Summer 2012 Wyoming, Columbia River and San Juans

At my last posting, Arcadia II was finally out of California after being delivered to Astoria. When it arrived, Will and I were travelling to meet Phyllis and head into the mountans of Wyoming for a grand camping reunion of my branch of the family tree. Phyllis and I, all three of my kids, 6 grandkids, two great-grandkids, along with  one daughter-in law and her parents, one granddaugher-in-law, my first wife, 4 really good friends and several dogs all camped in the Gros Ventre mountains, as we have done before. Its not hard to get there, but not many go. Nobody but us came anywhere near our campsite.

Here are Phyl and I, along with all my direct progeny resting after the long climb to what we call the "Shining Place". It has a truly stupendous view of the Gros Ventre, Teton, Absaroka, Wyoming, Salt River and Wind River mountain ranges that always brings a tear to this old man's eyes.

On July 15th, I finally got to Astoria, and Arcadia II. On the 16th, my brother, Paul, and his friend, Irene , arrived. Her son, a longshorman from Seattle, was working nearby and joined us for a shore dinner.

On the 17th, we moved over to the fuel dock and topped off the fuel tanks. That put us nicely on an incoming tide and we were ready to head up the Columbia River. This was the very first time, since we bought Arcadia II, that we have actually gotten to use her. Heretofore, she's just been the proverbial "hole in the water", into which much money has been poured. It was a great feeling to be underway under my own command again. We finished that day by tying up to the public dock at Ranier, OR. The float lies parallel to the river current and I'm afraid I made a somewhat less than graceful upstream approach. Fortunately, there wasn't anyone around to see me have to go back around after the bow got away from us.

Ranier is a nice little town. We assumed that we could find a local supermarket within a short walk, so hadn't done any shopping for the galley before we left Astoria. That proved to be a flawed assumption. After a lot of walking, we found what looked like a supermarket, but proved to be some sort of overstock outlet that had a lot of stuff, but none of what we needed. We did find a nice enough restaurant, so we decided on a shore dinner. More walking led us to a gas station/convenience store in which we found enough for breakfast the next day.

On the 18th, we continued up the Columbia to Portland. The railroad bridge was down. I really didn't know what my air draft was and it looked like it would be a tight fit, but since we were travelling upstream, I approached it slowly while Paul watched the outriggers and antennae. At the last moment, it became obvious to him that the outriggers wouldn't clear the bridge in their stowed position. I backed off and went downstream to deploy the outriggers. The next attempt, he could see that the mast would clear well enough, but the radio antennae might drag a bit. We went on through, without laying them down. No damage was done, but with a lot of noise, we showered the boat with a lot of rust and stuff from the underside of the bridge. We finished the day by tying up at Tomahawk Bay Marina in Portland.

On the 19th, we continued up the river, on a very nice day, through the very scenic Columbia River Gorge to Bonneville Dam. River flow was high, so the current was strong and there was a good deal of turbulence in the water. The autopilot could barely hold course and progress was slow. When we contacted the lockmaster, he advised us it would be an hour before he could lock us up, and directed us to a float in the channel below the lock. After a nice dinner, the lock opened for us and we went through without incident, heading up to our intended evening stop at Hood River. By the time we got there is was well past dark and there was a heavy rain. We never actually left the boat that evening.

On the 20th, we locked back down through Bonneville Dam, without incident. A few words are in order about the locking process. The Corps of Engineers makes this process go very smoothly for pleasure boaters, which they do not mix with the commercial barge traffic.  You simply call ahead to the lockmaster as soon as you are within low power radio range to find out when he will lock pleasure boats through, (You can also use your cell phone. The numbers for all the locks are in the common chart book that everyone uses.) At the appointed time, the lockmaster will direct you to enter the lock and tell you which position in the lock to go to. At each station, there is a bollard in a vertical channel in the lock wall. The bollards rise and fall with the water level in  the lock. You just drop a loose loop of your breast line over the bollard and fend off by hand to keep your boat parallel to the lock wall, far enough off that your fenders don't have to drag on it. There is very little turbulence.

Once clear of Bonneville, we headed back to Tomahawk Bay. Going downstream was much more pleasant than coming up. The current was with us, so it was faster, of course. More important, we moved so much more quickly through the turbulent spots that they had little effect on our course. The autopilot maintained course with ease, making for an altogether enjoyable passage.

At one point, I had considered going on up river, perhaps as far as Lewiston, Idaho. However, this exploratory jaunt up to Hood River, and the drive-by look at the scenery that Willy and I did earlier, convinced me that such a trip on Arcadia II would be more arduous than fun. Accordinly, I decided to take a more permanent slip in Tomahawk Bay and just cruise the lower river for the time we had left. On the 21st, we rented a car at the nearby Portland airport and drove back to Astoria to get my own car while Paul and Irene could drive one vehicle back before they left for California.

