Hatch Lens Replacement

Removing the old lenses from the hatches.

After 30 years, it was time to replace the acrylic lenses in Katmai's hatches.  We spent two weeks in January finally completing the project.  The original lenses were crazed and a couple had small cracks.  In 2015, we tried to source new acyclic in Australia but were unable to get 'cast' acrylic as recommended by boat manufacturer. 



Installing the bedding compound

Back in the USA, Beneteau recommended we contact Tony at SelectPlastics.com who specializes in repairing and replacing marine hatch and porthole lenses.  Tony provided a lot of advice and supplied cut  ChemCast GP Cast Acrylic in slightly oversized blanks of the various sizes and thicknesses we needed.  He shipped them to us in Seattle before our departure and we carried them, well packed/padded, as checked luggage when we flew to Perth late last year.  Yes, it was a bit awkward travelling with about 75 lbs of acrylic lenses in two rather large boxes, but it was worth it!  (and the airlines were fantastic by the way with these oversized 'bags'!)



New lenses in the deck top hatches

We removed the old lenses and used them as templates to shape the new ones.  Fortunately, woodworking tools can be used to shape cast acrylic and on Tony's advice we used new plastic drill bits and new router bits.  We also greatly appreciate the advice and help we got from Tracey at Perth Wood School! We are very fortunate to have the Perth Wood School as a resource for various woodworking projects when we are in Perth.  It is a fantastic facility, with wonderful people and really nicely arranged workshop/tools. 

Meanwhile the big job of preparing the hatch hardware to receive new lenses commenced.  The hatches were cleaned, serviced and all the old silicone removed in preparation of bedding the new lenses.  We used the recommendations from Tony again, and bedded the main deck hatch new lenses with Sika 295UV and applied the manufacturer recommended primers etc.  For the small side portlights we installed the new lenses using Dow 795, the same product that is used to attach windows into skyscrapers,  that should be good enough for us!

It was a big project that took 14 very long days, but we are really happy with the results.

And now, it is back to sailing with the arrival of our nephew and his friend! 

Bunbury to Fremantle

 

At Anchor in Bunbury



Enjoying the evening at the
Koombana Bay Sailing Club with fellow sailors from FSC

The anchorage in Koombama Bay, Bunbury is rather large by Australia west coast standards.  Reportedly the name means 'Bay of Spouting Whales' in the local Aboriginal language.  While we did not see any whales, there were a large number or playful porpoise that swam to the bow of Katmai and greeted us as we arrived at the entrance to the bay.  We stayed for two nights, and were fortunate to share the company of several boats from the Fremantle Sailing Club and the hospitality of the Koombana Bay Sailing Club. 

I tried my hand at fishing and crabbing from the boat.  The local crabs are called Blue Swimmers, and I finally did catch one, but (of course) it was undersized, so went back to the sea.  A few small herrings, and one large ray that fortunately got away were all the fish that I caught.  Par for my course with fishing! 

We departed before 5 am on Wednesday, January 4th bound for the north end of Garden Island where we planned to anchor for the night.  One of the FSC boats, Divided Sky, left with us so it was great to sail in company of another boat.  Winds were mostly light southeasterly to southwesterly and we did a bit of sailing and motoring to make the 75 miles by late afternoon. 

Garden Island from the cockpit on Katmai

It did feel good to stop for the evening at the northern end of Garden Island.  Garden Island is only about 7 miles from our home harbor at Fremantle, and is a lovely place.  The area has a long history and was one of the first places Europeans settled, until a harbor was established in Perth/Fremantle.  Later during the mid 1900's it was marketed as a vacation
area. 

A nice view of Divided Sky as she passed us at Garden Island

Small holiday homes were removed when the Australian Navy took control of the island in 1978.  The southern end of the island is now the base of operations for submarines.  The environment of the island probably has benefited from this, as it has not been developed and still contains many unique species of plants and animals, including the Tammar Wallaby.  The Tammar is a small kangaroo like animal, the size of a rabbit.   There are also walking trails with nice views from the north end of the island.

