Oh God, I bought a Boat.        

A sporadic journal tracing my adventures with the increasingly wonderful sailing vessel La Mouette, recently renamed after my wife, Julie Gae.  I guess this is a blog of sorts.  BTW, I hate the term Blog.  What a lazy, ugly construction.  Blogger.  Sounds like one more thing to fear in the night.  MILF, now there's an acronymic daydream.  

8 Aug 06: I buy a boat.  Boat fixers like me don't usually own boats.  I did the smart thing.  I got my wife's permission.

18 September 2006:  Well, I guess this isn't too bad.   The boat becomes a lifesaver while "popcorn" is scraped off my house ceilings and the whole house interior is painted.    My wife, Julie, comes to appreciate the boat.  Julie is asthmatic and the dust from working on the house was killing her breathing ability.  Also, having my own boat I finally "get it" on battery chargers.

1 December 2006: You can't get home from here.  A little trip to Catalina was nearly one way.  A prop blade broke off in an encounter with a poly line.  In 2008, I finally determined that the prop blade was cracked and had crevice corrosion.  It was going to go soon anyway.   A 2008 photo of the new prop shows how I polished it at haulout.

25 June 2009:  Details, details.  Making the boat safe and comfortable.  An attempt to catch up on all the boat work I've done over the last few years that doesn't fit anywhere else.

6 July 2009:  My Nicro solar powered vent dies and still lives on.

A series of articles on marine sanitation: How I keep my boat head flushing well and my holding tank clean and free from odors.

4 March 2007:  Why marine sanitation is a pressing issue.  Entirely too much detail on the shortcomings of your average head.  How this became a pressing issue.  Reading reference highly recommended: 'Get Rid of Boat Odors: a Boat Owner's guide to Marine Sanitation Systems and other sources of Aggravation and Odor', by Peggie Hall.  Published by Seaworthy Publications Inc (ISBN 1892399156).   Most of what I've been doing I learned from an article by this person.  Thanks so much, Ms. Hall.

10 June 2007:  The Only Good Holding Tank is a Big Enough Holding Tank.   That smelly bladder had to go.  And I don't want to be emptying the tank every two days.  A holding tank installation described.  28 gallons in a 28 foot boat, which is not easy, particularly if you keep it midships.

17 June 2007  Flushing the Holding Tank.  Hey, you flush the toilet.  Getting rid of the sediment that accumulates in holding tanks.  Update 8 May 2009: Changing the flushing pump impeller.
                    
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