Adios Mexico, on to Hawaii

The view from our slip at Puerto los Cabos marina in San Jose del Cabo. The large sculpted cross puts on a light show every night.

We've only been in Mexico a month, but it's already time to say adios. Hurricane season is about to start and it's already HOT! It's been in the high 90s F every day this week. My wife seriously can't take it. We're talking heat stroke and total misery.

So today we leave San Jose del Cabo, Mexico, for Hilo, Hawaii. We are excited and looking forward to seeing our friends in Hawaii and continuing to explore the underwater treasures of those magic isles, this time from our own boat.

We've enjoyed Mexico for the most part. One of the good/bad things is we rarely have internet. I have enjoyed the break, but it makes it tough to keep the blog updated.

Snorkeling at Bahi Los Frailes.

The 10 days at anchor at Bahi Los Frailes was beautiful and it was there we decided to sail for Hawaii -- that was one week ago. We spent the last three days in San Jose del Cabo stocking our boat and getting her ready for three-to-four week trip to Hawaii. Just a few more items and we're off!

Oceanus at anchor at Bahi los Frailes.

No crowds during California's winter

Avalon on Catalina Island. The mooring field is starting to fill up for the weekend.

Cruising California in the off season is the bomb. Every place we stop to anchor or tie up not only has room for us, but welcomes us -- sometimes with off-season rates. And the weather is about the same as the Northwest's best summer days; sunny, dry and mid-60s to 70s.

We were only going to stay in Santa Barbara for a couple of days but I caught a cold and we stayed a nearly a week with no problems. We've heard from other cruisers that during the summer, slips in Santa Barbara are hard to get and good luck trying to extend your stay. It is the city's only marina and in a wonderful location, so it's not hard to understand why slips are in demand.

Virginia explores Pelican Bay on Santa Cruz Island. 

The couple who keep their boat in the slip next to us spoke glowingly about the beauties of Santa Cruz Island across the channel from Santa Barbara. They recommended we anchor at Pelican Bay, which is usually crowded during the summer months. We sailed across the channel and found only one other boat with which we had to share this idyllic anchorage.

Beautiful Santa Cruz Island.

We were there for two nights when we heard a weather report of gale-force winds that would hit the island. So we sailed to King Harbor at Redondo Beach. No slips were available, but we spent the night on one of four mooring balls for transient yachts. We were the only boat at the mooring field and there were no boats in the anchorage inside the breakwater. This small marina is a gem, but we didn't have the time or inclination to explore it. Still feeling a little punky from my cold, I didn't want to unlash and launch the dinghy.

Seabirds line the breakwater at sunset on the King Harbor breakwater.

We wished someone had warned us about the mooring balls in California. I'm sure we were great entertainment for people onshore as we tried to figure out why this ball had a funny wand in the water and no way to tie to the top of the ball! The trick is to grab the wand, pull it up on deck and use the pendent attached to it to hoist up the mooring line to loop over the bow cleat. Then you follow another smaller line to a loop you then put on the stern cleat. Important safety tip: wear gloves.

Shoreline Village Marina in Long Beach. The harbor is also known as TransPac Harbor with signs detailing the history of that great yacht race.

The next morning we sailed the short hop to Long Beach and the Shoreline Village Marina. This marina is right in the middle of restaurants, shops, walkways, parks and not far from from the Queen Mary and the Aquarium of The Pacific. (You can read about our visit to the aquarium here.) At night, twinkling lights lit up the businesses and structures in the nearby park. We felt like we were docked in the middle of Main Street Disneyland. We could even see a Ferris wheel from our boat.

We weathered a pretty good storm, with gale-force winds, rain and thunder and felt secure; the boat hardly moved. In the morning the marina was filled with garbage washed down the LA River into Long Beach Harbor. It was pretty grim. Most of it was reeds and branches, but much of it was plastic: water bottles, plastic sacks and wrappers of every description. Single-use plastic is evil. We stayed four nights and by the time we left most of the garbage was cleaned up.

We found the gas dock at marina next door was convenient place to fuel up. Their diesel price was the least expensive we've come across and the attendant was helpful and friendly. He told us stories about other cruisers he'd met including a family of four from France who set off for French Polynesia after buying fuel.

Two Harbors on Catalina Island.

Long Beach is right across the water from Catalina Island so we decided to spend a few days there. As a kid I always wanted to visit Catalina during our vacations to Southern California. Our good friend back in Newport, Chris, also insisted we not miss it.

