7/29/04  Bonavista Bay           <Bonavista Images>

Took a break today in Bonavista Bay.  One month out of Maine.

Polarlys continues to be a major tourist attraction (Bonavista is a tourist Mecca, what with the replica of the replica of the boat that Cabot arrived on in 1497 or whenever -- "Ohh, your so lucky they have the sails out today because a movie crew might want to use it in a film."  [The replica's replica does not actually sail mind you -- it mostly sits there and gets toured by groups of ten or so at several set times daily -- but today is very special, the sails are out.]

I could make a fortune if I set up outside the door and sold photo-ops "Get y'ur picture taken here. Newfie Dog Pics here.  Get y'ur pickshure with'un the Newfie Boat Dog (TM)."  We are more or less continuously queried, "Ohhh, can I get a picture of my [fill in: wife, kids, girlfriend, grand-kids, pet bird] with your dog?"  Though tempted, I have not yet replied, "Sure, but I can get my picture with your daughter there."

Scored a re-charge kit for my fancy inflatable life vest/harness.  I use the harness on deck and the high-tech auto-inflating vest is comfortable enough that I am happy to wear it when in the dinghy or on deck (the Canadian Coast Guard guys were jealous of it as they only get the inferior PWC vests).  I meant to take at least one re-arming kit along but overlooked it.  It can be complicated getting the 150 pound dog back in his vest and in to the dinghy, then getting the mooring line aboard, the dinghy afloat and finally myself aboard.  Lots of lines and tangly things, and beasts all in a confused mess.  And, oh yes, let's not forget the manual pull tab for the fancy auto-inflating Beaufort Scale 10, Mustang's finest, life vest.  PING, POOWWW, POP, FOOM.  Man that thing inflates quickly. And wow, it sure does have enough volume to give a Buffalo positive buoyancy.  And it sure is yellow.  Yellow everywhere.  Dog startled to hell.  Me startled to hell and cursing.  It was an expensive tangle too, as recharge kits in the boonies -- when you can find them -- run $35 Canadian.  It was a good show, though -- sorry no video.

The boat got a good power-washing by the seas yesterday.  I often leave the porthole in the head cracked open to get some fresh air through there - and a little water never hurts there anyway since it also the shower compartment.  Not such a good strategy though when the boat is getting power-washed to the tune of a four hour run through a continuous car wash.  The shower drain has its own sump and drain pump, but it only pumps when it is powered -- usually not.  There is a 3-4" lip below the door to the compartment to contain shower water, outside of which the cabin sole forms a deep well at the bottom of the companionway.  About mid-morning yesterday I was wondering why Polarlys was hanging out up in the shelter when he usually goes down in the cabin when it is rough.  Hmm, I glanced down the companionway to see about 8 inches of water sloshing around the cabin floor at the bottom of the stairs (actually most of the way up the first stair.)   My initial terror ["shit, we're go'in down"] passed fairly quickly as I remembered something like this happening before, and that it was probably related to the porthole in the head.  Sure enough, water had filled the head to the level of the lip and was pouring over it into the cabin.  Turned on the shower drain pump, removed the ever present plug of dog hair and crud, and used my handy hand pump to coax the water from the cabin back into the head and out the shower drain.  Closed the porthole first, of course.  Crisis averted.

One final glitch.  Not a show-stopper, but an unresolved annoyance.  My newly swung brand new magnetic compass works great.  Good, because my high tech electronic rate compensated flux gate compass sucks.  Somehow, somewhere it lost its deviation calibration.  Deviation is locally induced heading dependent error.  There is a calibration function and we had initially calibrated the thing but somewhere up here in the northlands it lost its way.  It is only an annoyance because the autopilot will compensate for the error by correcting your courseline based on your absolute position.  Also, I can manually re-jigger the offset for each specific course change.  Still, it is a bit of pain.  There is an automatic calibration procedure, but it "FAILED".  However, as I was going through the manuals today I noticed that there is actually a special enhanced super-secret deviation calibration procedure for my particularly complex (of course) setup.  I have to make three complete 360 degree slow revolutions to starboard through north within the first 5 minutes of turning the thing on and supposedly it will recalibrate.  We shall see just as soon as I encounter a smooth enough stretch of open water in which to do this little jig.  Well, maybe.

That is today's report from tourist Mecca (oh yea, one more tidbit: shady looking character walking the dock this morning (Polarlys barked at him -- good boy) inquired as to whether I was in the market for any vacation real estate, and, then, when I replied in the negative, asked further: "Well, how bout some fish?  You lookin' to buy any fish?"
Seriously.