6 March 2101 East Side, Isla San Francisco 24.8293N 110.5667W
Isla San Francisco Picassa Pictures
Last night was calm, but early in the morning we heard little flick flicks of water against the hull, which turned into flap, flaps then FLOP FLOPs. You can tell a south wind is coming way before there’s any change of the wind here. The water sends it’s Braille alert ahead of time, but reading Braille, I hear, takes some practice, and it’s easy at four in the morning to sleep right through a Braille alert till you’re practically tossed out of bed by the waves. Ultimately the signals will not be ignored. So at the crack of dawn we heave-hoed on the chain and hauled in the anchor and made our way around to the other side of this island – well, the windlass heave-hoed; I just stepped the button, there was a time when we did the heave-hoing on our anchor (well, we…Frank) I don’t think we (all of us we) could manage hauling in the anchor without a mechanical assist given our current ground tackle. There’s probably a math equation in there – the weight of 75# of anchor plus 10 feet of 7/16 inch chain and another 50-200 feet of 1/2 inch chain (depending on how deep we anchor), plus resistance of water and the anchoring medium (sand or rock), but we already finished math today. Motors, pulleys, and a wide variety of other mechanical devices have given us the lives of kings and pharaohs. We have motors to raise the anchor, to produce energy from the wind, to cool the icebox(es), to process our poo, to grind our coffee, and even to brush our teeth (apologies for the inappropriate proximity of those phrases). We use pulleys and winches to raise and trim the sails, to load and unload the dinghy and outboard, and to send Logan to his new favorite place. Not much gets done on board without a mechanical assist of some kind, it beats having to feed and whip slaves to do the job for you, but it does come with it’s own challenges; we are now only limited by our own ingenuity (or more accurately, Frank’s ingenuity) to come up with the variety of fixes that mechanical solutions ultimately require. I say this as Frank just emerged from another aromatherapy session in the engine room – it’s sauna-like environment augments the special odors stored there, diesel fumes and special of the day our own eau de toilette. If there were a plumber in the anchorage, we’d happily hire him, although we’d probably have to press him into service. There’s a job, the captain has found no volunteers for. And it’s a job that won’t be ignored. Lots about this life won’t be ignored, especially anything to do with our sewage system. Today we (the we-Frank we) are trying to discover why the backflow preventer on our sewage zapper, randomly stops preventing backflow. Where’s the cat-o-nine tails when you need it. We officially have a good excuse for another shore party. Land-Ho.
Later!