"Don't go to Avalon" was a phrase we heard often while at Long Beach. "It's crowded, expensive and hard to get a mooring ball." So we decided to stay at Two Harbors. The mooring field at Two Harbors is lovely and deserted in the winter time. We spent two nights... two very rolly expensive nights. At $50 a night, it was more expensive than most marinas. We were glad to leave that harbor.

Oceanus moored in Avalon Harbor with the amazing Casino, which was never used for gambling.

We sailed two hours to Avalon and paid the harbor patrol $84 for two nights. The harbor patrolman said, "our winter special is pay two nights and get the next five free." We like free so we stayed a week on Avalon and loved it. The mooring field was less than half full, it was quiet and we slept well every night. Best of all there is plenty to see and do.

The harborside of Avalon. In the background is the entrance to the walkway to the Casino and the Avalon Yacht Club.

From our mooring we watched people walking along the shops and restaurants that front the harbor. Most of the brick-paved streets near the harbor are pedestrian only and most of the vehicles on the island are propane-powered golf carts. Up the hill from the harbor is a chime tower that struck the hours and each quarter hour from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. On one end of the harbor we could see the monumental Casino building built in the art deco style of the 1930s and at the other end we could watch the ferries come and go from the mainland.

On shore we visited some of the shops, but we really had no interest in most of them. We have everything we could want. We did find a great Ace Hardware store packed with an astonishing selection of practical items. I finally found the perfect nozzle for our hose to replace the one we left on the dock at Newport. I've been looking for the right one in every port since we left. Best of all it cost only $3.

The botanical gardens on Catalina Island.

Each day we did something: visited the botanical gardens; went to the Tuesday night half-price movie so we could see the fantastic theater inside the Casino; rented a golf cart for an hour so we could tour around Avalon in style; walked to fill our propane bottle, and attended church in a meeting room in the U.S. Bank building. Part of the fun was rowing to and from the dinghy dock to get ashore and visiting with the other boaters along the way. The water was so clear we could see the bottom most of the time. We saw a bat ray and several bright orange Garibaldi fish. I spent an enjoyable afternoon snorkeling around the boat cleaning off the grunge from Long Beach Harbor and checking her bottom.

Friday was the last night of our stay in Avalon and the little harbor filled up with yachts including several from a Southern California yacht club having their spring cruise. The main party boat was next door to Oceanus and at one time had eight dinghies tied up to it. The nice thing about yachties is that most of them are older and the party was all but over by 9:30 p.m.

The next day we headed to Dana Point Marina for two days to visit friends. It's a beautiful marina. They were also very accommodating when we needed to change our reservation because we stayed longer than we planned at Avalon.

Then it was on to San Diego. As we came close to the entrance to the bay we saw two islands... two Mexican islands!

Oceanus was one of only three yachts tied up to the Police Dock in San Diego. During the fall this place is packed.

Finally cruising, and loving it!

Virginia sailing south!

Waiting for a weather window paid off big time. Insted of making small hops down the coast, we were able to jump from winter to summer in just a few days. The stars aligned on Feb. 8 and Virginia and I left Newport and headed south.

It was also a good time for our friend, Paul, to join us. Paul is an amazing mariner. As a young man he served in the U.S. Coast Guard, then he worked as a crab fisherman in Alaska, then sailed his own boat, a 38-foot Atkin Ingrid, down the West Coast to Mexico, Central America, through the Panama Canal, Caribbean, and up the East Coast. He was also a professional skipper and for about the last 10 years captained a research vessel in Alaska. He is now the owner of another Atkins masterpiece, a Valgerda, the 19-foot faering that I built.

Paul at the helm of Oceanus.

Having him aboard was a huge confidence booster for Virginia and me. It also made for a sweet watch schedule -- four on, eight off. We learned a lot from Paul and can't thank him enough for helping us sail south.

The three of us decided Sunday (Feb. 7) that we would leave the next day. Paul arrived about 10 a.m. Monday and we started getting ready. Virginia heard the Coast Guard restrict the bar to 40 feet and under and called to us that we had to leave before they closed it all together. We cast off and headed for the entrance (or in our case, the exit) to Yaquina Bay. With picture-perfect breaking waves on either side of Oceanus, we were the last vessel to cross the bar before the Coast Guard closed it at 11:15 a.m.

Once on the open ocean, however the seas were less threatening at about nine feet at 12 seconds or so, sunshine and the wind at our back. We motored through a minefield of crab pots. With Paul at the helm, Virginia watched for pots to starboard and I watched the port side. We headed southwest until we were in about 60 or 70 fathoms of water -- too deep for crab pots -- then we turned south.

