A CELL PHONE ALTERNATIVE TO SATELLITE PHONES

If you often sail out of Cell Phone range a new blue tooth device can turn your cell phone into a text satellite phone.

"The motorola defy satellite link, is a Bluetooth device that provides satellite connectivity to any iOS or Android smartphone*, designed for anyone that has ever been frustrated by a lack of cell coverage – whether travelling or participating in outdoor activities, or just in their daily lives."

LABOR DAY AND THE SWITCH

 Usually I never leave  home port mooning on a holiday weekend here in the US. This year I decided to sail the three nautical miles sell to a nearby Harbor rent a mooring and just stay there for four days. I left a few days early to avoid the crowds.  It was a nice 3 hour sail despite the wind on the nose one tack got me to the next harbors entrance.

I had a mooring reservation through Dockwa for Friday through Tuesday. Since this was late in the afternoon on Thursday I decided to use one of the open moorings in the north west Mooring field  which is usually only used by the owners on the weekends. There are hundreds of empty moorings available during the week. Usually I maybe only one of three or four boats in the area.  This time there were at least 15 on moorings and at anchor nearby.  Seems like many more boaters want to get their last sails in before their unofficial summer ends.

In the morning I moved BIANKA to the mooring I rented for the weekend at the Yacht Club.

I enjoyed my stay on the Yacht Club mooring watching the other boats come and go. Listening to the VHF which had it's share of drama to report. An unfortunate fellow had a heart attack. But, there were medical personal including a Doctor and Nurse on other boats that helped render assistance. A Bayliner started taking on water outside the harbor and the six people on board had to be rescued. A disabled boat with no radio sent up a red flare in the harbor which caused quite a stir with the authorities. Then on Monday most of the boats started to leave by Monday night things
were very quiet.

I left on Tuesday morning and it was like a switch had been turned off. I passed no other boats leaving the harbor and only one or two on my journey back to BIANKA's home port. For many summer has ended but, it is still summer. Though the early sunsets and the chill in the evening are signs that Fall is knocking.

LONG ISLAND SOUND A FIELD GUIDE TO IT'S NATURE AND HISTORY

One of the great pleasures of being on board is to climb into the bunk on BIANKA with a good book. Usually it pertains to sailing or nature. My current read is a recently published book called A FIELD GUIDE TO LONG ISLAND SOUND by Patrick J. Lynch

It is a very informative book that encompasses all types of interesting information regarding the waters and shoreline of Long Island Sound. The book delves into the geological history of how the sound was formed. The various types of shorelines that borders the waters as well as the plants and animals that are part of it's ecology. It's a fascinating book and nicely illustrated with photos and maps. If you sail Long Island Sound as I do or are planning a visit to the area it is a great companion to many of the things you will see and places that you will visit. I recommend it.

OUT WITH THE OLD

I am still amazed that ten years after I converted to Electric Propulsion I still find items from BIANKA's diesel days around. The latest items were some MDR Diesel Water Zorb and a bottle of Valvtech Bio Guard. A reminder of just two of the ancillary items I use to carry on the boat to keep the old diesel engine running and are no longer needed once I converted BIANKA to electric propulsion.

What to do with these and other items I no longer have a need for on board BIANKA. I don't like to see anything end up in a landfill. The answer for me it is to donate them to a local nonprofit sailing organization. Their boat still has a diesel engine and can use these fuel tank additives. I previously donated an old Honda 650 generator to them and recently found the manual for it. I also donated a lightly used Brownies Third Lung Dive Hose Kit and a Add A Diver Kit . I only used the Hose Kit  a few times to clean the bottom of the boat. Because it required having a scuba tank on board that was heavy, took up space and needed to be refilled it was not as useful as I thought it would be. These items were on the boat and then sitting around the house for a decade or more. So with the coming of a new year it got me motivated  to finally get them out of the way. The end of the year is a good time for "out with the old and in with the new" type of thinking.

ERIC FORSYTH: An Inexplicable Attraction

There are few things I like better at the end of the day then to climb into my bunk on BIANKA with a good read. It just puts a nice finish to the day spent on board. The book I just started and am enjoying very much is An Inexplicable Attraction: My Fifty Years of Ocean Sailing by Eric Forsyth. Long before You Tube bought us the cruising video sailing stars like S/V Delos, La Vagabounde, Drake Paragon etc... There was Eric Forsyth sailing around the world on his Westsail 42. Which he purchased as a bare hull had it shipped across the country and spent several years turning it into the boat that would take him on voyages across oceans and into the Arctic and even through the Northwest Passage. Eric finds the voyage not the destination the fun part of his cruises. Though from what I have read so far he provides interesting tidbits of history in some of his stops too. 

