Welcome to my blog!
Back at the end of 2013 I decided (apropos of nothing) that I wanted to live on a sailboat. Armed with only a copy of This Old Boat and my blissful ignorance of anything to do with boats, sailing or handiwork I bought the first boat I looked at, a mere 3 hours drive + 2 hours ferry ride away. What a great idea!
Luckily the boat (a Cherubini designed Hunter 36) turned out not to have anything too disastrously wrong with it, so with a lot of time, money and reading I managed to get it into a livable condition. And then I discovered I liked sailing and decided to sail around the world.
Well, I got as far as Mexico before firstly Brexit and then Covid scuttled my plans. So I sold Gudgeon, the Hunter 36, down in Mexico and am now back in BC with a second boat, a Rafiki 37 called Sooner.
New Dodger
Bit late on this, but while I was in Mazatlan this October I got a dodger (sprayhood for UK sailors, the 'windshield bit at the front' for everyone else) built! I haven't had a dodger since the ratty one that came with the boat, that didn't let the main be sheeted...
La Paz, Lobos Rock and Tropical Storm Raymond
Sorry about the long gap - there is basically zero connectivity in the sea of cortez. I've queued up a few updates over the next few days however! After finally getting into La Paz after a week and a half of misadventure, we were ready for a rest. The plan was to get...
Mazatlan to La Paz, Part 2
Frailes to Muertos Part 1 I woke up from an exhausted sleep at around 4am, and then I remembered - we had no engine. Boo. The problem was that the hole the fuel return screw tightened into the fuel filter (the one half in shown below) had completely stripped...
Mazatlan to La Paz, Part 1
This is a two-parter as this wasn't quite the causal jaunt across the Gulf of California that I had planned. The following two maps show the route - note that the wind comes from the NW generally, so it would be at best a close reach. It started off well, cast off the...
Lots of small things and leaving to cross the Gulf of California!
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'...
Changing out the engine mounts on a 2QM20 and fixing rotten stringers
My engine (which is literally older than I am and is a huge chunk of solid iron) sits on four things called motor mounts. These are made of metal and rubber or similar polymer materials and provide shock absorption for the engine. Which is great because it is...
Boat work and heat
A couple of days after the Tropical Storm passed over I started feeling kinda off - and sure enough I got a really nasty heavy cold, that pretty much put me out of action for a whole week. I must have got it in Victoria or on the plane, either way it was really nasty...
LiFePo4 Batteries: Part Eight – Adding an additional switch to the discharge relay
A quick update here - just to add an addendum to the LifePO4 series. No-one who is following this blog for travel reasons will find this interesting, but it's an important point as I know several people use a 7713 as a main relay in their systems. There was an...
Tropical Storm Narda
Adjusting from BC in the autumn weather (cool, rainy, cloudy) to end of summer mainland Mexico (sunny, humid, 30c+) was kind of a shock. My first day I was too hot and sweaty to really do anything, except sit around in front of a fan complaining (so pretty much the...
Back at the boat!
After a very rushed last week in BC (pro-tip - don't finish work on Friday afternoon and then get the 6am flight Saturday) I am back in Mexico and on Gudgeon! Since I had bought a lot of second-hand stuff while in BC (including a watermaker, a solar oven and a billion...