The wind was out of the southeast and light. We put up the mains'l and motorsailed, an effective strategy in our old CCA boat because as the boat heels over the water-line length increases, increasing the speed potential of the boat. For two days we motorsailed this way and averaged 7.5 knots.

The first night was clear and not as cold as we expected. Far from any artificial lights, the stars shown bright. During my four-hour watch, which started at 2 a.m., I saw six meteors. I looked at the ocean and knew this was what I was meant to do.

Around noon the next day we sailed into California waters as we crossed latitude 42. It also meant we didn't have to worry about crab pots anymore, since crabbing was closed in California.

On our third day, the wind died and the swell dropped to its smallest of the voyage. With the calm came fog. We motored through it with a bubble of visibility that extended only 50 feet around us. A fur seal watched us pass as it reclined in the water with its flippers and head extended above the surface to save body heat. Paul, came on deck, grabbed the air horn from its pocket in the cockpit and headed to the foredeck to stand bow watch.

The fog persisted into the night. During my early-morning watch I shut down the engine and ghosted through the fog under mains'l only at about one to two knots. With no engine noise I could use all my senses to guard against colision with another boat. While we don't have radar aboard Oceanus, we do receive AIS (automatic identification signals) from other vessels equipped with an AIS transponder. Most commercial vessels have them. I watched the screen and saw several signals around me. I also heard chatter between fishing boats on the VHF radio, most of it in Spanish.

One of the fishing boats picked me up on their radar. The VHF crackled to life: "Sailing vessel heading south at North 38 degrees 23 minutes, what is your intention?"

That was my heading and my approximate position so I answered. "This is sailing vessel Oceanus. We're making for Bodega Bay and don't have radar. Over."

"I can see you on my radar. We will stay well south of you. Over."

"Thanks." I said. "Out."

Bodega Bay, setting of Hitchcock's "The Birds."

In the morning the fog lifted and we motored toward Bodega Bay. It took most of the day partly because we kept 20 or 30 miles offshore, first to avoid the crab pots and then to stay well clear of rocky headlands.

As we approached land we saw the swell breaking on the cliffs west of Bodega Bay and more breaking seas on a rocky reef guarding the entrance to the bay. We followed the bouys into the bay and tied up at the fuel dock. We were in California.

Drake's Bay, the real one. Don't believe anyone who tells you Drake spent the winter in Oregon.

We spent a day tied up in a slip at Spud Point Marina and then sailed to Drake's Bay just north of the entrance to San Francisco Bay. We anchored just after sunset and we were the only boat in the bay. We spent a night there listening to the wind howl in the rigging, but the water in the bay was calm. The morning was sunny calm and beautiful. What a magic place: elephant seals and birds on the beach and dairy cows grazing on the pastures above the cliff tops. I wish we stayed for a week, but we needed to push on.

We decided to skip San Francisco because the Coast Guard reported 20-foot breaking seas across the entrance to the bay. As much as I wanted to sail Oceanus under the Golden Gate Bridge that dissuaded us. We headed to Half Moon Bay instead.

It took about seven hours of hard sailing with 13-foot seas and 20-knot winds. One hour we covered 10 knots surfing at about 12 knots much of the time. What a great boat!

We stayed in Half Moon Bay for two nights and then left for Monterey early in the morning so we could get there before dark. Two sea otters playing in the middle of our assigned slip served as a welcoming committee.

Virginia and I with Steinbeck, my favorite author.

Monterey was great fun. Sunny and warm most of the time although we did have wild wind, rain and thunder one night. Paul stayed aboard for a full day and played tourist with us, seeing Cannery Row, a museum and the house where Robert Lewis Stevenson stayed for a few months. The next day Paul jumped ship and caught a train back to Newport.

The fishing pier at San Simeon with Hearst Castle on the hill above.

Virginia and I left Monterey Bay early morning on Feb. 21 headed to an anchorage in San Simeon Bay. We passed through a Sea Otter Refuge zone and much to our delight there they were! Otters were our near constant companion the entire way. At first glance they looked like a piece of drift wood floating along until we got close.  Then we saw their fuzzy heads watching us. We anchored that night in San Simeon Bay where we could see the famous Hearst Castle high on the hill.

The rock at Morro Bay.

We left San Simeon the next morning. By early afternoon we entered Morro Bay, a tiny bay behind a huge, gnarly looking rock. We spent the most peaceful night of the voyage tied to a mooring ball at the Morro Bay Yacht Club.