I was happy to attend the book's release party since he lives not far away from me along with his boat FIONA's homeport. I purchased his book on KINDLE since BIANKA's bookshelves can no longer hold anymore books.  Unfortunately, the thing about buying books on Kindle is the author can not sign their manuscripts. But, I did the next best thing and had Forsyth hold my Kindle for a photo. 
At 83 years old Forsyth does not appear to be slowing down.  He is busy preparing for his next voyage. Perhaps not as challenging as some as his polar trips but, challenging enough for most sailors. Just a simple circumnavigation of the North Atlantic ocean. There was a map on the wall of the boat barn showing his planned route:

But, in reading his book often things don't go as planned. But, Forsyth and his crew are up to the challenges and that's what makes his book An Inexplicable Attraction: My Fifty Years of Ocean Sailing  such a good read. I'm enjoying it and recommend it.

IN MEMORIAM: ROBERT PIRSIG AUTHOR AND SAILOR

Robert Pirsig passed away recently he was 88 and the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance . He was also a sailor and lived on a sailboat for a number of years. He understood what cruising and being on a boat for longer than an afternoon sail was all about as this passage from him shows:

"...Those who see sailing as an escape from reality have got their understanding of both sailing and reality completely backwards. Sailing is not an escape but a return to and a confrontation of a reality from which modern civilization is itself an escape. For centuries, man suffered from the reality of an earth that was too dark or too hot or too cold for his comfort, and to escape this he invented complex systems of lighting, heating and air conditioning. Sailing rejects these and returns to the old realities of dark and heat and cold. Modern civilization has found radio, TV, movies, nightclubs and a huge variety of mechanized entertainment to titillate our senses and help us escape from the apparent boredom of the earth and the sun and wind and stars. Sailing returns to these ancient realities."-Robert Pirsig

Sail on Robert!

POSEIDON SPEAKS TO ME: Part Four

So it has finally come down to this. Because of the battery problem which delayed launch. Followed by the surprise of the failed EP Controller. These issues had pushed the idea of sailing even further out in the season. Yes, I could just replace the controller but, Dave at Annapolis Hybrid Marine said they no longer use that controller because several others had  surprise failures too. They are using a new controller but it requires a bigger enclosure box. He had one in stock and I could have swapped it out pretty quickly. But, I had other considerations to take into account. Namely a girlfriends beach vacation and a cruise to Bermuda for my grand nieces wedding reception that would take me away from the boat for additional weeks. I'd not be able to start to fix  things  until mid September. Since I'd probably be pulling the boat in mid October anyway it would not leave much time for sailing even if the weather cooperated. So I decided to scrap this sailing season and use BIANKA as my floating harbor home. I don't have to put the large sail up and I have plenty of projects to keep me busy. Plus I could jump over the side for a refreshing swim anytime. Actually, It's not a bad place to be. Perhaps Poseidon is right.

NOW THIS IS COOL!

Since I've recently retired I've been taking my time getting BIANKA ready for this years launch. Recent travels in the Keys and Bahamas have pushed things back a bit. The weather has also affected my plans. Speaking of the weather we have had a few days of temperatures in the mid 80 degree Fahrenheit range. Temperatures more common for mid August than late May or early June here on the Isle of Long. Needless to say it could get quite warm while working on the boat before any cooling afternoon sea breezes make it across the island.  Those conditions led me to an impulse buy of the Ergodyne Chill-Its Evaporative Cooling Towel . 

 I have to say this item really works well. The special fabric holds water quite well. You run it under some water until it becomes saturated. Ring it out a bit and drape it around neck and as the water evaporates it cools your body down quite nicely. When it  drys out in a few hours just repeat the process.  A simple idea that works on a hot day. I look forward to using it especially on a hot summer day when running with the wind and not having any breeze in the cockpit. It should make things much more comfortable.

HEADING FOR THE FALL

It's the last few days of summer though today it seems like fall has arrived a few days early. For the first time this season I covered my self with the goose down comforter in my bunk last night. This morning I put on my wool watch cap while having my morning coffee in the cockpit another first. The cool northwest wind is just another reminder that the sailing season here in the northeast is coming to an end soon. I also noticed that I have not seen an Osprey working the harbor in over a week. The sunsets are noticeably earlier too.  I'm just trying to figure where did the summer go? The good thing is I am getting a little more productive working on some of the projects that I thought I would have had finished by now. Why does it take until the end of the season to get things started? Perhaps because I spent most of the summer just enjoying being on BIANKA and that is not such a bad thing.