Enjoying the short sail between
Garden Island and Rockingham

The next day we accompanied Divided Sky south to Rockingham, a place we had never been before.   The trip was very nice morning sail past moored grain cargo ships to the resort area of Rockingham were we picked up a 'courtesy mooring' placed by the Australian Department of Transporation.  The wind was expected to pick up for the evening with the passing of a weather system, so it was great to be in such a large sheltered bay. 

Rockingham has a amazingly lovely  broad sand beach, lots of beach side cafe's and holiday homes.  It hardly feels like Perth is only 14 miles to the north.  Tomorrow, we'll head back to the harbor for a few weeks.
Update, Saturday 7 January: After an crack of dawn sail to Fremantle, we are back in the harbor! As Australian friends would say, we were up before the swallow's.  We'll be here in Fremantle for a couple weeks until our nephew and his GF arrive later in January...then more sailing adventures.



Jetty at Rockingham is a popular place to fish and swim

Our Dinghy on shore and Katmai in the very far distance. 
What a fantastic beach in Rockingham!

A good reminder that pedestrians
do not have any special right of way in Australia. 
At least the rules are very clear!



Type of Sailing We All Dream About

Early Morning Light

Sailing at last -  Fremantle to Bunbury! 
We departed the Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC) harbor before dawn on New Year’s day for the 35 mile sail south to Mandurah.  We departed at 5 am to catch the morning easterly winds.  The east wind was predicted to shift to the south at noon, and it did.  It was just a fantastic, ideal day of sailing and we arrived Mandurah midday.  By evening several other FSC boats joined us in the anchorage. We were part of the group heading south during the holiday season. 

With several mornings of lovely easterly winds forecast, it was an excellent time to go south.  The predominate summer wind pattern here is easterly winds in the morning, and southerly ‘sea breeze’ winds in the afternoon and evenings.  The southerlies can be quite strong, more of a gale than a breeze at times.  Regardless of strength, wind from the south makes it difficult to sail south, and certainly uncomfortable as the seas tend to be rather lumpy along the coast when the south wind blows!

Cockburn sound is the body of water just outside of the harbor, and it is quite shallow, so Katmai must use the channel that is dredged for cargo ships for at least part of the way.  You can see our zigzag in the first part of the trip as we sail out of the harbor.  Once we rounded the north end of Garden Island, it was a lovely beam reach between the two reef complexes until it was time to make the turn in to Mandurah and anchor off of Robert Point.  It is fantastic to sail as the sunrises; it is so peaceful.

FSC sailboats at anchor with us off Mandurah for the evening of 1 January 2017

Sunset at Robert Point, Mandurah. 

People fishing on the spit at Robert Point, Mandurah

Enjoying the evening in the cockpit

That evening at anchor was just fantastic with a light breeze to cool us off from the days' heat, and a nice sunset with fishers and walkers silhouetted on the beach.
 
Mandurah to Bunbury

Koniara left with us just before sunrise.

Here her sails glow in the pre-dawn

light of 2 Jan 2017

The next morning, January 2^nd, we again departed before sunrise, about 4:30 am with several other FSC boats.  It was a magical ride down the coast on easterly winds that ranged from 10-25 knots.  We were inside of the main reef complex called the ‘Boulevards’. 
 
We did however keep out eye on the depth sounder at all times as we had about 20 feet under the keel the whole way.  It was once of the nicest sails we ever had, with perfect weather, incredible scenery of the sand dunes along the coast, porpoise, flat seas and turquoise blue water, friends sailing along in their boats and lovely warm light.
 

We arrived in Bunbury about 1 pm.  It was a lovely 50 mile sail.  There were already several FSC boats here, including ‘Divided Sky and ‘John Barley Corn’.  



We passed by 50 miles of amazing

 coastal sand dunes on the way to Bunbury

By evening, Miss Saigon, Koniara, Pegasus II, Eucalypt and Celeste were all anchored and we did what cruising sailors all over the world do….we took our tender inflatables to shore and shared a few drinks and appetizers and enjoyed the lovely company of friends both old and new.

We plan on staying here for two nights and then returning to Fremantle on Wednesday.  It will give some time to fish and crab and perhaps take a swim!

Back in the Pen (Slip) with Wild Weather



Katmai went back in to the water on schedule just before Christmas and boy were we glad.  The Christmas season brought really unusual and interesting weather to much of Australia.  We were glad to observe the weather from the comfort of our boat, in the harbor. 