Once again we left just as it was getting light so we could round Point Conception before dark. This point marks the change from cold air and water of central California to the warm air and water of southern California.  It also has the reputation of being the "Cape Horn of West Coast." Many boaters have their hat handed to them trying to round Point Conception. We were lucky and enjoyed a beautiful day and near perfect conditions. We rounded the point without any problems. In fact, it was so calm that Virginia went below and made lasagna, which we enjoyed after we anchored for the night in the Cojo Anchorage.

Point Conception from the Cojo anchorage.

The following day we raised anchor and headed south in WARM air. Instead of four layers underneath our foul-weather gear, we had on, first, sweatshirts and then switched to just t-shirts. Hundreds of Pacific white-sided dolphins passed the boat all day. The water was so clear and calm that we could watch them as they swam underwater next to the boat.

We entered Santa Barbara Marina in the afternoon. We saw a smaller sailboat hard aground just outside the channel so I entered slowly and was careful to stay between the red and green markers. I watched my depth sounder go from 21 feet to 10 feet to 4 feet in less than 30 seconds and then we were hard aground right in the middle of the channel. I tried backing us off to no avail. All of a sudden a strong ebb current pushed us crossways to the channel and heeled the boat over about 40 degrees. The water was boiling around us. I went from annoyed to frightened. After about a minute I felt the boat slide off somewhat and right itself. I put her into reverse and was able to gently back off what must have been a hump of sand in mid-channel. I aimed for the center of the next two buoys and we entered the marina without further problems.

The amazing Santa Barbara courthouse.

We spent a week in Santa Barbara. That's about five days longer than we intended, but we were tired and both caught a nasty little cold. Hey, we're cruising now, plans are made to be broken, right?

The Aquarium connection

The Oregon Coast Aquarium is following our adventure on their web site as part of the Oceanscape Network. If you would like to read more about our encounters with marine wildlife look here.

If you want to track us go to share.delorme.com/virginiaford.

Mast pulpits and propane aboard Oceanus

Our Dickinson propane fireplace warms the boat up nicely on cold Northwet winter days.

Few things make living aboard a boat in the Northwet more comfortable than a fireplace and a good galley stove and oven, especially in the winter. And few things make a trip to the mast safer than mast pulpits. On my boat the two are related.

The oven is large enough for Virginia to make three loaves of her great wheat bread.

The old stove that came with Oceanus ran on propane and looked dangerous. It was not hooked up. When we moved it sawdust and chunks of rust came out of every opening. The oven door had no window and, worse, no way to lock it closed.

Another troubling thing was there was no evidence on Oceanus of a proper propane locker: one that was air tight except for the vent over the side as required by the American Boat and Yacht Council (ABYC) and every good marine surveyor.

The propane locker for Oceanus is a deck box.

My solution was to buy a deck box for Oceanus to use as a propane locker. I chose a Trident Marine L-P Gas 20-pound Dual Chest Locker, (part number 1502-0020). Generally I'm happy with it after I upgraded the regulator. Why they put a cheap, single-stage regulator on an item that cost one whole boat buck... well, it kinda ticks me off. The only other thing we did was put a backing plate on the latch. Those are the bad parts. Otherwise, the box is well made and stout, no oil-canning when I stand on top of it.

The propane deckbox has room for smaller propane cylinders, windlass handle and other odds and ends in addition to the two 20-pound tanks.

I located it a little in front of the mast and bolted it through the deck at each corner using 3/8-inch bolts with big fender washers. I used UHMW plastic shims about an inch thick and slightly tapered to lift it off the crown of the deck. I then used a large hole saw to cut a hole in the bottom and a smaller one to cut a hole through the deck for a plastic through hull. The through hull was big enough that I could fit two hoses -- one for the new Dickenson Newport fire place, the other for the new Dickenson Mediterranean stove and oven -- and a 14-2 wire for the solenoid.

Here's how the propane box and the mast pulpits relate. I bolted one leg of my mast pulpits to the port and starboard sides of the deck box with good backing timbers and fender washers. The mast pulpits each have four legs, so that saved me eight holes in my deck.

Mast pulpits (granny bars) are harder to find than you would expect.

I feel lucky to have these mast pulpits (granny bars). We spent a lot of time looking for mast pulpits for Oceanus. I could find nothing on-line. We regularly checked places like Minnie's and Columbia Marine Exchange for used ones. We even contacted a couple of stainless steel fabricators, but none of them wanted the job.

Then, as I helped a dockmate with a project aboard his boat, I spotted eight stainless steel flanges bolted to his deck. I asked him what they were. "Oh, those go to some mast pulpits that were just too big for the boat," he said. "I took them off because they were always in the way."

He was right, they were too big for his 33-foot boat, but they are perfect for my 43-foot boat. It must be something like, "when the student is ready, the teacher shall appear." When you look long enough and are desperate enough, you will find what you are looking for.