SEASON OF THE SWITCH

It's Labor Day here in the United States and the last day of a three day holiday weekend for many. It also can signify the end of the summer season for them. As of tomorrow vacations are over, the kids go back to school etc... Though according to the calendar here in this hemisphere summer does not end until around September 21st. But, there are many other ways to view the end of summer. Personally, I have a few hints that I use. One is when I no longer see an Osprey flying around the harbor searching for fish to eat. Once I notice that I know the summer season has come to an end. Another is when Nor'easters start making their way up the coast. I know then it's time to pull the boat and call it an end to this years sailing.
I'll be on the boat this Labor Day but, I won't leave the mooring. I'll let those who are cherishing this day as the last of their summer just enjoy the waters. I won't add to the congestion. I'll watch them come and go knowing that starting tomorrow there will be fewer and fewer boats out on the water. Anchorages will be empty and I'll enjoy them as my summer on board BIANKA will continue. Yes, tomorrow the waters will be less crowded as if someone has thrown a switch.

A MYSTERY OF THE SEA FINALLY ANSWERED THANKS TO BERNARD MOITESSIER

Back in the mid 1990's I was on a 88 foot double masted schooner called the Ocean Star sailing out of Key West. I was there as part of a seminar at sea training course learning about nautical things like celestial navigation, radar plotting, etc... We anchored in the Dry Tortugas and then headed south where the plan was to sail close enough to Cuba to be able to see the mountain peaks such as they were while working using our sun sights for navigation checks. The first night out while sailing nicely along at eight knots we started to notice glowing objects in the water all around the boat as we sailed. They were of various sizes though most were the size and shape like a football. None of those on board including the Captain and crew had ever seen such glowing objects before. Many of us were familiar with the bio luminescence phenomena we had seen in harbors and beaches. But, these objects were much bigger.

TIPS FOR THE GALLEY: Cooking Pasta

One of the staples I carry on board when cruising is various forms of pasta. I enjoy an occasional meal of pasta usually with my own homemade sauce. Problem with cooking pasta on board is the instructions say to start out with a big pot of boiling water. Something like four or five quarts. Water on board is precious commodity especially if you don't have a water maker. So is the fuel needed to boil the water. I came across this video which allows one to make pasta using only a little bit of water and fuel compared to doing according to the instructions on the box. Looks like a great technique to use on the boat:

NIGHT OF THE SUPER MOON

I'll be working for the month of July in Washington DC some two hundred and fifty miles from where BIANKA is moored. So I've only been able to be on board on the weekends, But, I have been lucky last weekend I got to enjoy the fireworks that were postponed because of weather the night before. Tonight I got to enjoy the rising of a full moon. But, not just any full moon a super full moon. A moon noticeably larger than others due to it's proximity to the earth. I was not disappointed:

Though any full moon I observe when I'm on board BIANKA results in a pinch me moment and remembrance of this quote from the book The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles:

“Because we don't know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, an afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four, five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps 20. And yet it all seems limitless.”

It always reminds me to appreciate every full moon that I see.

LIFE ON A BOAT

People ask me what do you do all day when you are on the boat. I think this short documentary about David Welsford and his 28 foot Herreshoff designed Lizzy Bell really captures the feeling of what being alone cruising on a boat is about. Sure there are some differences between my 30 foot Nonsuch and his wooden boat as well as our lives. We also sail different latitudes and I do have refrigeration and only spend half the year on board at this point. But, his observations about living on a boat and about  living a sunrise to sunset lifestyle are spot on:

JOSHUA SLOCUM

  "I had resolved on a voyage around the world, and as the wind on the morning of April 24, 1895 was fair, at noon I weighed anchor set sail, and filled away from Boston, where the Spray had been moored snugly all winter. The twelve o'clock whistles were blowing just as the sloop shot ahead under full sail. A short board was made up the harbor on the port tack, then coming about she stood to seaward, with her boom well off to port, and swung past the ferries with lively heels. A photographer on the outer pier of East Boston got a picture of her as she swept by, her flag at the peak throwing her folds clear. A thrilling pulse beat high in me. My step was light on deck in the crisp air. I felt there could be no turning back, and that I was engaging in an adventure the meaning of which I thoroughly understood."  - Sailing Alone Around the World

