast. Cutty polished off 3 pork tenderloins and I managed 2 apple turnovers and a coffee. If I'm not careful I'm going to start growing as quickly as Cutty who has doubled in size.

After the markets I did all my laundry and a few odd jobs which needed doing. After last weekend I needed to get another dinghy. Inflatables in the city are just too much of a temptation for drunken idiots. Several have been slashed, let down or just stolen so I have bought myself a little hard fibreglass dinghy. It's not particularly stable and takes a bit of getting used to. I'd definitely prefer an inflatable but this will do while I'm here in the city and the drunks are around. I'll post some photos of it soon as I'm making a few modifications.

A few days ago I was sitting on deck and saw a man in the park by the river with a camera taking lots of photos. He would wait for a girl to jog past and go into a photo frenzy. He was like the sleazy version of the paparazzi. These poor girls would run past and he would be running after them calling out something and snapping shots madly. He was clearly a bit retarded but I thought I'd get a few shots of him just in case he decided to do more than photograph the girls. My little digital camera has a decent zoom on it, but not nearly enough to be able to identify this guy. I was observing him through my binoculars and thought why not try a photo through the binoculars. So you can see from the photos below that this actually works quite well. I thought I'd post it as a useful photography tip.

Below is a photo using the standard camera. He is sitting on the seat with his camera pointed at a girl who had just run past.

Below is a photo through the binoculars as he goes stalking more joggers.

I'm watching him, watching them... I wonder if someone was watching me?

So, back to my Sunday. Cutty was exhausted after running back and forth in the rain. She has a little teddy bear which she sleeps with and she knows that Teddy is to be looked after. She chews on him for ages but never hard enough to cause any damage. I think she just mouths him. Each night when she goes to bed I say, "Where's Teddy?" and she looks around and finds him, picks him up and takes him to bed.

Tonight she was playing with Teddy and fell asleep on the sofa. I just had to get a photo, this was not staged, she actually sleeps like this. Quite often if I'm sleeping next to her she will put her arm on me or rest her head on or near me. She is so sweet.

21 August - I often think about how sad it is that society is now so artificial and everything is about image and glamour. I think back to the time I was married to a girl who would practice her "hollywood smile" in the mirror. I'm not sure why she did this, perhaps she thought one day she would be famous and it may be an essential skill to have.

Tonight I checked the internet for the top news stories. They are as follows:-

1. Mary Kostikidis walks out on SBS - This is a story about a news reader who is apparently angry about her co-anchor getting to present the good stories. There is talk about her taking legal action for compensation;

2. Dwarf get penis stuck in vacuum cleaner - This is a story about ...... a dwarf who gets his penis stuck in a vacuum cleaner;

I'm so glad I keep up to date with the news.

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25 August - The weather this past week has been pretty awful. The only positive is that we desperately neeed the rain. The wind has been blowing each day and night at up to 30 knots. I would not like to be out of the river for this weather. The other positive is that the torrential rain has allowed me to give the exterior of the boat a good scrub. Everything was pretty filthy since water is restricted due to the drought and it's been probably close to a year since I gave the exterior a good scrub and hose down with a brush. Now the teak decks are sparkling once again.

This is the view outside.

It's days like these that I feel like putting the heater on, laying back and reading a good sailing book. Since I have too much to do I decided to make a very unhealthy breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup (hey, blueberries are high in anti oxidants) and then put my wet weather gear on and take Cutty for a long walk to New Farm.

The problem with self sufficiency is that when the sun goes, electricity from the solar panels also disappears. If I had my wind generator (which is coming at some point soon) power would not have been an issue this past week and it has only really become an issue due to the need to run my laptop for work which draws up to 5 amps.

The boat has 2 banks of batteries. Bank No. 1 has 300 amp hours. Bank number 2 has 100 amp hours and is a high cranking amps starter battery used solely for starting the motor. I have a link 20 monitoring system which is very useful. You can see from the photo below that:

a. "Bat 1" selects which battery bank to monitor. In this instance bank No. 1 is being monitored.

b. "V" indicates that the voltage of the selected bank is currently "12.65" volts.

c. The two orange lights at the top left indicate that the battery is getting low. This value can be set to whatever you choose. In my case I have set it at 60%.

The lighted "A" indicates that "3.2" amps is being put into the battery bank.

The lighted "Ah" indicates that "113.2" amp hours have been removed from the battery bank. This photo was taken later in the day and you will notice that the two orange lights have now turned green and there are now 3 bars. This simply means the battery capacity has increased due to charge input.

This photo was also taken a bit later in the day and the sun was making a brief appearance. You can see now that 7.4 amps are being put into the battery bank. Notice in this photo and the one above that the battery bank 2 has dropped one green bar. This is because I had switched over to using battery bank No.2 to allow as much charge into battery bank No.1.

At the end of the day I have gained some charge capacity. I have now only used 100.8 amps from the battery bank. That's not a bad gain considering it's been raining and overcast all day (with the exception of the brief period when I was getting 7.2 amps).

and finally a journal entry wouldn't be complete without a picture of Cutty. Here she is being most un lady like. She now weighs 12 kilos.

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26 August - What a morning. I slept in till almost 8am and awoke to the church bells of the city cathedral. I looked outside and it there was sunshine. Finally the week of rain had passed and the city had come to life again. People were walking along the river bank and the birds were chirping. I was determined to get things tidied up on deck and make the most of the day. Cutty was looking very excited as if she knew that I had no excuse not to take her for a run today. We got organised and it was off to the market for our usual Sunday breakfast. Cutty knows Bill the butcher now and I'm sure she knew we were headed to see him as she was pulling me along straight toward his store.

After breakfast it was back to the boat to tidy up. My good zodiac inflatable has been sitting up on deck since I had to use it to retrieve my other inflatable a couple of weeks ago when it was let down. I towed it to the dock so I could give it a wash down, let it dry then pack it away since I don't want it stolen, slashed, let down, urinated on, set adrift, set on fire or whatever else some idiot decides would be fun. Here it is sitting on the dock drying.

In the background is the inflatable floor. This is a really nice dinghy and extremely stable. I have a 5hp yamaha outboard which just isn't powerful enough. The ideal size outboard for this would be 8hp and I may eventually upgrade.

I'm getting to appreciate my new tough fibreglass dinghy more each day. I plan to use it without an outboard and hopefully the rowing will be reasonable exercise. I'm making notes of how to improve it. As you can see from the photos below I have already fitted some small stainless steel padeyes and tied inflatable fenders to the sides to protect it from the mass of other boats at the dock. Hopefully after a few months of use I will figure out what would make the ideal tender. It has built in flotation in the seats but I think it would be hard pressed transporting two adults in anything other than very calm water.

I got a phone call today from a friend who is up in Airlie Beach. He spotted a boat I had been really interested in before El Viajero came along. He spoke to the new owner who had only recently purchased it and learned that it had some type of foreign termite infestation. It cost $7,000 to have it fumigated and the government officials were all over it. In addition to the cost of fumigation it also needs some repairs since the termites have made a meal of it. Stories like this make me appreciate how easy it could be to buy a boat with major problems.

While I'm on the topic of pests, I was cleaning out the front locker today and noticed little piles of wood shavings. Having just been informed of the other boat with termites, my heart immediately sank. I traced it to one of the dorade vents and immediately recognised that a mouse had been there. It had been chewing on the timber and internal plastic dorade pipes. I haven't seen any other signs of a mouse though so I have no idea where he would be. I just hope he hasn't been chewing on inaccessible wiring. Looks like I have to have a mouse hunt.