When my dockmate retrieved them from his garage and brought them to the boat I couldn't believe my good luck: they were the most beautiful mast pulpits I ever saw. They had a gentle arc, four feet and a teak pin rail with four belaying pins on each pulpit. The pin rail looks nice and is handy. The mast pulpits also provide a great place to secure the eight polyethylene jerry jugs we carry aboard for fuel and water.

The deck box makes putting on the mains'l cover easy.

The mast pulpits and deck box make working around the mast easier and much more secure. The deck box is a great place to sit and admire the view or to stand on to reach the top of the mains'l when putting on its cover.

Back to propane. Once the deck box was in place with a way into the boat for the hoses and wires the rest was pretty easy. I got some help from my local RV place to tee off the line after the regulator so I could run a hose for both appliances. The tee must be made in the box because ABYC allows no connections inside the boat except to the appliance. Then it was just a matter of running the hoses for the fireplace and the galley stove and connecting the electronic shut off to power the solenoid in the box.

Everything worked well on the first try, except the flow seemed anemic. After looking at the cheap regulator that came with the deck box and comparing it with the ones at the RV place, I figured it must be under sized. Another $35 into the project for a two-stage regulator was chump change. The bigger regulator did the trick.

I can't remember the name and can't find the documentation for it. I remember it's made in Canada.

After doing all you can do to keep propane only where it should be, you still need a bilge sniffer. This warns you if propane is leaking into your bilge and pooling there waiting to blow you and your boat to kingdom come. We found this nice unit that's made in Canada.

A hand-held sniffer is essential.

We also bought a portable combustible gas sniffer to check all connections. Soap suds just doesn't cut it.

For more tips on staying safe with propane here's 10 tips from the good folks at Attainable Adventure Cruising.

On previous boats we had an alcohol stove and a kerosene stove. Virginia was not a fan of either of those fuels. If we were not planning to sail south we might have considered a diesel stove. We are well aware of the potential for explosion from propane, but if you like to cook on board, propane is the best option.

Weather Window Update

We are still waiting for a weather window to open so we can head south. Here are some photos of waves crashing on the rocks in front of a friend's house in Depoe Bay, Ore., this week. Maybe next week....

This wave hit the base of a 40-foot cliff and shot about 80 feet into the air.

Waiting for a window south

Virginia checks our position on her iPad during one of our weekly shake-down sails.

Finally, after more than three years of hard work, Oceanus is ready for sea. The problem is it's now winter. This time of year weather windows that will allow us to sail south from our home port of Newport, Ore., are few and far between.

During December, storm after storm with gale-force winds and waves 15 to 20 feet pummeled the Oregon coast. For a few days in mid December the waves reached 40 feet and sent mounds of sea foam filling beach parking lots and the yards of beach homes. It looked like dirty snow, prompting locals to joke about the sea providing a white Christmas on the Oregon coast.

Newport also got a record amount of rain in December, more than 19 inches.

We started keeping a log. Virginia's periodic entries are telling:
"Dec. 3, 2015 - Still here."
"Dec. 9 - Haven't left yet, too many storms."
"Dec 18 - Still here. Crew getting restless."
"Dec. 24 - Christmas eve in Newport, Ore., was supposed to be Mexico or Newport, Calif. I see a mutiny soon if we don't leave."

We are not discouraged, however. Last winter, as we continued to work on the boat, we watched and there were several times the seas were relatively calm and the wind out of the north or west. We are hoping for three or four days of good sailing weather to get us to California.

Every morning we check passageweather.com looking for a few days of good sailing conditions. We're hoping for seas below 10 feet with a fairly long period, say 15 seconds. It happens this time of year, just not very often. We got our hopes up for three days around Jan. 31. The forecast called for seas of around six feet and east winds. But winds turned into a gale out of the east with the thermometer dropping into the 20s at night. No thanks!

Of all the miles we plan to travel on our two-year sabbatical, the first 400 miles along the Oregon and northern California coast are the most scary to me. Many experienced world cruisers have had their hat handed to them along this stretch of the West Coast.

Oceanus and us are still largely untested in the ocean as well, so we try to go sailing at least once a week. With each day sail we discover something new about the boat, a better lead on the genoa sheet or something else we need to tweak.

We are also getting better at answering the question "Haven't you left yet?" or "When are you leaving?" This is particularly galling to Virginia.

"The next person who asks me that I'm going to poke in the eye," she fumed on more than one occasion.

Of course the people who have experience cruising never ask. "Schedules will kill you," said our friend Ted, who cruised in Mexico for two years and made several trips from there to Oregon.