NEVER GET OFF THE BOAT

"Never get off the boat!" are the words spoken by the patrol boats cook in the movie  Apocalypse Now. Always good advice.  The following video shows why. It was taken during the recent Clipper Race and shows how difficult it can be to get a person back on board even with a number of crew available to help. Imagine how difficult it would be with one or two people on board:

WHO NEEDS A CREW WHEN YOU'VE GOT SOME ARTIFICIAL MUSCLE ON BOARD

I do most of my sailing solo on board BIANKA. Not that I don't mind having other people on board. It's just that my boat is so easy to sail that most of the time the crew is sitting around drinking my beer and gobbling down snacks. Then you have to have to also extra provisions, water etc... to feed them and that adds up.  I can usually balance my rudder under good conditions and don't need really to use to use the autohelm on most cruises. Though I have been thinking of building a home brew wind vane steering system for the boat too. Recently I came upon an article where some scientist have come up with an artificial muscle. Much stronger than human muscles and to make things even more interesting it was made from simple everyday materials. The researches started thinking they would use some esoteric nano tube technology but, discovered that some common yarn and fishing line actually works quite well:

"To create the artificial muscles, the researchers twisted the fishing line to create a muscle that turns like a rotor and can spin. That creates a torsional, or twisting, muscle that can spin a rotor to more than 10,000 revolutions per minute, notes UT Dallas.

Extra twisting, to the point where the fishing line looks like a “heavily twisted rubber band,” creates a type of muscle with greater contraction than a human muscle. Twisting the fishing line the opposite way creates an artificial muscle that expands.

According to Ray Baughman, director of the NanoTech Institute, twisting a few strands of fishing line can create a muscle that lifts 16 pounds while bundles that are designed like a muscle, containing 100 of these small fishing line muscles, can lift up to 1,600 pounds." -IBT

Just by using a little heat via a wire woven into the yarn fishing line cloth makes the artificial muscle expand and contract as show in the video:



Here is another video showing the simplicity of making the basic building block of the artificial muscle using the fishing line:



It got me thinking using some of this artificial muscle would come in handy on board for operating winches or moving the rudder as part of a wind vane steering system. Maybe also as part of an active anchor  snubber system or self adjusting dock lines. Various pumps from bilge to head might also be areas where these could be placed into use.  The fact that it uses common everyday materials such as yarn and fishing line makes it even more appealing. Something to keep ones eye on.

PETE SEEGER'S LEGACY A SAILOR'S APPRECIATION

"What can a song do? What can a sailboat do? Some would say music exists just to soothe or distract people from their troubles. Some say sailboats are just rich men’s toys. Wrong, wrong. In the summer of 1969 they helped to start cleaning up a river." -Pete Seeger

Pete Seeger passed away earlier this week at the age of 94. I think of him often when I take BIANKA sailing on the Hudson River. Usually it might for a just few days to spend some time enjoying one of my favorite anchorages near Hook Mountain. But, I have also taken my boat on up the river all the way up to Albany when I sailed my boat into Canada for a Nonsuch Rendezvous back in 2002. To me Pete Seeger's legacy will always be his efforts to raise awareness and money in efforts to clean up the Hudson through his help in founding  of the Clearwater organization in 1966. The efforts of he and others have paid off so much that the Hudson River known as  America's River because of it's place in history is considerably cleaner today than it was just a short time ago. So much so that people including me can once again swim in it's refreshing waters.  One of his major efforts was helping to raise money to build the CLEARWATER a 106 foot gaff rigged replica of a Hudson River sloop. The type of sailing vessel  that plied the Hudson in the 1800's. I often come across it sailing in my cruises to New York and elsewhere.

I'm sure that like the Hudson River every time I see the CLEARWATER from now on from the cockpit of BIANKA I'll always remember Pete Seeger and the efforts of he and others in helping to clean up one of America's most beautiful waterways and start singing one of Pete Seeger's tunes about the Hudson River.

Tweet

How Can I Keep from Singing?: The Ballad of Pete Seeger

My Dirty Stream (The Hudson River Song)

Sailing Down My Golden River

DIGITAL WATERS: Using the ACER C720 Chromebook

I am going to be traveling some place warm soon where my gal and I will be on board a forty five foot Catamaran and spending a part of the winter snorkeling, diving and just basically enjoying the warmth. Just like when I am on BIANKA these cruises unleash the creative juices and I wish I had my laptop with me to do some writing. I've been recently looking at the Google Chromebooks which are basically a light laptop that works primarily through the Internet . Not as full featured as a real desktop or laptop computer and does require access to a wifi connection in order to do a lot of things. But, it does come with a basic word processor and have some on board storage for documents in the solid state memory. It’s light and seems good for traveling. At around only two hundred bucks it seemed like a good thing to have even have as a backup to the laptop. So I bought one.