After Paul and Irene left, I started in on my "to do" list. As we travelled, it was apparent that the main engine alternator was not charging the batteries. I took it ashore to be rebuilt, while I did routine things like changing oil in all the engines, pickling the watermaker and varnishing the gratifyingly small amount of teak this boat has exposed to the weather.

On the 26th, an old submarine shipmate, Warren Coughlin, and his wife Edye came aboard. We got underway for Government Island that evening. Once again, I blew an upstream tie to the float there and had to go around. This time, of course, there was a whole yacht club there to see it. After meeting a lot of nice folks on the float, we had a nice dinner aboard.

On the 27th, we shoved off and made the short run up the Columbia River Gorge before we returned to Tomahawk bay.

I continued getting the boat ready for the next passage until the afternoon of the 29th of July. At that point, I got in my car and drove to Bellingham to make arrangements for a haulout at SeaView North Boatyard. I left my car there and flew home from Bellingham on the 30th.

I didn't return until August 16th. In my absence, a new Sleep Number bed for the master stateroom had arrived and I installed it. The next day, my stalwart offshore travelling companion, Rudy Prendiz, arrived. On the way back from the airport, we stopped at a supermarket for last minute provisions for the passage up to Bellingham.

On the 18th, we left Tomahawk Bay and went back to Astoria, fueled up and had a nice shore dinner.

On the 19th, we timed our departure over the Columbia River bar at high slack and set an offshore course North on a lovely afternoon.

We rounded Cape Flattery the morning of the 20th of August, after an extraordinarily pleasant passage. That evening, we tied up at Port Angeles and had a lovely shore dinner with another good friend from my Navy years, Gailard Kunkle, and his wife, Carol.

On the 21st, Rudy and I again got underway, making a leisurely passage through the San Juan Islands to Roche Harbor, on San Juan Island, arriving in time to deploy the dinghy and attend their nightly "Colors"at sundown before a nice shore dinner there.

The next morning, we moved the boat around San Juan Island to Friday Harbor and spent the day playing shore tourist and shopping for LED navigation light bulbs. On the 23rd, we moved on to Bellingham and tied to SeaView North Shipyard's courtesy dock.

On the 24th, Rudy Prendiz left and our next door neighbors, Dave and Barb Drummond arrived on the same plane that Rudy took home. We stopped at a grocery store on the way back from thee airport, then departed for the San Juan Islands. We anchored in Blind Bay on Lopez Island that evening.

On the 25th, after Dave and Barb motored around Blind Bay andd over to Deer Harbor on Orcas Island, we moved back over to Roche Harbor on San Juan Island, again in time for Colors and yet another nice meal ashore. The  next day, the 26th, was devoted to sightseeing around the harbor. Dave and Barb took a van tour over to Friday Harbor and back while I stayed aboard and enjoyed quiet time at anchor until they returned. We stowed the dinghy and got underway late that afternoon, arriving back at SeaView North after midnight.

On the 27th, Dave and Barb left for home and I made final arrangements for the haulout the next day.

Arcadia II was "on the hard" from the 28th of August until the 14th of September.

During that period we:

• Pressure washed and recoated the bottom with ablative anti-fouling paint.
• Scraped and grit blasted the two keel coolers, then coated them with Propspeed
• Removed and sent the main propellor to a shop for comprehensive servicing and polishing.
• Replaced the polymer stops in the Gori wing engine propellor and polished it.
• Replaced the hose "boot" between the hull shaft log and the packing gland for the main shaft.
• Inspected the main and wing shaft cutless bearings
• Replaceed the main shaft packing.
• Checked the main shaft for runout.
• Replaced the main engine rear seal and the entire torque spider between the flywheel and transmission.
• Checked main engine valve lash.
• Inspected the Naiad fin shaft bearings and replaced the outboard seals.
• Replaced the wind instruments masthead sender wheelhouse ST 60 receiver.
• Removed, rebuilt and reinstalled the Hurricane Heater.
• Replaced all zinc anodes.
• Replaced the masthead light with LED.
• Replaced spreader lights.
• Replaced the anchor windlass motor with a new on. Placed the "McGiver" repaired orginal in spares.

We put Arcadia II back in the water on August 14th at 14:00. My good friend John Heller arrived as we were tying to the float. By 17:30, in-water checkout was complete and we got underway for a leisurely trip to Port Angeles, via the San Juan Islands. We anchored in Blind Cove in the dark.

On the 15th, we moved on to Roche Harbor, launched the dinghy and went ashore. Dinner at McMillins, as always, was excellent.