Our friend Paul joins us for a sail. He is a great guy and a very experienced captain.

They also council patience. "You're already cruising," said Paul, another of our experienced voyaging friends. "You're living the life. Enjoy it."

And we do, I keep working on boat projects and Virginia helps with boat maintenance. She also started knitting a sweater for our daughter-in-law. Most of all we enjoy just being together.

In November we sold our small pickup. Not having a vehicle makes getting mail and groceries more difficult, but it also gets us out walking more. No vehicle also means no car insurance payments or vehicle tax bills.

Our "fake Christmas" on the weekend before Christmas at our daughter's new home. All kids and grand kids minus two who couldn't make it.

The week before Christmas we hitched a ride with friends going to the Seattle area so we could visit our kids and grandkids for a few days. We had a great time. We enjoyed the train ride back too, and the bus from the Willamette valley to get back to Newport wasn't bad either. But it did turn what would have been a five-hour drive into a full day adventure. It made us appreciate how easy we had it.

Our 97-cent Nativity scene aboard Oceanus.

Christmas on the boat was fun and peaceful. We did our favorite holiday things: watching the movie "It's a Wonderful Life" and listening to corny old renditions of Christmas carols. We didn't worry about pleasing anyone but ourselves. That sounds selfish, especially during Christmas, but it was liberating and eye opening. Virginia missed going to stores to shop -- she did most of it online. I felt I escaped the commercial side of the holiday and focused just on what was meaningful and fun to me. It was one of my favorite Christmas's ever.

Winter on the Oregon coast, while it has its own beauty, is not what we signed up for. We both dream of sunshine and diving off the boat into warm clear water. We figure we have enough money for two years if we stick to a budget. The clock is now ticking, so we watch and wait for a weather window to sail south.

Creative anchor and chain installation

Oceanus with her new Lofrans Tigress windlass, Rocna 25 (kg) anchor and chain. Goodlander would take issue with me using the cleat on top of the windlass (too much wracking) to take the strain off the chain, but I wanted to try it out. When not at the dock, I'll using the mooring cleat.

For more than a year I struggled with exactly how I would install my anchor and chain aboard Oceanus, my 45-year-old Columbia 43. The boat had an old manual windlass, a 45-pound CQR anchor and a chain and rope rode. It was all questionable. We wanted to cruise far and sleep well at anchor, so I knew I needed to upgrade everything.

Piece by piece I chose the elements of the anchoring system: a Lofrans Tigress windlass, a Rocna 25 (55-pound) anchor, 300 feet of 5/16th G4 high-test chain connected with a load-rated hot-dip galvanized shackle. These choices were heavily influenced by the anchoring advice from the folks at Morgan's Cloud, Attainable Adventure Cruising web site. Their on-line anchoring book very convincing lays out what anchors to buy (Spade or Rocna) and how to choose chain. They also go in to great detail about shackles: what to buy (a load-rated galvie shackle) and what to never buy (stainless steel swivels). Their experience with decades of high-latitude cruising and anchoring under challenging conditions together with their no BS approach made them my go-to source for anchoring equipment advice.

The choice of the Lofrans Tigress windlass and the Rocna was relative easy, figuring out the other elements of the anchoring system and how to put it all together took some time.

I went back and forth on how much chain I needed -- 200 feet spliced to a nylon rode or 300 feet of all chain. I wanted 300 feet, but I was concerned about that much weight in the bow. Then this summer we got a visit from our friends, Karin and Joe aboard Flying Sideways, another Columbia 43. For the last three years they cruised their boat from San Diego to Mexico and the Pacific Side of Central America. They said the boat would handle the weight of 300-feet of chain fine. They also said I would need that much.

So when I bought a copy of Creative Anchoring, the new book from Capt'n Fatty Goodlander, I was delighted to learn that the anchor, windless, amount of chain, everything, right down to the shackle, that Capt'n Fatty had aboard his 43-foot, 30,000-pound ketch Ganish, was exactly what I bought for Oceanus. The only difference was that he had 3/8ths G4 chain, whereas I had 5/16ths G4. But his boat is bigger by 8,000 pounds and is ketch-rigged, so it is heavier and has more windage than my boat.

The book, like all of Capt'n Fatty's writing, is funny and entertaining. Better yet, he explains in detail how he rigged and marked his chain and a step-by-step explanation about how he and his wife, Carolyn, deploy and retrieve the anchor. Just what I was looking for.

