The Welcome Center

North Carolina Welcome Center
36 30.41 N 076 21.35W


The weather was supposed to turn nasty today. That was all the excuse we needed, so we decided to stay here at the Welcome Center all day today. As it turns out, it is not nasty at all. It's sunny and breezy; a very nice day.

Libby is collecting pine needles to make more baskets. I think she'll have a year's supply before we leave here. She's also teaching the women on the other boats how to do it. Our friend Patty on the yacht Reflection taught Libby and others, so now Libby is passing on the knowledge.

Me? I've been puttering. I woke up this morning to a nasty surprise. The radio wouldn't work. Checking, I was shocked to see that the battery voltmeter showed only 10 volts!!! That's terrible, a completely flat battery. But wait, our Link 10 battery monitor also measures battery voltage, and it showed 13 volts. What the heck?

I started by checking the wiring to and from the battery switch. Nothing found there. Then I raised the cockpit floor to get access to the batteries. Sure enough, they said 10 volts. I opened the plugs to check the water level. The water was low and the battery plates exposed. That's very bad. It can permanently damage the batteries. I can't remember the last time I checked the water, perhaps 6 months ago. Shame on me. I'll have to make checking the battery water part of my routine for oil changes.

So first thing was to put water in the batteries. I carry distilled water on board. I used up all we had, and a few plates were left. Too bad, I had to fill them with regular water.

I have a separate starting battery, so I switched to that and started the engine. Then I could switch back to the house batteries to charge them. So far so good. Next I noticed that the battery voltmeter said 14 volts but the battery monitor said 13 volts. Huh? That shouldn't be possible, they both measure the same thing and they always agreed before.

Back into the engine compartment to investigate. Sure enough, I found that the battery cable which connects the two house batteries in parallel had pulled out of the terminal. Instead of a single bank of two batteries, we had two separated house batteries. No doubt I stepped on the cable some time in the past. I repaired that, and now the two batteries are balanced.

It is possible that we have been running on one battery for an unknown time. For the past month or so on the canal or in the boat yard, we had shore power so much that I hadn't noticed battery performance. Yesterday, I did notice a half volt disagreement between the voltmeter and the battery monitor. I shrugged it off without thinking. Shame on me again.

This afternoon, another sailboat arrived. It was our friend Andre on Aruba II. Long time blog readers should remember Andre. We met him first in Jacksonville, Florida, then again in Elizabeth City, then again at this welcome center, then up in New Bedford Massachusetts where we sailed together to Block Island, then down in Fort Meyers Beach, Florida. Now he's here at the welcome center yet again. I guess we shouldn't be surprised, we both travel north and south on roughly the same schedule.

Both Libby and I were happy to see Andre. We'll have him over for supper tonight.

Sweet Potato Pie

Elizabeth City, NC

NoLL

One of the best memories of the past week was when Libby and I got to share a sweet potato pie.

Sweet potato pie??? Never heard of it. Well, last week I was riding a borrowed bike up the road in Deltaville, VA. There was a farm stand there by the road. This was a real farm stand. It was on the property of the farm and they sold the products of their own creation, including sweet potatoes. The proprietress was an old lady. She called all of her customers darling. I called her sweetheart back.

I picked out some fresh tomatoes to bring back to the boat. Sweetheart said, "Can I interest you in a pie?" "Did you make it yourself?" I asked. She said, "Yes." She had apple, and berry and sweet potato and Japanese sweet potato pies to sell. I chose the sweet potato. I had to precariously balance it on the handlebars of the bike to get it back to the boat. Luckily, I didn't drop it on the ground.

To make a long story short, that was one of the best pies Libby or I can remember.

There's much to be said for local color. Much indeed. We should see more of it, and to do that we need to make an effort to get off the boat more and to explore more widely the shore bound treasures of the places we visit.

Deltaville to Deep Creek

Deep Creek Lock, VA

36 44.96 N 076 20.20 W

What joy! I was surprised at the emotional rush of joy both Libby and I experienced as Tarwathie splashed yesterday morning. Even though our stay in Deltaville was very pleasant, we apparently have a strong attachment to Tarwathie being in her natural indicator to how emotionally attached we have become to Tarwathie, our home.

I had slight hope of being able to return to Norfolk under sail. Nope. There was too little wind. Three or four times Libby or I detected a rush of breeze on our cheeks and scrambled to unfurl the foresail. It was pure wishful thinking. The breezes never lasted more than a couple of minutes.

Our timing was also bad. We had tidal currents against us for almost the whole day. Oh well, we couldn't have left at midnight.

