Pierless Adventures - March 26 - Groin Pains

Mornings have typically been cool and calm, so we decided to tackle the steaming light and the wind instrument on the mast.  The steaming light is about half-way up the mast and faces forward.  It is turned on when we are motoring at night so we can be seen by others.  The wind instrument is at the top of the mast and provides useful information about wind speed and direction.  

The top of the mast is about 60 feet up.  To reach it you use a device called the bosun's chair.  It combines a chair with a harness and is attached to a halyard (a rope that hauls up the sails).  I sit in the chair and Scott cranks me up the mast using one of the winches.  Seems straightforward enough.  Unfortunately, the designer of my bosun's chair seems not to have taken human anatomy into account.  Male anatomy in particular...  Now, to be fair, I was also wearing my regular climbing harness in addition to sitting in the bosun's chair.  I do this so I can attach my harness to a second halyard as a safety backup.  This way it would require failure of two independent systems for me to suffer the indignity of falling to the deck.  Add my harness to the poorly designed chair and you can imagine things can become a little congested.

View from top of mast:

 In any event, the steaming light replacement went well.  The light is actually two lights - one for steaming and the other is a deck light pointed down to illuminate the deck at night.  Each has a switch so they can be used or not as needed.

We made good progress on the head as well.  I expected this would be the most difficult and time consuming project.  Pulling out old hoses, installing new, dealing with pumps, etc.  -  all in very tight spaces.  We finished the tear-out and are part way through installing new hoses and fittings.  We hope to wrap it up tomorrow - if we can find the one fitting we need.

We finished a couple other small projects and headed out to Del Gato for an early pizza dinner, followed by the movie "Dark Shadows" - a dark comedy with Johnny Depp, based on the soap opera.

From Scott:

Meet Ernesto.  Ernesto is the giant ball of hair that lives in one of our shower stalls.  After today's inexplicably cold shower, I am beginning to suspect that one must pay tribute to Ernesto in order to be granted hot water.  Accordingly, I am bestowing Statehood on Ernesto and he will become The United Collective of Ernesto (UCE).  Brian and I waited 15 minutes today for the blessed event to occur and the pipe gods did not grant our wish until Brian gave up and showered in the cold water.  Hopefully tomorrow, through the benefices and intercession of the UCE, we will boil like lobsters.

Want to know how hot it was in Mazatlan today?  Me too.  No one knows.  We can't find a thermometer anywhere and we have looked in three or four stores by now.  Objects that we can see in our mind's eye in any store at home, right down to their location by aisle and shelf, are mysteriously absent on the local market.  We make do or do without.

We had pizza tonight at Del Gato and I saved a few crusts for Chester the guard dog.  He met us at the gate and, after a few cautious sniffs, tried pizza for what must be the first time for him.  He followed us all the way to the boat, which he never does, and was rewarded by a jerky treat.  It is a pleasure to have a dog to pet so far away from home although he was strangely wet.  Perhaps Chester has granted a honorary title to Ernest as well.