Virginia and I started putting together our anchoring system. I drilled holes in the deck where our manual windlass was. After removing as much of the balsa wood core as I could reach with a bent nail in a hand drill, I taped up the bottom of the holes and filled them with epoxy thickened with cabosil to about the consistency of honey. This protects the balsa wood core even if the fitting leaks.

The next day I redrilled the holes and ran the bolts through. Virginia, chief electrician aboard Oceanus, mapped out where to run the wire for our windlass. Then we worked backwards with a hole saw along the path the wire would take back to the battery bank in the saloon. It ran under shelves and through lockers in the forepeak, our stateroom and the head until we reached the bathtub.

Old technology saves the day.

The tub has a seat. Under the seat is filled with foam insulation. I needed to drill through the insulation to the plywood bulkhead and into the battery box underneath the forward settee in the saloon. I was nervous about doing this because I could inadvertently drill a hole in our tub. Virginia would hurt me bad if I did that. So, I used a long bit on an extension in my old Stanley brace and went from the head side where I knew where the sides of the tub were. It worked like a charm and was kinda fun too.

With the pathway to the battery box established, we used a flexible 100-foot tape to measure precisely how much wire we would need. We even used masking tape to hold the measuring tape in place to get a good measurement. The two runs of double ought tinned wire is expensive and we didn't want to buy more than we were going to use.

Don't cheap out on the wire. Undersized wire causes voltage drops that hurts the performance of your windlass and can cause heat buildup in the windlass and the wire. The wire can get hot enough to cause a fire aboard. Goodlander has some scary stories about this in his book.  The cable we used is as big around as your thumb.

The windlass cables start their journey from the battery box to the chain locker. Note the 100-amp breaker in the positive (red) cable.

We ran the wire and put a 100 amp breaker in the positive (red) wire inside the battery box. This is important to protect the big wire. It's also a handy way to cut the power to the windlass so no one can run the windlass from the deck switches while you're away from your boat. We got a lot of help from Mike and Vince at our local Englund Marine store with the details of the installation. Englund's also loaned us the big $600 pair of crimpers to attach the lugs to the monster wire.

The installation looked perfect. With excitement and trepidation Virginia stepped on one deck switch: nothing. Then the other deck switch: also nothing. The deck switches feed into a control box that contains two solenoids, one for the up and one for down. Using a chunk of battery cable and bypassing the control box we determine that the winch and the switches were working fine. The control box was defective.

The new control box in a high locker just outside the chain locker. We made no connections inside the chain locker where they could get wet. The control box is a replacement. The original was defective from the factory.

I wish I could tell you that Imtra, the company that imports Lofrans windlasses to the US from Italy, was super accommodating when we called. Alas, it took my sweet wife lots of convincing to get them to agree to send us a new control box and pay for shipping. (She wisely wouldn't let her hot-head husband negotiate with the Imtra rep.)

The new control box from Imtra arrived a week later. It took a few minutes to switch it out and the windlass worked like a champ. It's frustrating to spend so much money on equipment, spend a lot of time and more money on installation and then have a high percentage of the pricey gear not work the first time.

Me demonstrating poor lifting technique. You can see some of the cable ties marking the chain lengths.

With the windlass installed, it was time to load the chain and anchor aboard. I waited until high tide before bringing the chain down the ramp to our dock in a wheelbarrow. We laid the chain out on the dock so we could measure and mark it.

Goodlander marks his chain every 50 feet with nylon cable ties, as many as will fit on one link. That's about five or six in our case. At 50 feet we bristled up one link, at a hundred we did two links separated by three links, at 150 we three links separated by three links, and so on. Goodlander said marking the chain every 50 feet is a compromise between knowing too much and knowing too little. That made sense to me.

Virginia had the idea to spray paint a mark in between, so we can get a little finer detail on how much chain is out. We used some white appliance paint to mark three links every 25 feet, if it wasn't already marked with the cable ties. The advantage of the cable ties is that even if your chain is real muddy, you can still see them. The painted links in between might be obscured with mud, but most of the time we should see the mark.

Considering how close the tolerance is between the chain and the gypsy head on the windlass, it's surprising that all the cable ties don't gum up the works. But I could detect no change as the bristly links came aboard. According to Goodlander, the cable ties last a long time too.

The new U bolt installed in the chain locker along with some Dry Deck to allow the chain to stay drier.

Before we loaded the chain aboard, we installed a heavy U bolt in a re-enforced section of the chain locker's bulkhead. This is to tie a length of rope onto the end of the chain, well, nearly the end. Goodlander suggests tying the rope five links from the end so you can shackle on more chain or rope to increase the length of your rode, should you need to. The rope tied to the U bolt can take the strain temporarily while I shackle additional rode onto the end of my 300 feet of chain.