I choose an Acer C720 Chromebook
Both for price and the mostly favorable reviews. So far I am very happy with it and I’m doing everything I usually do with my laptop including writing this blog post. It boots up fast, much faster than the laptop and so far there have been none of those annoying updates and reboots that Bill Gates and company unleash on the digital world from time to time. So far so good though I have only been using it for about an hour.Acer C720 Chromebook

I took the above photo with my cell phone and downloaded it into the Chromebook and it loaded fast and looks as good as my laptop. I also went and checked out Active Captain:

Which is  another site I tend to use a lot when I am on cruising on the boat. Here too access was fast and graphics good. So as long as I have WIFI access which I can create easily with my cell phone acting as a modem. It looks like the Acer C720 Chromebook will work for me both when traveling and when on board BIANKA. I’ll post further remarks as I get to know it better but, the first two hours I’ve been able to make this blog post pretty painlessly. A good sign of things to come.

MOVIES FOR SAILORS: All Is Lost

Tweet

I had been looking forward to seeing this movie since I first heard about it being screened at the Cannes Film festival earlier this year. It takes a lot for me to become interested in going to see a movie especially in a theater. I subscribe to the notion that I will not be found on my death bed wishing I had spent more time watching movies, TV shows or playing video games or any other means by which many people seem to entertain themselves to death with these days. Time is precious and as one gets older one had better realize that and the sooner the better. From interviews with the films director J.C Chandor it seems that notion was also one of the reasons he wrote the movie. I also found it interesting that Chandor was inspired by seeing the boats stored for the winter that sailed during the summer in BIANKA's home waters of Long Island Sound as he explained in this article:

"It all started on a train in fall 2010. Writer-director J.C. Chandor found himself regularly commuting between Manhattan, where he was editing his first film, Margin Call, and Providence, R.I., where he lives with his wife and two young children. The tracks run along the coast of Connecticut, where he would see hundreds of boats -- not yachts, but more middle-class sailing vessels -- piled up on land for the winter. "There's sort of an absurdity of a boat on land," he remembers thinking.
At the same time, Chandor also found his thoughts revolving around questions of death -- and life. When he was 19, he survived a car accident that claimed the life of a friend. And during his early 30s -- when, he felt, he was letting his professional life slip by as he worked on music videos and commercials -- he witnessed the death of both his grandmothers. Suddenly, he says, "I had this tremendous energy about seizing the day, that every day has to be treated as a gift."- Hollywood Reporter

For me being on a boat intensifies those feelings of each day being a "gift" with every sunrise and sunset I see. But, it is not always fun either. I've been out in bad conditions a number of times when things stopped becoming "fun". Certainly not as bad as depicted in the movie but, miserable enough to be a learning experience. One thing you can say about the one and only character in ALL IS LOST played by a well weathered Robert Redford is that he is a "Jonah"  a sailor with an incredible amount of bad luck. But, experienced sailor's know that "stuff" happens when you're sailing and usually when you don't expect it. The movie highlights this by having events start to break bad for Redford's character on what would appear to be an otherwise beautiful day. That's the way it is sometimes on the water. The trick is to not panic and sometimes things are not as bad as it first appears as I have learned. But, the film also adds credence to the adage that the sea will find out everything you did wrong.

Chandor via Redford shows this side of sailing all pretty well too. Even as Redford's character meticulously assembles his survival supplies one mistake nearly cost him losing his all important water supply. He then had to improvise or die and that is just the way it is out on the water. The movie has several of these moments and also captures quite realistically what could happen as a sailboat and life raft are tossed about in storms. Including being rolled, dismasted and overturned. There are some things that would have made sense in real life situations that are missing in the film. For example to have an EPIRB beacon on board that would have made a rescue for Redford's more certain. But, not every sailor carries one (or wants to carry one) and they can certainly fail as most of his other technology on board did. My only major complaint is that one interior scene had entirely to much camera shaking that I found distracting. It looked more like Redford's character was in an earthquake rather than down below in a boat being pounded by waves. Otherwise I thought the film was a well done in that it realistically captured the things that can go wrong when one ventures out on the water in a boat and the lengths one may have to go through in order to survive. I give it the Captain Mike thumbs up.
Tweet

All Is Lost