On the 16th, we completed the passage across Juan de Fuca strait and tied up at our pre-arranged slip in the marina by noon. I borrowed Gailard's truck and took John Heller to SeaTac and his plane home that evening. I spent the next day retrieving my car from Bellingham.

My intent was to leave Arcadia II in the Port Angeles marina for the winter. I thought I understood the state of Washington's rules witth respect to use taxes. My research was flawed, however. After I got there I learned that boats with only USCG documentation and no State registration or boats owned by a corporation are ineligible for the one year exclusion from Use Tax that I expected to obtain. That would have meant that all the complexity and expense we had faced to prevent being liable for California Use Tax would have been simply replaced by an even higher tariff in Washington if we stayed in that state for longer than two months.

I stayed in Port Angeles only long enough to finally get the main engine alternator and regulator recommissioned and to replace the fuel booster pump on the Hurricane heater. On the 18th of September, we topped off the fuel tanks and did a short coastal cruise to check everything out.

On the 22nd of September, Gailard Kunkle and I left Port Angeles and took the boat to Van Isle Marina in Sydney on Vancouver Island. I took the ferry back on the 24th, retrieved my car in Port Angeles and drove back to California. Arcadia II can remain in Canada, without tax for 6 months.

Sometime before the middle of March, we'll move the boat back to Bellingham and wait until the weather allows us to head up to Alaska. I'm a long way from a commitment, but I'm beginning to explore the possibility of making a West to East transit of the fabled NW Passage across the Arctic.

The idea would be to be in Kodiak early in July. If the polar ice conditions already look promising at that time, and if weather in the Bering Sea permits, we'd move on around Alaska's north coast, cross through the NW passage above Canada to Greenland, then go down to the St. Lawrence and up to the Great Lakes to Chicago, then take the Chicago and Illinois Rivers to the Mississippi. If all went well, we'd come out on the Gulf of Mexico after hurrican season. After that. . .I dunno, yet.

July 16, 2012 - We are finally free to use Arcadia II

Way back in April, I proudly reported that we'd bought Arcadia II. I haven't posted anything since because, until very recently, we have not been able to use her.

We bought the boat for use in the Pacific Northwest and don't expect to bring her back to California, thus, we do not have to pay CA Use Tax, (sales tax). However, we had to comply with some very stringent rules to demontrate that we didn't actually "use" the boat in California.

Immediately after the offshore delivery was consummated, she was brought back to the exact same slip in Alameda that she was in before, and placed in the care and custody of a boat repair service affiliated with the Seller's Broker. She was never moved again until we had done all the things I thought we needed to do to get her ready for an offshore voyage and we had a weather window long enough for a safe voyage North.

We accomplished a lot in that repair period, including:

o Replacing all the batteries on the boat with new Lifeline AGMs. This boat has 6 - 4Ds in the house bank, another 4D for the main engine starter and a 2D for the wing and genset starter.

o Acquisition and installation of a dinghy, that we consider the primary lifeboat. There was none included in the sale. I had it made up in Anaheim, (Achilles RIB, Control Console and 20 HP motor), then bought a trailer and took it up to Alameda. Then I sold the trailer.

o Acquisition and installation of a life raft. We bought one second-hand that was out of date, then had it serviced. By the way, if you consider the acquistion cost, servicing cost and the cost of driving to and fro, I think we'd have been way better off to buy a new one).

o Acquisition and installation of adequate personal life jackets, and man overboard recovery equipment  to exceed USCG requirements.

o Servicing the outdated EPIRB, by the manufacturer and acquisition of a new backup PLB.

o Replacing the outdated and, to me user unfriendly, Raymarine chartplotter with the Nobeltec system that worked well for us in the Pacific Northwest on Arcadia I.

o  Installation of a new AIS, this time the full Class A commercial vessel version. On Arcadia I, we learned that the very ships we wanted to be able to see us, were filtering out the Class B systems commonly used by yachts. We could see them, but they weren't even looking for us.

o  Re-rigging the paravanes. The previous owner reportedly had little trouble with the Naiad hydraulic stablizers and had apparently used the system only to provide a boom to launch the dinghy with and the outriggers to deploy at-anchor flopper stoppers. We upgraded the chains and re-rigged everything so we can use the paravanes and do all of that, as well.

o Pre-rigging a manual steering system that makes emergency tiller usable. If you read our previous post about losing steering in the Sulu Sea, you'll understand. It's not pretty,  but it got Arcadia I safely to port.

o Installing an oilless compressor and hookah diving rig to enable inspecting the bottom, and clearing nets and traps that may foul the propeller, stabilizers or steering equipment. We needed this rig several times on Arcadia I, and I wouldn't go out without one.