The chain is not shackled to the U bolt for another reason: in an emergency I may need to divorce the chain from my boat. With a length of rope, just long enough to clear the chain gypsy, I can cut it free if I need to and retrieve it later.

I also put four squares of Dry Deck in the chain locker to keep the chain off the bottom and allow some air to circulate to keep the chain drier. This was another suggestion from Goodlander's book.

I will need to add a stainless steel kick plate to the bow of Oceanus to protect it from the anchor.

We used the windlass to load the chain on the boat. A few feet before the anchor came aboard we added a link's worth of cable ties to warn the windlass operator to slow down and ease the anchor aboard.

Oceanus has a deep chain locker. The chain drops about six feet before it starts to pile up. This is good to keep the chain from hockling. Shallow chain lockers, so common on newer boats, have a problem with this. I don't anticipate we will.

Oceanus's deep chain locker.

I really enjoyed reading Creative Anchoring and I learned a lot. Great stories, good and bad examples and loads of Goodlander's opinions informed by more than half a century of living afloat. The details in the book was just what I needed to finally put together my anchoring system.

Changing throttle and shift cables

Henry works on the binnacle of Oceanus to replace the shift cables.

Among all the projects aboard Oceanus, changing the shift and throttle cables was not even on my radar.

I've been reading sailing magazines since I was a kid and I can't remember a single article about changing them. Like most things on a boat, you only replace them if it's a problem, right? But Henry, my diesel mechanic and friend, insists they should be changed every seven years. More often if you don't use your boat much.

The thing about shift and throttle cables is the problems creep up slowly. The cables, which run from the helm to the transmission and fuel-injector pump on the diesel, gradually get stiffer and harder to move until they freeze up all together or break; possibly -- no probably -- at a critical moment. A broken or frozen cable would leave you unable to shift or control your throttle.

Henry was suspicious of  my cables from the get go. "When was the last time these were changed?" he asked, pinning me with his piercing blue eyes. Without waiting for an answer he said, "I bet it's been more than 20 years." My guess was that it was even longer than that, but I didn't say anything, I just shrugged.

Henry's diagnosis was confirmed when he drove the boat. "These are way too stiff," he said. "And the chain for your wheel needs oiling too."

I hoped this would be a simple job. Just take the old cables out and put the new ones in. What could go wrong?

Everything. OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration. All six of the bolts we needed to remove to take apart Oceanus's helm were frozen. Henry managed to remove three of them without breaking them off, but it was an hours-long struggle. The remaining three finally broke off and had to be drilled out.

An hour and a half job became a day and a half job. All because who ever put the six bolts in last never coated them with anything to prevent them from freezing in place. That person was not Henry, who coats every bolt he puts in a boat with Never Seize.

"Years from now when someone takes these apart they will thank me," he said. And be amazed something actually comes apart easily, I thought.

To get at things better, we removed the stainless steel tubing that supports the helm and took off the old teak piece that connected the two. The teak was already the worst-looking piece of wood on the boat and taking it off didn't help its looks any; a big chip broke lose as we were removing the U-shaped stainless tubing that serves as a handhold.

The old wood piece that helps tie everything together at the helm station was the worst-look piece of teak on the boat.

After Henry left that evening of the first day of screw removal, Virginia polished the stainless steel handhold and I went to my stash of teak pieces and found one to make a replacement for the connector piece. Using the old one as a pattern, it only took me a couple of hours with a jig saw, drill, hand plane and sander to make a replacement. When Henry returned the next morning he approved.

Henry spent the better part of the second day removing the old screws from the binnacle. He then ran a tap through all the holes to clean up the threads. Finally, he could replace the cables.

He helped me attach our teak cockpit table to the new teak replacement piece I made. Then we put the binnacle back together.

Before he left to head back to his home and business in Salem, he offered to take the throttle and shift levers home to spruce them up. They are original to the boat. Forty-five years of use, abuse, saltwater and neglect took a toll on the nickle plating; it was about half gone and both levers were corroded. Henry said he would glass bead the levers and polish up the bronze on his buffer. He also assigned me a list of tasks to complete before he returned, including oiling the chain and other moving parts of the steering system.

The next weekend Henry returned with the levers. Not only were they now beautifully polished bronze with all the nickle plating removed, but he painted the background on the cast lettering that says "Fuel" on one and "Shift" on the other. A very nice touch.Thanks Henry!

The polished bronze looks nice with the new teak.

The new cables make a huge difference in the feel and response when driving Oceanus. Best of all, I don't worry about them failing, at least for another seven years or so.