The Final Projects!!

With our list of “shit to do later” and final projects in hand, we moved to Reads Bay inside of Lopez Island to position ourselves for a convenient early morning sail back to Cap Sante Marina. We had a slip reserved for August 4 through August 12 and we had 3 vendors scheduled. Dylan and Quinn with Northwest Rigging to complete the spinnaker mounts, Aaron with Pacific Fabrication to make stern pulpit lifeline rails, and Greg Harmon with Harmon Marine to trial the desalinizing water maker.

We had our own “honey do” list as well: Pick up our new 20 HP out board dinghy motor to replace our 4 HP, mount the new EPIRB (it gets activated and calls the Coast Guard if we sink), mount the Dan Buoy (a self-inflating 6 foot high pole thrown to a man over board), assemble and mount the fish cleaning table, and go to the Boat Wrecking Yard to hopefully find a discontinued model of porthole latch (called a “dog”). We found Sacagawea in April 2018 and now August 2020 we will finally complete the refit to make her ready for extensive blue water cruising! Crazy! We thought it would only take a year.
We got up to our alarm. Yuck! Got into Cap Sante Marina early and put a shout out to all of the vendors. Nobody could make it today, Friday. No worries, we had our list as well. The new outboard motor for our dinghy was located close to Bellingham and the Boat Wrecking Yard wasn’t far north of there. Perfect! Off we went, water, lunch, masks, hand sanitizer, credit cards, and don’t forget the car keys! I am getting used to not needing any of that stuff!
The Boat Wrecking Yard was unforgettable. Bill had called the owner before we went and he said he really didn’t think he had what we were looking for but it was “free to look”. I have never been to a car junk yard but I am sure the boat wrecking yard is similar. There were boats haphazardly strewn about. Some appear fixable, most not. The not-fixables were being stripped down for parts, then the fiberglass ground down for reuse, and lead from the keels melted into ingots. There were several truck trailers and each one was designated to house certain types of parts. We were directed to the trailer with portholes. I was expecting shelves stacked with the cut out windows labeled somehow. Nope! There was an aisle more or less down the middle with near-avalanching stacks of boat portholes and a little bit of everything else. Bill started looking from the front, I went about mid-way down and started. I took another look at the pictures of our port holes we had taken that morning and dove in. Five minutes later I found one! I couldn’t believe it! We went through the whole rest of the lot and couldn’t find another. We would have bought more for a backup but that was the only one. We took it to the office excited and smiling. The owner, a mountain of a man, chuckled and said “I knew we had some of those around.” We just nodded and said we were glad we came over. He continued to tell us how he got into the business, how business had changed over the years, and his hopes of fixing up the boat in the far corner to maybe sail himself one day. Forty-five minutes of stories later we were on the way to get our new outboard.
We are trading up to a 20 horsepower from a 4 HP outboard engine. We did not want any potential charter guests using a 20 HP engine on the dinghy, but it is definitely what we want for ourselves since the dinghy will be our “car” and sometimes need to go longer distances than the little 4 HP would be any good for. It will be nice to be able to get into shore and back quickly. I honestly am nervous about this. I already have trouble with the 4 HP. I accidentally turn the throttle too much and I often get confused with the tiller and turn the wrong way. Now all of these mistakes are going to be 5 times more bad! My plan is to be the last to get to the dinghy and let someone else drive. No, I will learn but it makes me nervous! The shop was large and clean and organized, a complete turnaround from the Boat Wrecking Yard. Bill happily traded in our almost-never-used Mercury 4 HP 4-stroke for the new, 20 HP 4-stroke Mercury outboard. The young man that helped set up and test the new engine was enthusiastic and tried to teach us everything we need to know in 15 min. We carried it out to the car. It was a beauty, shiny and new, black with red markings. Maybe I will like it.
During our drive back to Anacortes, all three vendors got back with us and scheduled a time to do their projects, very exciting! Monday Dylan and Quinn will attach the Spinnaker mounts. We have a giant parachute-like sail for downwind light breezes but we have no idea what it looks like. All I can see is a bit of hot pink color through a corner of the sock it lives in. Tuesday, Greg Harmon will come and test the water maker with us. There is a lift pump that pulls water from the sea and feeds it through 3 fillters, then the high pressure pump takes the clean salt water and pushes it through the membrane at 800 psi and out comes drinking water at ½ gal per minute. To do the test run we will need to take the boat out of the marina where the water is clean, or at least less dirty. When we bring the boat back in, we will back into the slip so that on Wednesday, Aaron can measure, make, and mount our one-inch stern rails. Yahoo! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.