So I’m a little behind which is why you are getting two posts in two days – I am sending this just before I set off to cross the gulf again (going the other way this time) with Liz (Goodbye Mazatlan!) Glad to have company as I am a bit rusty at this ‘sailing thing’ and launching back into a 200nm non-stop crossing is a bit intimidating, but I can’t wait to get back to the Sea of Cortez!

The last few days have been a blur of activity, here is a list of some of the things I got done

New Cushions

My old cockpit cushions were, to not put too fine a point on it, completely buggered. Disintegrating and mouldy, they had seen way better days and I think they were the original ones, so were actually older than I am. I got the same person who made my dodger to make me new ones so it’s less of a mushroom factory

BROKE

WOKE

Fish Cleaning table

I was going to make one of these and had spent ages finding material etc, and then the boat next to me who’s selling their boat sold me their one for 20 bucks. Ah well.

I moved a bunch of stuff around in the cockpit and made room for it so it goes on the rail. Looking forward to putting it to use!

Sport-a-seat

As mentioned earlier, my cockpit is an ergonomic nightmare and to solve that I bought a sport-a-seat, shipped it to a US PO box, where it got picked up by my friends Jo and Barry and loaded onto their boat, which is right at the North end of the Sea of Cortez, where I will meet them next month.

After all that effort and dollars, the boat next to be sold me one for 20 bucks yesterday. Hmmph. I guess having two isn’t a bad thing.

Winch Handle Holder

Small thing this but I got two winch handle holders for super cheap from Phil when he was clearing out his locker and I installed one by the companionway. The other one will either go on the other side or on the mast, I haven’t decided yet.

Rebed Windows

I was too hot and I only got one (1) done. No excuses here, will have to do the rest some other time

 

Line Clutch Reorganisation

Yes, this is like the third or fourth time I’ve done this but this time is the last time I swear!!!! The thing is, the last time where I used the cheap second-hand line clutches worked out fairly well, except the new clutches worked COMPLETELY differently to every single other clutch on the boat (to the point they actually lifted up the other way) which made it a huge pain every time I had someone new on the boat. In addition, it was too small for the main sheet, adding a ton of friction.

I got a fancy newish spinlock one from Phil after I picked over his locker stuff and removed another older spinlock from my mast, where it had been installed to hold the jib halyard before I’d moved it to the cockpit. With these two additional clutches, I had enough to shuffle all the line clutches around and have 4 spinlocks on each side, getting rid of the funky ones. First I removed all the port side ones

and then I just removed the double-clutch on the end of the starboard side ones

Next was the tedious chore of filling in all the holes, sanding, and then redrilling and tapping into the embedded metal plate for the new clutches

I replaced the double-clutch with a single clutch on the starboard side, and then used the two single clutches I’d got plus the freed up double-clutch on the port side, giving me four on each side. All the same type (aside from the slightly fancier one for the main sheet but it still works the same way) and a lot less confusing.

The weird clutches I removed will either be used on the mast for the pole lines, or sold

 

Other Stuff

I got screens put in for the four small windows that didn’t have them. Only took me 18 months, but finally done. I also got the prop swapped back to my main one (after I had it repitched over the summer). I also replaced all the main sheet blocks with bigger ones that I got from Phil (actually I may have already mentioned all of this, I’m really tired)

The BIG news is my dodger also got finished and it rules!! I am going to do a separate blog post on it though after the crossing as I don’t have time now.

ALSO

My tracker is reactivated, and you can follow me on https://www.saildivefish.ca/where-is-gudgeon/

See y’all on the other side!

 

PS

I finally got a video editor and knocked together a super quick video of snorkelling last year to practice making videos. Expect better ones soon, with more interesting footage and less inappropriate music

 

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