I was determined to get past the urban hustle bustle and ugliness of Norfolk and Portsmouth, and to anchor for the night in the bucolic natural beauty of Deep Creek. The limiting factor was the Gilmerton draw bridge; the only draw bridge we are required to pass in the Norfolk area. During the week this month, they're doing bridge work. The bridge opens only once every 2 hours after 8PM. We needed to buy diesel fuel in Norfolk, and to make the bridge before 8.

Estimating our progress was difficult because of the strong and constantly changing currents. Our speed soared as high as 6.7 knots and sank as low as 3.2 knots at the same RPM. For the last 10 miles, I really poured on the steam, hardly pausing to admire the 5 spectacular aircraft carriers and other warships we passed. Despite my efforts, our final ETA at the Ocean Marine Center fuel dock was only 15 seconds before they closed for the day. We stopped instead at Tidewater Marina, our second choice.

After fueling it was back to full steam. I figured 7:40 to reach the bridge. Then we came across a surprise. A railroad bridge that I have never seen closed before was down. A very long train moving at the speed of a slow walk was crossing. Oh no! After what seemed like an infinite wait, the bridge opened. We made the Gilmerton bridge at 7:55, with only 5 miles to spare.

Our reward came this morning. We awoke to a beautiful and quiet scene in Deep Creek. Mist rose off the water's surface. It could have been the Mohawk River in upstate New York, except that there are no hills in sight.

Next comes the Great Dismal Swamp Canal and the Posquatank River; our favorite stretch on the whole migration route.

Never In The History of Mankind

Chesapeake Bay
NoLL

Never in the history of mankind has so much time effort and money been spent to accomplish to little. OK, so I exaggerate the story of our deck paint projects a bit, but still ...

The problem is the non-skid areas of the top decks on Tarwathie. The hull has built-in non-skid areas with dimples of fiberglass that stick up. They are fine except for paint preparation. If one tries to sand the dimpled surface, the only thing accomplished is to wear down the tops of the dimples and the valleys remain unsanded.

Three times before in the past 4.5 years, we set out to repaint the decks. We used Interlux Topside paint which is supposed to be right for the application. It's expensive, costing $45 per quart at West Marine. In each case we did what we thought was adequate preparation and applied two coats.

The results have been dismal. In some places the paint flaked off after a year. In other places it turned dark and dull. Worst of all, it has not been durable. We have several places where the paint wore through all those layers of paint to bare fiberglass.

I resolved to fix it once and for all in our fourth try. Last year in Vero I researched the problem and selected Duraback 18 deck paint. It was advertised to be non-skid and very durable; just what the doctor ordered. It is the kind of stuff used on gang planks, stair steps, and working boat decks.

Well, the Duraback proved to be too much and too little. It went on very thick. It made a finish that is very non-skid, so much so that it hurts to walk on it with bare feet. It should be very very durable. However, it flunked on color coverage. We were overpainting dark blue with light beige, and the blue showed through everywhere.

So for the fifth repainting, we went back to Interlux and painted through the pores in the Duraback. That covered the colors. One would think that the issue was settled. Right :) Wrong :(

I prepared the old surface using paint remover and then dewaxing chemical.

When Libby went to remove the masking tape, she found that the tape lifted up all the paint with it. It seems that it forms a 1/8 inch thick rubber-like layer that is extremely tough. Where this layer covered both deck and masking tape, and when we pulled the tape up the paint-to-paint strength was much stronger than the paint-to-deck adhesion.

Libby is a great companion and a willing and hard working crewman. However, she does have a few quirks that seem almost obsessive-compulsive; quirks like picking at a scab. She started picking at the paint where it had separated from the deck. Libby called out for me to come look. It took me 5 minutes to get there. In those 5 minutes she removed almost 2 square feet of the Duraback and Interlux. When I got there and saw what was happening, I yelled at the top of my lungs STOP. But the damage was done. See the picture.

I learned that one needs to cut the paint layer with a sharp knife or razor blade to make a seam between the painted deck and the edge of the masking tape. After the cut, the tape can be lifted.

Did we fail to prepare adequately yet again? I'll never know for sure, but I suspect that the strength of that Duraback layer to tearing will always be stronger than its adhesion to the deck and resistance to lifting.

So now, we face a sixth attempt at painting to repair the ugly spot. I'm too cheap to pay another $150 for another gallon of Duraback to repaint that spot, so any remedy from now on will never ever match the surrounding deck and will remain forever as an irritating reminder of our stupidity.

How could we have screwed up so badly? I can't think of a valid excuse. Lots of people successfully repaint their non-skid area with little or no trouble on their first attempt. I must admit that this is perhaps the the biggest example of incompetent bumbling that we've ever committed while on Tarwathie.

