When we leave the marina on a Friday after work, we often don’t reach an anchorage until well past 7pm. Although we could prepare a meal underway, usually we just like to enjoy being out on the water for a bit and winding down from the week. So on Friday night we typically favor lighter, simpler fare that is easy to prepare.

Most Friday night meals are accompanied with Rosemarie Diamante bread from the Essential Baking Company (we buy it at our local QFC.)  We usually also boil a half-pound of frozen Edamame (soy beans in pod) that we buy at Uwajimaya in Bellevue. Recently, we’ve started eating more shrimp, and came up with a simple recipe that fit our Friday night dinner style perfectly.

1.       Use 10-12 shelled, deveined, uncooked shrimp per batch

2.       Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil on medium to high heat

3.       Sprinkle shrimp with spice rub. We used Nantucket Off-Shore Rasta Rub on the first batch and Dragon Rub on the second batch.

4.       Sauté, spice rub side down, for about a minute

5.       Sprinkle the other side with spice rub as the first side books

6.       Sauté the other side for about another minute

7.       Serve with wedges of fresh lemon

We use a variety of spice rubs, some that we make ourselves. One of our favorite recipes is Moroccan Spiced Chicken with Rosemary Oil. We also make blackened seasoning from one of Paul Prudhomme’s cookbooks. The Nantucket rubs are convenient to have on hand and have wonderful flavors. We particularly like boneless, skinless chicken breasts coated with their Rasta Rub and grilled.

I recently had a question on how to eliminate diesel-engine sooting at the transom.  It’s an interesting topic because almost everyone is convinced they have a solution. These solutions run from expensive diesel fuel additives to passing the diesel through permanent magnets on the way to the engines.

Overall, I’m pretty resistant to paying $300 for a simple permanent magnet even if it is packaged in a nice machined aluminum case.  I’m a believer in simple systems and solutions. Generally, my preference is to start with looking at why the engine is smoking in the first place.  One common cause of excess sooting in marine environments is engine overload.  Boat builders specify props that allow the boat to produce the best speed possible when new and lightly loaded, and the engine manufacturer will ensure that configuration doesn’t overload the engine. But, as boats get older, more equipment is brought on board and boats typically get heavier.  Dirona is perhaps an extreme example, but it makes the point clearly. Bayliner advertised the 4087 at 24,000 lbs and when it was last pulled out of the water, it was over 29,000 lbs.  For those whose boat manufacturer props for maximum speed, problems can develop as the boat gets older, the tanks are filled, and the bottom becomes less than perfectly clean. The boat ends up dangerously over-propped and the engines will be overloaded under many conditions.  Again, using Dirona as an example, Bayliner shipped the boat with 22x21x4 props. We’ve reduced pitch twice since it was new in 2000 and are now using 22X19X4 (see Avoiding Diesel Engine Overload for more details on how to know if you are correctly pitched).

When diesel engines are overloaded, they emit large amounts of soot. Black clouds aft are a sure sign that something is wrong and needs quick attention. I took the picture on the right back in 2004 at the end of the Memorial Day weekend. We were part of the usual stampede back to the Seattle area from the San Juan Islands, and I was amazed at how much smoke many of the boats were producing.  The boat pictured below is a Bayliner 4788 and its engine is seriously overloaded. The best thing the owner of that boat could do is remove 2” to 3” of propeller pitch. If they did that, they would find they spent less time cleaning soot off the back of the boat and the engines would be under considerably less stress. Our Bayliner 4087 produces no visible smoke when under power and its engines will likely last much longer than the engines powering the boat in the picture.   

Check to see if you are over-propped.  It’s surprisingly common and, if you are, reducing pitch is easy and cheap, will reduce or eliminate transom soot, and your engines will have a much better chance to living a long and healthy life. It’s nice not having to clean the transom at each stop and potential longer engine life is an additional benefit that is hard not to like. Dirona’s engines have just crossed over 3,600 hours and we’re hoping for many more smoke and trouble free hours in the years to come.

James Hamilton

jrh@mvdirona.com

The only thing worse than no backups is restoring bad backups. A database guy should get these things right.  But, I didn’t, and earlier today I made some major site-wide changes and, as a side effect, this blog was restored to December 4^th, 2007.  I’m working on recovering the content and will come up with something over the next 24 hours. However it’s very likely that comments between Dec 4^th and earlier today will be lost.  My apologies.

