Aluminum+Stainless steel=@#@$%#^!!!!

I am bleeding as I type this.  Cut myself fighting this stainless steel and aluminum monster.

That bastard in the photo above is my genoa car with sheave.  It is from 1991 or so I imagine.  Plenty of time to learn how to piss me off. Harken makes something similar still but they are about $900 apiece.  The sheaves on both my cars are shot.  The sheave will try but only with  a lot of help.
See that blue box under the car.  That holds the ball bearings in when it is not on the track.  Of course I know this after I took the other car off.  Ball bearings everywhere.  Grrr.  Being in a rush as usual and not thinking.  Dumb.
Anyway, I emailed Harken and found out that they will sell me sheaves for the low low sum of $266 each.  Crazy marine prices.  Part number 608 in case you were wondering.  So they come in on Friday.
I am currently STILL trying to get the sheave off the other block.

 That bolt is stuck on there.  Corroded.

If you zoom in you can see that the plate is stuck on the stainless steel part.  I think if I was able to have Thor slam on it with his hammer, that might dislodge this damn bolt.  I hacksawed through the other side of this thing.  That took about 10 minutes and 3 blades.
The photo below is the evil twin of the one above.  20 minutes of hacksawing to get that out.  5 blades also.  That bolt is 3/8" and is it strong.  See how the bolt is welded in the sheave.  No amount of hammering is going to fix that.

I put the dinghy wheels on.  That was an exercise in total frustration.  The stern of our Mercury dinghy is unlike most.  Of course.  So I had to remove some hardware from the dinghy to put this hardware on.  I had to epoxy the old holes and then I had to screw up drilling the new holes.  Filled those in and drilled again.
It seems that no matter what I am mounting, if it has screw holes in it, I mess it up royally.  Finally got those bastards on the back of the dinghy and one more thing checked off the list.

 Supposedly those wheels are going to save us backache and time.  Put the wheels down and the motor can stay lowered and the wheels protect the prop from hitting.  Unless you run up on a lone boulder that saddles those wheels.  When I do that, I post a picture.
I am officially on sabbatical now.  No more work.  No more money coming in only going out.  This will be interesting.

The going away cake from the gang at work

Next up I have to insulate the reefer and freezer better and then I have to finally get insurance for the boat that will cover us while in Mexico.  It is harder than you think.  Most insurance companies want three people on the boat with "blue water experience".  Which is what exactly?  None of the brokers can give me a satisfactory answer.  They ask where have you sailed and they say that counts or it doesn't count.  They don't ask for proof either.  At least not yet.  I have a couple emails out and we'll see what they say.

I do more!

I do more!!  That is what my daughter says when she wants to do more fun things.  I am not sure if I'd consider boatwork to be a fun thing but I could think of worse.......maybe not.  Working on boats would be outlawed by the Geneva Convention as cruel and unusual punishment.  It is a form of torture for sure.

We went to Whidbey Island via the car for the 4th of July and had a great time.  Pete and Rachelle showed up and we drank some beers and blew stuff up.

That blow up real good!  Man I loved SCTV,

Gingerbread sparkler that scared the hell out of Sam.

I spent about $300 on fireworks.  Got a bunch of sparklers and the like.  Also some mortars and some other cool rockets.  Lots and lots of fun. Kids had a blast also.

Staking our spot on the beach

Trying out the shirt that Grandma got her

I put the speedseal on however....

I put the new Speedseal plate on the raw water intake pump and noticed that it only has 4 holes whereas my old one had six,  Speedseal even sent me 6 screws.  Now this part has been sitting in the nav station desk for 3 months now.  I just got around to installing it.  I fired an email off to Speedseal and we'll see what they say.  It doesn't leak now and it is a very slick setup.
Before installing the Speedseal, I changed out the positive wire for the engine starter.  The engine never really cranked over with vigor and i have always suspected the cable.  What with it's crappy crimps and extra long length not to mention the laughable gauge (4 gauge I think).  I put in a 0 gauge and shortened it by 4 feet.  That starter cranks now.  Have to look at the engine mounts to make sure I didn't crack them.  Hit the starter and BOOM! that engine was running.

Much bigger cable to the starter.  No hesitation starting that Perkins now.

Hard to see but there is a bald eagle in the photo

We saw Huey Lewis and the News on the 7th of July at the Zoo

Went to see Huey Lewis and the News at the Zoo by our house with some friends last Sunday.  Great concert.  Walked there and back.  Even stopped at our neighborhood bar on the home.  Good times.

I took the kids and my parents to the SYC Port Madison outstation Saturday to give Jen a break.  We spent the night and had a great walk in the morning to the beach.  About a 3 mile round trip walk.  Sam made it about 3/4 of the way and wanted to be carried.

Here is Ben flying around in the bosun's chair.  It is his new favorite thing.  Spends about an hour up there at a crack.  I have been tying the halyard off on the bosun's chair rather than use the shackle as I didn't want him to accidentally open it and fall.  Problem with that is the halyard twists and twists and then the block at the head of top of the mast flips over and jams the halyard.  So Ben went to the top of the mast and fixed it.  He liked being 70 feet in the air he told me.  You can't rip a bandaid off of him because it hurts too much but he'll go to the top of the mast on questionable halyards.

Sam is finally warming up to the dinghy.  Now she wants to go fast and the minute we get somewhere I start hearing the cries of "I want to go fast in the dinghy!"

These are the mounts that I bought from Defender for the solar panels.  Pretty slick, eh?  After I mounted the panels, I went to see a buddy's boat and he had the same mounts.  I'm not as slick as I think I am.

Got these 2 140W panels installed on July 5th and haven't been plugged into shore power yet.  The batteries haven't been down much either so the panels aren't really getting much of a work out.  I've seen 15 amps going in at one point but the batteries go to float pretty quick and the amps drop down.  I like what I see though.