odds and ends

Still trying to get back in to the swing of things after the holidays and visit to San Diego. Sailing on Mission Bay in San Diego in 70 degree weather was a nice way to end the holiday trip, but it has been quite an adjustment coming back east through a blizzard in Chicago to the cold temperatures on the east coast.

The only bounty we picked up at the REI store in San Diego was a camping cutting board, nice lightweight and small enough to fit in to the cook kit. Perfect for cutting up onions, peppers, garlic or whatever. We used to use the top of the cook kit (a rubbermaid storage tub) as a cutting board, but that was too large. This will be simpler. I guess the good news is that we found we are pretty well equipped, we've got just about everything we need for safe, comfortable cruising.

I also picked up a small waterproof flashlight at another store, one to tuck away on the boat. It uses aa batteries, I think just about all the cruising gear from SPOTS to gps to strobes use aa batteries. Nice to have the gear standardized.

On a visit to a kayak store in San Diego Bruce and I did stop to look at a kayak bilge pump. I've got a West Marine pump on board now but I've never been completely happy with it. We don't use it all that much, a sponge works best for the typical spray or rainwater that gets in the boat. But the kayak pumps we looked at seemed to be better built, smaller and they come with a floatation ring built on to them. Reasonably priced at $15 to $25, it might be worth getting one this spring.
I looked at TownDock, Oriental's on-line news site (almost said online newspaper but that doesn't make sense) and found a photo of Graham Byrnes and a couple of other circumnavigators. The caption said they were celebrating Graham's 25 years of teaching boat building at Pamlico Community College. I could not find a story to accompany the photograph but maybe one will show up soon. I have never met Graham but I enjoy his boat designs and hope to meet him someday. When we first sailed in to Oriental a couple of years ago it was some of his former students who helped us out with rides and information. They were huge fans of Graham.

And lastly I had been thinking, at the suggesting of Barry (thanks Barry!), of creating an on-line photo album at Picasa. As I explored the site I found I already had (but did not know it) three albums on the site . I guess all the photos from the blog are automatically uploaded there. Cool. Now the next step it to figure out how to load all of the full rez photos from the cruises to the site.

Grocery shopping this morning I paused to look at some food for the next cruise, but it is too early for that. I'll wait until March and then start buying our food supplies bit by bit.

steve