There were two large storm systems influenced the weather in Fremantle, even though they were relatively distant. 

37.5 knots of wind in the harbor was not
unusual during Christmas week 2016

It was a very windy week here in the harbor, with local predictions consistently exceeded. Much of the last few days saw winds in the 20 to high 30 knot range.
The Fremantle Sailing Club Cruising section members are planning on sailing south to Quindalup for the holidays. While some boats have departed we are waiting for more favorable winds.




The following three synoptic charts from the Australia Government weather service really show the story of the unusual weather we have experienced.

This first chart is from Christmas Eve.  I have added our position on the west coast in the Fremantle Harbor.  To the north is a cyclone, Yvette, that is headed for landfall on the northwest coast of Australia.  The continent of Australia is about the size of the lower 48 states.




Two days later, Yvette is bringing major rains to the center of Australia, a region which is a desert.  The Uluru National Park (formerly known as Ayer's Rock) was closed due to heavy rains and flooding.  The official government word is that it was a once in 50 years' storm.  Note also the High Pressure system in the Bight of Australia.  During the Australian summer season (now), the high pressure systems move from west to east through the waters off southern Australia every 3-4 days.

The most amazing thing happened next. Within 18 hours, a major Low Pressure system (storm) formed in the Australian bight.  As the next High pressure system (the 1022 on the Chart) tried to move in to the bight, it compressed against the big Low.  This compression is expressed as the isobar lines on the chart are close together, bringing more wind to the west coast of Australia.

It is three days later as I type this and things are improving weather-wise. The Low in the bight has moved considerably to the east and the more normal pattern of high pressure systems moving though has resumed. We plan on heading south tomorrow and hope for some nice easterly winds to ease us south.  The strong southerlies of the last week would have been right 'on the nose'.  We will be off for just a few days for local sailing/fishing and socializing with friends.

Back at the Helm in Freo

We’re back in Fremantle on our boat Katmai after spending most of the last year setting up our post retirement home, garden and workshop on Orcas Island.  We are delighted to be back at the Fremantle Sailing Club (FSC) for the southern summer.  It has been especially wonderful to see so many long term friends.  Our life here is very social, with many club events and friends in the area.

Katmai being lifted out of the
water for routine maintenance

During the first weeks back on the boat we have been hard at work, but then a wise friend once told me that all sailing is hard work, and I suppose that is true. Most of the work is really enjoyable though.

The least favorite part of boat ownership is the maintenance done ‘on the hard’.  Yes, ‘sailing’ on the asphalt of a marine work yard to do the routine, every other year, maintenance.   Tasks include cleaning, sanding and reapplying the boat bottom antifouling paint, buffing and polishing the ‘top sides’, the white shiny part that is above the water, cleaning the propeller and applying a special antifouling to the metal, checking all the though hulls, cleaning and reinstalling all the sensors that penetrate the hull such as depth and speed sensors, and checking the rudder and keel.

Work on the bottom paint goes pretty quickly on Katmai.  We normally have minimal sanding to do.  Considering she did not sail during most of 2016 we are pleasantly surprised to see very little marine growth on her bottom.  Nothing a power wash did not solve. 

Eric preparing the hull to paint with anitfoul

This year we gave her two coats of an antifoul known to do well locally, Altex #5.  We were happy though with the performance of the Jotun we used last time.  When we first got to Australia, at great expense, we found the same antifouling paint that did well for us in Alaska, International's Micron.  It did not do well in Australia; the critters in the warmer water were not discouraged.  So we learned the lesson of antifouling.  Ask what the local boats are using.  We are so fortunate to have a friendly and helpful chandlery(boat part store) on the edge of the works area, Wilson Marine.  The staff have been fantastic about getting us parts we need and are so convenient for that special bold or screw that one needs in the middle of a project.

Can you spot the snow man? 
Ha, Ha- it is near 100F!
Painting antifouling using a
respirator and other safety gear.

What really was a pleasant surprise was the fantastic condition of the propeller and shaft.  Normally these are crusted over with carbonaceous marine growth that takes a couple days of scrubbing and sanding to remove.  When she was out of the water for maintenance in 2015, we had the prop and shaft treated with ‘Prop-Speed’ and clearly it worked.  Expensive, but worth it in the long run.  Even the sacrificial zincs were in great shape: the 2 year old shaft zinc is nearly like new and the prop zinc I did replace but only because of slight erosion.