o Pre-rigging a drogue and sea anchor to enable safely riding through heavy weather. We never actually had to deploy either on Arcadia I. However, when heavy weather and seas are coming from astern it can be really difficult to steer and control the speed of boats like ours.  The first "downhill" trip from Puget Sound, I probably would have deployed a drogue if I'd had one aboard. I know another Nordie making that trip that streamed everthing he had for warps and, at one point, actually used a small rerigerator as a drogue to improve his control.

o Replacing outdated USCG-minimum flares and signaling equipment with those that meet the much higher SOLAS standards .

o Installation of an XM radio weather monitoring system that shows current weather conditions on the Nobeltec screens.

o Repair of inoperative anchor windlass motor.

o Restoring the windshield wipers to operability.

We also spent a lot of time learning the systems aboard the boat and fixing myriad "irritation" items.

To make it doubly clear to the California taxing authorites that we did not use the boat until it left the State, we hired a professional delivery service to provide two captains to bring it to Astoria, Oregon. It wasn't until the first of June that they felt they had a wide enough weather window to make it. We pressed the repair service to finish up the last few items on their list. Care and custody of the, (we thought), now-ready for sea Arcadia II was transferred from the repair service to the delivery service on June 2nd. On June 3rd, they got underway with the tide and headed for Astoria.

When we did the pre-purchase survey, we had the boat hauled. She was pretty heavily encrusted with marine growth, so I had her hull pressure washed and the metal parts scraped clean. Since she'd been for sale for some time, we all thought that the growth we saw was the result of not having been clean for a long period of time. Frankly, it never occurred to me that it would grow back as quickly as it did.

By the time the delivery captains got to Bodega Bay, however, it was apparent to them that the boat could not make enough speed, without overheating the engine, to get to safe harbor outside California before the weather turned foul again. They pulled into Bodega Bay on June 4th and I flew there to meet them and help troubleshoot the problem(s).

We went over the engine cooling system with a fine toothed comb and did, indeed, discover that one of the two thermostats on the main engine had failed and wouldn't open. I didn't believe that fully explained the symptoms, so I decided to change the coolant to ally any concern that it might have gelled in the keel cooler, although we had no evidence to suggest that it had. The next day, we found a diver willing to inspect the bottom and discovered the real problem. The propellor and keel cooler, along with all the other metal parts below the water line were even more heavily fouled by barnacles than they had been at the time of the survey haulout. The engine had to work really hard to swing the encrusted prop, the effort returned much less than normal speed, and the keel cooler couldn't transfer the resultant heat away from the engine.

After we found yet another diver willing to clean off the marine growth, and we had replaced the thermostat and engine coolant, a sea trial demonstrated that the problem was resolved on June 7th. Unfortunately, by then, the weather and sea condtions between Bodega Bay and Astoria had deteriorated badly and onward travel had to wait for another weather window.

It was two weeks before the weather and sea forecast was favorable enough to start again. The delivery captains came back aboard on June 20th and Arcadia II left the morning of the 21st. The trip to Astoria was without incident. She arrived there on the 24th of June.

We couldn't be in Astoria to meet Arcadia II when she arrived. By that time, we were at a long-planned family reunion campout in Wyoming. It was July 16th before I actually got there. The plan is to cruise the Columbia River while we get to know the boat a little better before we take her to sea, ourselves. After that, we hope to get some time aboard in the San Juan Islands this fall before the 2012 season ends. Next year, we plan to get back to our beloved SE Alaska.

April 5, 2012 We're back! We now own Arcadia II

On April 5th, two hired captains took Williwaw outside San Francisco bay and took pictures of themselves with a change of command handshake showing the GPS picture and the morning newspaper. This act completed our purchase of the Nordhavn 47 we now call Arcadia II. She is a truly lovely little ship that Phyllis and I intend to share many adventures aboard with our family and friends.

Phyllis and I truly loved the two summers we spent cruising B.C. and Alaska. After we sold Arcadia I we realized that our retirement dream was to have another boat in the Pacific Northwest. We had intended to wait until Phyl could spend more time aboard before we bought another boat, but we started looking at Nordhavn listings, more as dreamers than buyers. However, when we got aboard Williwaw, she felt too "right" to pass up.

She's a much larger boat than our beloved Arcadia I, providing much more spacious accomodations for our friends.

As I get older and stiffer, I found that the crawl-around engine room of  the Nordhavn 46 was difficult for me to work in. The Nordhavn 47 doesn't have that problem. This is a truly walk-around engine room.

Arcadia II is now in a slip in Alameda. There are some important, but relatively minor repairs and modifications needed before she's ready for sea. As soon as she's ready, and we get a decent weather window, we plan to take her to Puget Sound. We'll make more postings to this blog as things progress.