Finally we are moving.

After a crazy last couple of weeks we are finally on the move. Anahata left Point Breeze on Saturday after some last minute high stress.  The solenoid decided to play games so we had to rebuild it. John Brown, a sailing friend in Point Breeze, on hearing that we had solenoid problems at a goodbye dinner on Friday, informed us that rebuilding solenoids was his first job as a teenager. Half past eight on Saturday he came to the rescue and three hours later  the solenoid was completely rebuilt (for the non-engine folks, a solenoid is basically a big magnetic switch which engages the starter which then starts the engine). If John hadn’t rebuilt it we would have been stuck for another five days.

Saturday sail
Solenoid fixed, we quickly threw things into cupboards, filled up the boat (90 gallons diesel – the marina wanted to give me an award for the most fuel they’d put into a sailb0at), said goodbyes and headed off to Rochester 30 miles away in a 25 knot beam reach breeze.

Heroes of the week, apart from John Brown, were Bruce and Michelle Forbes who drove over from Toronto to say goodbye and were roped into helping replace the hot water tank. And Michelle made some wonderful curtains for Anahata, repaired the carbon whisker pole cover, and new nav seat cushions. Anahata is officially no longer looking like a bachelor pad.

Apart from the new curtains, Anahata has got her permanent crew back aboard: “Buddy”, my cat. Trevor McGrath from QCYC did a wonderful job looking after her while I was off in SA last winter and then while I was getting the boat ready.

The other crew from the first leg of the trip are mates from QCYC, Chris Sumpton and Jim Borecki. Apart from both being sailors they are both documentary makers, so the conversation has been great, and I don’t have to have BBC playing 24/7 like I usually do.

After all the work Bruce Forbes had been doing he decided to hitch a ride with us to Rochester, which was great as we seem to be having issues with our VHF radio.  We keep working on it, and it’s getting better but there appears to some interference somewhere so we are still getting a buzz when we transmit.

Stayed at Rochester Yacht Club for the night. Dinner with Bruce, Michelle, Chris, Jim plus Linda Kelly. Nice to be able say goodbye to them all over a meal.

Rochester to Little Sodus

Sunday brought some more great wind with great wind direction.  More beam reaching to Little Sodus in 15 -20 knots. We were coming here as I had arranged to take down the mast to transit the canals to the Hudson river.

Stayed at Fairhaven Yacht club, cute club only two members around, very helpful in getting us safely docked and squared away. Spend the afternoon packing sails away plus cleaning  bottom of dinghy of zebra mussels. John our friendly yacht club member gave us a product called Dr John. He the rep or owner or something, anyway it did a fantastic job.

No mast hauling 

Monday brought a lot of wind over 25 definitely not the day to pull a 60 ft mast. So Chris, Jim and I spent the day building the mast racks that we would need to carry the mast on top of the boat through the canals. So much nicer doing boat projects with other people apart from the fact that we come up with three plans as opposed to just one. We got there in the end. Definitely glad that we had the whole day to do it rather than a couple of hours if we had pulled the mast at 9am as originally planned.