Cleaning the propeller to add a new zinc.

In Alaska, we seemed to go through a set of zincs in 6 months to one year.  Here they last many years.  I suspect it is due to the “Fail-Safe” galvanic isolator we added when Katmai first arrived in Australia as part of the broader rewiring of the whole boat.

One of the most challenging chores is the buffing and polishing of the top sides.  It is really like waxing your car, except Katmai is 25% longer than a school bus, and of course, up on stands.  So imagine a school bus up in the air 10 feet.  To get to the sides, Eric has to work 6-8 feet up in the air on scaffolding.  Holding a 15 lb electric buffer mostly over his head to buff the hull, then every 8 feet, scamper down to slide the scaffold over for the next 8 feet.  Then once more around to wax.  All in all, this part takes 2 days.

Finally, time to go back in the water

Finally, after a long, dusty, sweaty week, the sound of the 75 metric ton hoist coming for us is like music. Within 30 minutes, Katmai is picked up off the stands, and gently placed back afloat in the water. For me, the best part of being back in the water is to be able to sleep at sea-level again, rather than up in the stand 12 feet above the ground.  Unless it is really hot, we have always stayed on the boat during maintenance.   I think it makes us get it done and over with!

Back in the water, but gear to be cleaned

 Now, back in the water, we are organizing Katmai, finalizing the rigging and getting ready to sail down the coast to the wine country of Western Australia with several other boats from the FSC over the holidays. 


Donning climbing harness
for a ride to the top

Eric has been up the mast several times in the last few weeks, but today is the last for a while.  Today he went up to lubricate the fittings before we did the final tensioning with the mast jack.  A final rig check before we go out…Can’t wait.  I promise sailing photos soon!

Eric near top of the mast
for final check

We are always ever so glad to be back in the water, in our slip (pen). Can you tell?  The next day or two are spent cleaning the boat which is always covered with dirt and grime as are our clothes and all gear used in the process.  Even the water hose and electrical cords get a cleaning with soft scrub and fresh water before being allow back on the boat.  My tennis shoes are still quarantined in a bucket on the dock waiting for a cleaning.  Eric threw his (old) shoes out!

As type this, it is Christmas Eve in Australia, so Merry Christmas to everyone and best wishes for a fabulous, joy-filled, healthy 2017.

Last Leg: Geraldton to Fremantle, Australia

Fremantle Sailing Club Harbor Sunset

We are safely back in the Fremantle Sailing Club Harbor, after a record (for us) sail of 215 nautical miles in 24 hours between Geraldton and Fremantle.  We had a lovely reach in 15-20 knots of wind from the northwest.  The wind was consistent and stable for the entire 24 hours and the ocean more like a lake than the Indian Ocean.  The night was beautiful with clear skies lit with a full moon and zillions of stars.  In short, it was one of the nicest sails we had during our journey.  We were lucky that our strategy of waiting for good sailing weather paid off, as this is a notoriously difficult passage.

All in, over the last 3-1/2 months we sailed 4024 nautical miles during our round trip from Fremantle to Bali, Indonesia.  In Indonesia, we sailed to the western end of the island of Flores, then back through the Komodo Islands where we departed for Dampier Australia on July 5th and made landfall and cleared Customs on July 11.  We took the next 6 weeks to harbor-hop down the west coast of Australia back to our point of origin for this trip, Fremantle.

What's next ?  Some time back home in the USA planning the next adventure.

In the mean time we are writing some reviews of equipment performance, as well as lessons learned on our journey, that we will post on this site that may be of interest to fellow crusiers.

Whale Song Serenades: Carnarvon to Geraldton

We sailed the 290 miles between Carnarvon and Geraldton departing early morning Monday 24 August and arriving Geraldton after dark, about 8 pm on 26^th of August. 

We stopped the first night on the passage, after sailing only 50 miles, at the northern tip of Dirk Hartog Island and picked up the mooring in Turtle Bay for the night and to wait for the weather (winds) to moderate as forecast.  Dirk Hartog Island is the western most point of land in Australia, and a place of great historic significance as well as a place of great natural beauty.  This is definitely a place we want to visit again.

