OCC - In The Club

OCC burgee

April 2018
What is the famous line - "I don't want to belong to any club that would accept people like me as a member." - Groucho Marx

Actually, we are thrill.  We are in!  We are officially members of the Ocean Cruising Club, better known as the OCC.  We have been threatening to join for a couple of years now but just haven't gotten around to it.  Besides, it is not that easy.  There are rules and a process. 

To join the OCC you must have completed 1000 non-stop ocean miles.  Okay - check , we did that on our passage down from the USA in 2013.  AND we have a sponsor to join.  Someone to vouch for our character.  Oh dear.  Hee hee.  Actually, several cruising friends have encouraged us to join and offered to be our sponsors.  So many, it was hard to choose who to put as our sponsor.  But Richard and Rowena on sv Galene have been the most badgering.....I mean encouraging for us to join so Richard was our the one we chose.

We have yet to learn the secret handshake but I am sure that will come.  For now, we are proudly flying the OCC burgee thanks to OCC member Bill on sv Tootaloo.   

The Great Chinese Communist Plot

Tom and I have discovered a diabolical plot by the Chinese Communist Party to take down the USA.  It's so simple and subtle that it had gone undetected until now.  But we are on to them and we are going to blow this whole thing w-i-d-e open.

Have you ever noticed how on a project one stainless steel screw or bolt or washer or nut seems rust up before the others.  Yes, stainless steel rusts in the right environment like say the sea/marine environment - come on people....we've talked about this before.  For example - you install a new rope clutch.  Four through bolts with accompanying nuts and washers.  Almost immediately one bolt or nut or washer starts to rust.  The others are just fine.  WTF?   Seriously!  I know you have all witnessed this first hand.

We've mentioned this to various people through the years.  Possible answers - Corrosion?  Inferior SS?  Dis-similar metals?  Hum?  Usual answer......"Must be a bad one in the batch."  We have heard this so often it has almost become the standard answer.  But let's look at this response closer.  So the theory is that somehow in the modern, highly technical manufacturing process of a run of say 5000 stainless steel 3/8 screws, that there is one or two that somehow just didn't get enough of whatever so they are bad.  These then escape quality control measures, get shipped to your local marine supply store where you just happen to pick that one or two out of a bin of 50 and install it on your boat where it promptly starts rusting.  Do I have it right?  Oh yes but these are Chinese manufactured SS screws, you say.  Okay.  But even still, read through that again for me just to be sure I have it right.  Seems like a stretch doesn't it? 

We thought so as well.  So we starting looking into other possibilities.  We find the randomness too convenient.  How could the one or two bad ones in each batch be random?  We decided they aren't.  These are deliberate!  This is where the plot starts.  We believe that all the communist bosses in China - from the lowest level to the highest, walk around with their pockets full of "bad" SS screws/bolts/nuts/washers.  It's part of the standard uniform.  On any given day they might be asked or decide to tour a SS manufacturer.  When they tour these factories, they simply reach in their pockets and toss a few of these bad ones in with all the good ones.  This starts the waterfall effect - the screw is shipped to the USA where you buy the bad one at your local marine or hardware store, installing the inferior screw which starts rusting immediately.  Whatever project you have going is doomed thus reducing your success and ultimately the success of the USA.  This is happening not only to you but to big commercial builders.  Don't you see.......The Communist bosses are taking down the USA one bad screw at a time!  

Dirty Laundry - We Are Not Sailing Purist

Saturday, May 9th, 2015

Some people are sailing purist or close to it.  We are not.  We use our engine.  We have a 56 horse power engine and 200 gallons of diesel and we are not afraid to use it.

There are those cruisers / sailors that rarely use their engine.  Sometimes this is because they don't like or want to - purists.  Others, it's because they have limited fuel.  There are those that don't even have engines.  Not an option for us.  Must have a good strong engine was high on our priority list when picking a boat.  It's a vital tool for us.  We use the tools we have.

I have read many a cruising blog where after a year of cruising the blogger states with shock how much they motored.  Not me.  I knew we would motor a lot.  While we keep track of engine hours, motoring and sail sets in our log, it's not something we are hung up on.  Yes, we 

like to sail.  It's wonderful to shut off the noise of the engine and move along under sail power alone.  

However, move along is an important factor.  While we are not on a schedule, there are things we are purists about such as never coming into a new or unfamiliar harbor at night.  Never!  The same is true for one we have been into but that is challenging.  For the most part, we don't enter into anywhere at night.  If we are out sailing at night, it's several miles off shore on passage to another island.  This is very different than our previous lake sailing where we sailed nearly everywhere.  Sailing up the long arm of the lake to the yacht club meant 5 hours tacking back.  Oh well.  Night sail until midnight and then back to the slip, fun stuff.

Another factor is getting a good anchoring spot or mooring ball.  Some anchorages are small with limited good holding spots.  You don't want to dilly- dally around getting to these anchorages.  Thus if the wind drops off, we might fire up the engine to help us get there and get a mooring ball vs sailing along at 3 knots and arriving late to find no mooring balls and screaming winds in the anchorage meaning anchor watch all night or possibly dragging anchor.

We motor sailed yesterday to get to our new location.  Big deal.  We arrived safely to a new to us, upwind ie challenging to sail to destination in plenty time to find our way in to this new harbor, get anchored and straighten the boat out from sailing mode back into anchor mode.  We actually attempted to get here the day before but we discovered that we didn't set out early enough.  The upwind beat was tougher than we anticipated - tacking back and forth and even using motor sailing from our location was not going to work against the wind, waves and current....making 2 knots, it would take us hours and hours and we would arrive after dark.  Plan B - crack off, sail to The Saints and try again tomorrow - earlier and at a better angle.  

This morning we left at 6:35 AM.  We motor sailed tight on the wind to clear a certain point of land on Guadeloupe to arrive mid-day into our new anchorage.  An anchorage with a challenging seabed - meaning it took us three attempts to get set and even then we have been on cautious anchor watch throughout the afternoon to be sure we are really set and don't drag.  

While cruising for us is about the journey - the exploration, the unexpected discoveries, and adventure vs the destination......we still need to get places and thus sometimes we sail and sometimes we motor.  

Rain and Dust

Thursday, May 9th 2015
"I dream of rain" is a line from "Desert Rose" a song by Sting.  And much like that song, we are dreaming of rain as well to wash away the desert sand of the Sahara.  Yes, you heard me correctly.  Our boat is coated with a healthy layer of dust from the Sahara Desert.  A fine layer everywhere.  Those of you from Kansas and the middle plains - think dust storm type coating.  It is caked into the wires of our standing rigging - it's that fine.

The experts at NOAA have been nice enough to track and report these big waves of Saharan dust that have been rolling across the Atlantic and through the Caribbean.  It's so weird to have Saharan dust everywhere on the boat.  Dust?!  However, I would much rather have a dust storm than a tropical storm or hurricane rolling across even if it has made a mess of the boat.  Prior to departure yesterday we gave the dodger glass and solar panels a fresh water rinse.  What a difference that made.  The rest of the boat got a salt water rinse from waves as we made our way south along the leeward side of Guadeloupe.  As a result of this dust it was very hazy yesterday.  I could actually feel it in the air we were trying to breath - cough, cough.  Hopefully today will be clearer.