SASSAFRASS

We ran 350 miles straight to Barra from la Paz to make a kid boat meeting and it was well worth it!! Sometimes it's a great motivator or decision maker, go here because....

That's funny there is a mega sailboat and mega yacht in the marina fairway on our skip side both bow stern anchored into the channel with no markers bouys etc. Our neighbors almost fouled on one of them coming in today. I still think the there first rule applies but if you are in the only spot for miles you need to be accomadating.

Granted this is mostly SCBA related but the reps were pretty nutted up on the life of filters, sure it's breathable air reg of some sort. We wanted to stock up and they said 6 months was about the fact limit on opened filters for absorbing moisture. One year on unopened. My only setup reccomendation would be to get a DIN or Y pressure guage set up to test tanks as well as putting a gauge with dampner at the fill end of the hose. The three stage compressors will take out a standard hp guage pretty quick. We use a old blanket under the comp to catch blow down etc and a old pedialite can on the comp case vent to catch oil residue. If you really dive ALOT the one up model for good Bauer saves alot of fill time from the standard little units. About 30min for a steel 80 to 3500psi on our small one.

Don't over think it. If you dive alot get a gas compressor. Baurer is nice honda engines are nice. The air filters for dive comps don't last that long so spares are recommended. They don't weigh that much and the convenience of being able to fill tanks for a couple cups of gas is hard to argue. I would never advocate any automation or Cascade filling on a cruising boat. Too many ifs and potential fails.

It's usually not the wood mahagany or otherwise it's the sapwood. That little bit is so small etc. That's what I ran into, heart wood was fine but a vein of sapwood run out turned to poo.

They really suck. The low cost vs all the alt charging stuff is the reason. You can get a can of gas and a Costco Yamaha and off you go for a few hundred bucks. Sort of falls into the douchebag who always take the dock cart and keeps it or anchors ten feet away catagory. Can't fight it have to move on.

Boring seems to come up a fair bit. Kinda odd but I guess slowing down from the high tech pace of everything is hard to do. The fighting spouses seems to get less the farther away from the us we get. I have noticed the local resentment factor up some in marina expat or tourist destinations but all in all most locals we have met have been pretty nice once engaged. The slow elimination of books is one that is really crazy. With all the E readers around people aren't packing paperbacks anymore. There is a nice library in the marina we are in but it's mostly French and German.

Breaking the shackles of the tab key is liberating... It is odd the closer you get to coffee trees the harder it can be to get good coffee. We thought about roasting but it ended up in the composting head catagory. Sounds good on paper but probably a nightmare on the boat.

Had a nice visit with several boats in the marina we are in tonight. Inevitably the why's and how's came up. We are far enough out from gringo land that the story has changed some but alot of the themes are the same. Was a good conversation on the realities of keeping a boat going in far away places and if or how that translates into a preconceived notion of what was the big dream before hand and the maybe dream as you go. It's very interesting to me to hear what keeps people going and how the story evolves. For us as a family unit the biggest challenges have been totally unforseen. I have spent many years keeping ships going in nasty parts of the world so the boat part is not a big deal things breaking etc. How to deal with a teenage daughter homeschooling with no connectivity finding kid boats, that has not been easy and has ended up defining our plans and schedules much more than anticipated. The common denominator it would seem is that while cruising a total shit day can be followed by the most epic amazing day ever. It would be interesting to hear what other people cruising have found to be the unforseen challenges sometimes seeming quite simple to someone not on a boat.

Pfffft has some good input on the hell silicon can cause, have never used butyle but seems like what the masses like. Would probably not use any of the poly's. Even with a perfect instal the life on it is sun is not super great. We used thinned dolfinite on fixed safety glass windows about 8 years in 3 in tropics and time to think about maybe re-bedding. Cheap but not for all DIYS.

We have a original solid mahogany stick circa 1962. It seems like there are a ton of variation of species called mahogany but one of the similarities is they can let go via rot dryrot etc and undetectable under paint. I put a traditional cealing in our boat. Open at bilge and deck frames. Pretty good thermal air flow. I would run around with a mallet on the inside at your next haulout. It almost always looks worse than it is.

Great article Suider, saved that one. Pics kinda look like old boat with a painted interior. Maybe a leak at some point, the complete lack of discoloration makes the chem thing seem iffy. On your fix you might look at West info rather than going penetrating epoxy. I've used a ton of it as a sealer and it works great but the whole restore thing not sure I'm buying. Probably better to use a router and mill down to clean wood and glue in a like wood.

Redundant bilge pumps should be just that bilge to thru hull. Each part can fail, pump hose and even thru hull. You can always cut corners but as you combine the two systems you are loosing the redundancy so why add one?

Have seen something similar also not sure of source, like dryrot, all lignum gone out of grain. On a double planked hull a small leak could migrate a bit. The spot in question could be the outlet of a previous leak originating elsewhere keel bolt thruhull etc. There may have been some current carried in the SW. Is there anything nearby that could have caused it old battery box location etc.