Projects Complete (sort of)

Deltaville, VA
NoLL

Tarwathie's new red, white, and blue color scheme.

For the past week, I didn't write much on the blog. I've been saving it up until our projects were finished. Now we're finished and my inbox is overflowing with complaints and inquiries from blog readers.

Also, just a few minutes ago I opened a can of fogger insecticide in the boat. We had an infestation of fruit flies. I can't return to the boat for 2 hours so that leaves time to blog.

Libby is fine. She never did get a black eye or a bruise from my sock. Thank goodness.

We could have finished and splashed (i.e. put the boat back in the water) on Friday but we decided instead to wait until Monday. It's a good thing. After deciding, I heard on the local radio that the Gilmerton Bridge in Norfolk would be closed for maintenance from Friday evening until Monday morning. That is the only draw bridge we must pass under to get to the Dismal Swamp. If we had arrived there Friday night and learned that we would have to wait 2.5 days for it to open I would have been furious.

So, what have we been doing? Here's a list of the things we accomplished this week.

Propeller: We have a Max Prop brand propeller. More than just a piece of metal, it has internal gears that allow it to feather automatically. Complexity means maintenance. The propeller needs to be greased. We squirt grease in with a grease gun until there is no room for water to get in. That can only be done when we are on the hard.

I also found that two of the four screws that hold the propeller together were missing. Ay ay! If all the screws came out, the propeller would just fall off and disappear into Davy Jones' Locker. I replaced the missing screws and secured them with cotter pins. I sure hope that holds.

I polished the propeller. Now it gleams like polished brass as it should. That helps propeller efficiency, but only for a few months until it pick up slime once again. There are special antifouling paints for propellers, but most people don't use them. Perhaps next time I'll give it a try.

We also replaced the zinc that goes on the end. If you remember, about a year ago I whined on the blog about breaking off a zinc screw while changing the zinc under water. I fretted about having to haul out to fix it. In the end, I let it go and fastened the zinc with two screws instead of the normal three. It worked OK. Indeed, that zinc lasted a whole year, longer than average.

Now was the time to get the old screw out. I bought a so-called screw extractor tool. Then, I was supposed to drill out the core of the old screw and insert the screw extractor. It went badly. I broke three cobalt drill bits trying to drill the hole. Then, when I inserted the extractor its tip broke off in the hole. The extractor's metal is much harder than the screws so I can't drill that out. To fix the whole mess will require removing the whole propeller with an acetylene torch and taking it to a machine shop, probably for a week or more. I didn't want to do that now; so for the next year, I'll have only two screws once again. Perhaps we'll haul out again in one year rather than two.

Dinghy: We remounted the oar bracked which kept falling off. We fixed (hopefully) the crack that was allowing water to leak in. We used epoxy resin to do that. We also mounted a new pair of oars and oar locks. The blade on the old oar had split. Our new oars are 7'6" long, compared to 7' for the old ones. We hope that the extra 6" will make a big difference in rowing efficiency.

Hull: We put on three coats of antifouling bottom paint. That was straight forward. However, as the boatyard guy helped us to move the jackstands so that we could paint the spots covered by the jackstands, he said, "You have some spots of bare fiberglass showing through. You should put on primer paint before the bottom paint." Darn! I had just covered over most of the bare spots without using primer. Nothing like being told that you did it wrong just when it's too late. Sigh.

Deck: We repainted the non-skid areas of the top decks once more. What a big disaster that is!!! I'll write a special blog about that soon.

Hull and deck: I used gel coat repair stuff on the many small dings and gouges in the fiberglass. Poor Tarwathie has suffered lots of bumps and scrapes in the past 5 years. I don't think we are less cautious than most boaters but we do seem to pick up more dings. Then we used rubbing compound to clean the surfaces and two coats of wax to protect it. Tarwathie looks much better cosmetically.

Mechanical: I repacked the stuffing box using dripless packing for the first time. If it proves to be truly dripless, we may achieve a totally dry bilge for the first time ever. Many other boats have dry bilges but we never did.

Electrical: I converted our two fluorescent light fixtures in the main cabin to LED. I did it in a DIY manner using strips of warm color LEDs. See the picture. The actual conversion was easy.



Now, our main cabin lights are 100% LED; both white and red for night use while at sea. Eacg fluorescent light used 7 watts of power. The LED replacements use only 1.5 watts, and they make more light. Since energy consumption is a very big deal for us, LEDs are a major improvement. We'll feel freer to use overhead lights liberally.

Next up: Does that bring us to the bottom of our to-do list? Hardly, we still have a lot of exterior varnish work to do, interior varnish, and a little bit of interior painting to do. Actually reaching the bottom of the to-do list must be a warning sign of the Apocalypse.