All shined up and ready to launch!

[WillieC]

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Gotta love that 48 year old gelcoat!

Out she goes with tomorrow's high tide. Let the fun begin!
The checklist is just about done and she started right up on the trailer this afternoon. I have no reason to think she might not, but I still get the shivers when she fires. Love this old boat!

[DesertAlbin736]

Woo hoo! Miss you guys, it's been too long! What are your plans for the summer? I guess the border is staying closed again this year, at least through most of July. Wow, it's hot up there too! 99 in Blaine by Monday! The summer down here has been brutal so far.

[WillieC]

Summer plans are fluid what with the Starfleet Commander contemplating actually retiring, once again. She says she has time off on the calendar, a two week jig here then longer come August. I, on the other hand, having spent my working years in construction, never plan for much beyond the day in which I find myself. Other than being ready for anything.

Das WillieC is running like a champ...well she smokes a little and seems to have cut back on her drinking, and now is on a regular exercise regime. She lost a lot of weight and feels much better for it, but I have to watch her and keep a good eye on her or she'll start packing it on again. Old habits are difficult to break.

Hotter than hell here so we've taken to sunset cruises. This heat wave is supposed to break but not before busting all our thermometers. 100 yesterday, 111 today? We have AC, in the house, but are loathe to turn it on. Sort of a PNW thing, like umbrellas. Only transplants use them. (I just closed up the house and turned it on. For the Starfleet Commander, you understand.)

Major upgrades this year were pretty minor. Regular maintenance and thorough, deep clean. Total emptying of stowage and rigorous sorting before reload. Swapped nav lights to LED, thank you MarineBeam, mainly for the heat factor but also for visibility. After a few libations even I can now tell whether we are coming or going after sunset. Improved connection to removable anchor light. The old "vacuum plug" (cigarette lighter) with its patina of 48 YO rust made for a rather anemic anchor light so I went to a bolted connection with insulated knobs. Easy always on 12V access below the dash.

New boot stripe and reworked swim step made the bottom paint look like hell, so I repainted the bottom on the trailer. Close enough this time.

The big addition is the 500KG manual windlass with gypsie and capstan on the foredeck, complete with its own bow roller. For a 10kg anchor, you might reasonably ask? No, for the 150 plus pound mooring anchor out in the Canal. My neighbors with their failing and fouled engine block anchors are being real nice to me of late. I am mildly suspicious. I now know just about all there is to know about the Muir Hercules Armstrong windlass, having bought used, but you already knew that.

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[dkirsop]

That windlass looks like a great piece of kit. I am sure the Starfleet Commander approves. Not much happening here, too hot to move although I am sure DA thinks we are both a bunch of wimps. We do plan to join the Albineers at Genoa Bay in September.

[DesertAlbin736]

Major upgrades this year were pretty minor.

Kinda like jumbo shrimp?

I am sure DA thinks we are both a bunch of wimps.

No, hot is hot. You guys have the humidity & 90 up there feels as bad as a dry 110 down here. It hit 112 F (44.4 C) here today. Last week was 115 every day for a week straight & no sign of rain. It actually peaked one day at 118, just a few degrees shy of the all time record. Global warming is here! Even first thing in the morning at daybreak it's already over 80 F (26.7 C) & goes up from there. By 8 AM local (sun comes up early by the clock because we stay on Mountain Standard time & don't switch to DST, so we're on the same time as Pacific Daylight) it's already too hot to do much outside. We have about 2 hours from 6 AM to 8 AM to do anything outside, like walking or doing yard work. The other day I took my laser/infrared thermometer gun out at noon & measured the temperature of the blacktop pavement & it read 160 degrees F. The A/C runs 24/7 cycling on & off about every 10 minutes just to keep the house at 80 F (sans humidity). And we have 8 tons of A/C capacity to cool 2,000 sf, a main 5 ton unit & a secondary 3 ton unit. The only thing that makes it tolerable is the backyard swimming pool. Dry desert heat is weird. The air temperature outside can be over 100 F and the pool water close to 90, yet after going for a swim & getting out when wet you feel chilled from evaporation sucking the heat out of your body because of the 5 to 10% humidity & ridiculously low dew points. The sun is so intense that the only way to survive outside is to stay in the shade. Walking outside from an air conditioned space feels like walking into a blast furnace or the cab of a working steam locomotive. It's a bit like the Nefud desert scenes in "Lawrence of Arabia".

We took La Dolce Vita up to Flagstaff last week to park at our friends' house on their acre lot pending our departure for the east coast trip toward the end of July. Flagstaff is at like 7,000 feet elevation and about 30 degrees cooler than Phoenix. Those friends now are up in northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior getting their Southern Cross 31 cutter ready to sail to the eastern seaboard via Erie Canal.

This is their Southern Cross 31 "Sea Dragon" & will be the other half of our two boat flotilla from Tonawanda, NY on down. When they get to Tonawanda they'll have to de-rig, drop the mast, and lash it down on an X cradle across the top of the boat to make clearance for all the low bridges on the canal, then re-rig when we get to Waterford & the Troy Lock on the Hudson.

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These are the same folks we did Chatterbox Falls with in 2016 when they trailered their smaller O'Day sailboat up to Bellingham. That was the same year we spent July 1st Canada Day in Sidney & enjoyed the parade & festivities.

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