A place in history was sealed in the year 1616 when the island was discovered by captain Dirk Hartog of the Dutch East India Company ship Eendrach. The names of senior people on board, including Hartog's were inscribed with the date on a pewter plate and nailed to a post as he claimed the land for the Dutch.  He was only the first of many early explorers to visit the prominent land mark on the western coast of Australia.

Today, a light house stands on the northwestern cape of the island, which forms the northwestern corner of Australia.

We arrived at Turtle Bay early, about 3:00 pm after an ideal sail across Shark Bay.  Shark Bay is more than 5 million acres and a UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to seemingly boundless wildlife plus the world’s largest beds of sea grass.  It is a relatively shallow, huge bay, a popular tourist destination as well as a destination for humpback whales and the world’s largest concentration of dugongs, (manatees).  Without exaggeration, whales were in constant sight the whole 50 miles as we crossed the Bay from northeast to southeast. 


The cliffs and slopes of Dirk Hartog Island lit by the
warm light of sunset while we listen to the whales.

Frankly it was unbelievable to see that many whales all around us.  What a memorable experience.  It was also great sailing weather, with temperatures in the 70’s (F) and 15-25 knots behind the beam.

The abundance of humpback whales prompted us to pull out our small hydrophone to see if we could hear them sing.  Wow, were we glad we did.  We even recorded some of their vocalizations simply by holding the Ipad to the stereo speaker.  The hydrophone is a small unit originally marketed for kayakers.  It runs on a 9 volt battery, and has a 3.5 mm output jack that we plug in to the auxiliary input on our CD player.
 
Click on the white/red arrow by the whale's tail below to hear the whales we recorded.

Our hydrophone is from Aquarian Audio
and plugs in to the auxiliary
input to our onboard stereo
 

There were so many whales, and some so close to the boat that evening, after dark in the light of the full moon, we could hear them singing without the hydrophone!  That was a first for us, as we listened to their songs reverberate through Katmai’s hull.  Truly an amazing experience.  We have seen a lot of whales during our time in Alaska, but nothing that could remotely compare to the abundance of whales here in Australia.  By some estimates, the humpback whale population is growing nearly 10 percent per year in Western Australia, and is nearly back to pre-whaling population levels.  How good is that? Fantastic and rather amazing considering the harbor we stayed in while in Carnarvon was a whaling station that took nearly 8000 humpback whales alone, and it was only one of several stations along the coast.  The whaling stopped in the 1960’s. Whaling was, by some accounts, the first viable industry in Western Australia after the arrival of Europeans. Now days of course, Australia is very focused on conservation and protection of these gorgeous giants.

Whale spout mist in the air in front of the Cape of Dirk Hartog Island,
with a silhouette of the lighthouse backlit by the rising sun as we left Turtle Bay
for the run to Geraldton on Tuesday about 6 am.

All in all, we spent 18 days in Carnarvon waiting for that engine part, and then waiting for the proper weather to head south and continue our journey to Fremantle.  Fremantle is the main harbor for Perth Australia and where we will leave Katmai while we return back to the USA. Eric is holding the long awaited elbow for the engine exhaust manifold just after its arrival from Perth via Singapore.  Yeah, right part, phew!! 

Shore Side Explorations

 

A brave crab trying to look fearsome on the shoreface

While we wait in Carnarvon for a boat part, we have done some hiking on shore.  It is late winter, and the spring wildflowers are starting to bloom and as always, the bird life in Australia is pretty amazing too.  Here are some highlights of our recent walks.

Sturt Desert Peas - A favorite

Sturt Desert Peas are brilliant and abundant on the western coast of Australia.  They are named after Charles Sturt, who documented  large quantities of the flowers while exploring Australia in the mid 1840s. 
The brillant scarlet-red flowers bloom after rain and are each about 2 inches (50mm) long. In the Exmouth area, we saw a local variety that has a white center rather than black like the more common variety shown here.  There are many pea family wildflowers around, but none as showy as the Sturt Peas.

This hot pink flower is called parakeelya.  The Aboriginal people used the fleshy leaves as a source of water.  The brushy desert around Carnarvon exploded in pink from these little gems a couple days after a rain.  The flowers are about 1" across and formed a pink carpet beneath larger shrubs.  Amazing considering we are on the edge of the central desert. 

The showy sky blue flowers of the Trichodesma zeylanicum, commonly known as Camel Bush or Cattle Bush, are standouts every place we have been between Dampier and Carnarvon.  Here they form a bushy display right behind the main dune of the beach.

 


While exploring the tide pools along the Ningaloo coast, we were lucky to see Oyster Catcher birds.  Just as in Alaska, they are noisy beach combers.  Here there are two varieties, the all black 'sooty' oyster catcher and the black and white 'pied' oyster catcher.   These are one of the very few birds of Australia that seem the same as we had back in the USA.

This photo has one bird of each variety.  There were a pair of each on the tide flats.

And below, a beautiful sunset from the Carnarvon Yacht Club.   The club members have been very welcoming and helpful to us. 

Sunset from the Carnarvon Yacht Club

 

Waiting on Parts in Carnarvon, Australia

We are in the harbor of Carnarvon, on Australia’s western coast and waiting on an engine part for Katmai. An exhaust water leak developed in an elbow on the engine as we approached Carnarvon last week. Not a big drama, but when you have a Perkins engine that was built in England, and you are on the remote west coast of Australia, you are about as far away as you can be from a specialized part. Which means it will take some time, and expense to get a replacement part shipped to us.  Our stock list of spare parts that we carry is very long, but a new exhaust elbow was not in storage in the bilge, so we are WOP, waiting on parts.  We anticipate delivery mid week.  We can’t complain though, in fact just the opposite.  We have had really no significant failures in any of our systems, and we are safe in a nice harbor in a wonderful town.





Thumbs down for an exhaust flange with a pin hole sea water leak underneath. 
Note hose clamp holding a 'duct tape band-aid' so we could motor in to the harbor.

Carnarvon is a delightful spot and as always we make new friends in each new harbor.  Having a sailboat with a hailing port of Anchorage, Alaska while sailing in Australia is sort of like having a new friendly puppy in tow…many people stop by just to chat and ask about our adventure.   Often people will see our mast some distance off, while driving perhaps even a mile away and then come by and seek us out to chat and look at the boat.  Commonly, people ask if they can help and offer transportation, local knowledge and of course good sea yarns!  It is a small world, and we often meet the same people unexpectedly over and over. 

For instance, we meet a delightful man from Switzerland on the beach near Exmouth while exploring the tide pools one afternoon a couple weeks ago.  As Eric is from Switzerland, anytime we meet another ‘Swissie’, well it is instant conversation…in Swiss-German of course!  Wouldn’t you know it, as we were motoring around in the harbor with our dingy trying to determine where we could put Katmai (she was on a tug boat mooring about a mile out of the harbor), we are hailed from the roadside in Swiss-German!  Here was Danny and his wife, 250 miles and 4 days from where we last saw them.  None of us knew where the other was headed after Exmouth, and now we are in the same harbor at the same time.  Danny and Bente travelled by road in their caravan (RV) and us by sailboat.  What a coincidence!

New friend Danny was kind enough to take us to the hardware store so we could
purchase two fender boards to help secure Katmai to the seawall. 
That is Katmai's boom in front of the truck; she is tied to the seawall.

Danny was kind enough to help us get two large timbers to use as fender boards the next morning from the hardware store.  It would have been a long walk with a heavy load without his truck!

We are using the time tied to the seawall to do some chores, such as changing oil in the engine and generator, polishing stainless and the routine systems checks we perform (steering, hydraulics, electronics, engine, batteries, rigging)….the list is long.

Once again in a cockpit locker, Eric changing the oil in the generator.

The weather of course is gorgeous while we wait, and we very much wish we were on the sail to Geraldton.  Geraldton is our last planned stop before Fremantle, it is about 290 miles south and will be another two days or so of direct sailing.    

Slave to the stainless, Laurie polishes boat bits while Katmai is tied to the seawall.

We are just hoping the weather gods are in a good mood and that we do not have to wait long for a fine weather window once we get the part and get it installed.  Until then, there is more stainless to polish and other routine things to do.