Update 2008.04.13: I was able to restore all content other than comments between 12/4/2007 and yesterday morning.  All else is fine.  I'm sorry about the RSS noise during the restore and for the lost comments.  The backup/restore procedure problem is resolved.  Please report any broken links or lingering issues. Thanks,

                        -jrh

James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services
Bldg RedW-D/2072, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, 98052
W:+1(425)703-9972 | C:+1(206)910-4692 | H:+1(206)201-1859 | JamesRH@microsoft.com

H:mvdirona.com | W:research.microsoft.com/~jamesrh  | blog:http://perspectives.mvdirona.com

We always spent Christmas afloat, usually in Canadian waters. Some years we've travelled to the Sunshine Coast, Desolation Sound, or the Broughtons. This year we stayed closer to home, in the San Juan Islands. We had considered going to Barkley Sound on the west coast of Vancouver Island instead, but didn’t have time to research safe anchorages for winter storms. In the end, we were glad we didn’t go—the storms were worse this year than any previous Christmas afloat, and the west coast of Vancouver Island receives the brunt of them. While winter storms are the downside of winter boating, the upside is that we have all the best anchorages to ourselves. And we love being safe at anchor while a storm rolls through, especially if we have a view out to the wind and waves.

Pictures and stories from the trip are posted at http://www.mvdirona.com/trips/SanJuansChristmas2007/.

This week, boxes of Cruising the Secret Coast were delivered to the warehouse at Robert Hale and Co. Click here for book details, including sample pages and an overview by Waggoner publisher Bob Hale, and to order online.

The book was a long time in coming. In 2002 we began researching what would become Secret Coast, and published our experiences in Pacific Yachting and PassageMaker magazines. And we sent our findings to Bob Hale, who printed many in the Waggoner Cruising Guide. At the same time, Jennifer also was working on a book describing the history of the Broughtons and surrounding area. Bob had reviewed several early manuscript drafts and provided critical feedback and advice.

By early 2004 we had enough material gathered to consider writing a cruising guide. The book was a natural companion to the Waggoner, and since we had been working so well with Bob as correspondents and on the history book, he was a natural choice as publisher. When we suggested the idea to Bob, he and the rest of team at Robert Hale and Co. were interested. We continued to gather material for the cruising guide and work on the history book until 2005, when it became clear that only one project could be done at a time. We decided to focus on the cruising guide and put the history book on hold.

Thus began an intensive two-year effort of writing, editing, map production, picture selection, and many, many, many rounds of reviewing and proof-reading. During that period we exchanged more than 1,500 emails with Bob and graphics designer Marni Erwin. Finally, following nearly a three-month print cycle overseas, the books have arrived. It’s wonderful to see the finished result.

We’ll be signing copies for the first time on April 12^th from 8am to 12pm at the 48° North/Fisheries Supply Boater’s Swap Meet. The annual event is popular. The Fisheries Supply upper and lower parking lots and the street west of the store will be open to people for selling, and Fisheries Supply also sells discontinued items at deep discounts. Although the official swap meet hours are 7am to 1pm, sellers start arriving at 4am to establish a good location, and the selling starts by 5am.

While anchored in Blakely Harbor over the weekend, we watched an example of neighborly support. [Map of area.]

About 7:30 Sunday morning, a dinghy sped across the bay east of us. This was a little odd, because it was a cold and rainy morning, not ideal for a dinghy tour. Then we saw its destination—a sailboat aground near pilings along the north shore. We were surprised that we hadn’t noticed the grounded boat the day before, but then realized a sailboat was missing from its mooring along the south shore. We anchor at Blakely Harbor a lot, and that sailboat almost always is moored along the south shore. The boat must have come free overnight and blown across to the north shore. The winds weren’t very strong, at most 20 knots at West Point on the opposite side of the Puget Sound, so that likely wasn’t the issue. Unrelated, the Coast Guard reported another vessel blown aground east of nearby Eagle Harbor that morning also.

The dinghy then travelled towards the head, and met up with a neighbor in a capable-looking aluminum power cat. The two then set off to try to free the sailboat. The cat maneuvered between the pilings and a line was run from the cat’s bow to the sailboat. Water churned up behind the cat as they attempted to pull the sailboat free, but the ground vessel did not budge. The boat was well over on its side and the tide was falling. The dinghy crew had climbed aboard the sailboat and were trying to apply weight up high to tip the boat over further and get the keel out of the mud. Eventually, they were successful and the boat came free. They then worked the sailboat through pilings and tied it off to a nearby dock. The boat didn’t appear to have any exterior damage—if so, they were lucky that it didn’t smash into those pilings instead of grounding. And they were lucky to have such a helpful and capable neighbor.

In the pictures below, the first picture, looking east towards Seattle from our anchorage near the head of Blakely Harbor, shows the sailboat at its mooring the night before. And in the last photo, the boat moored beside the sailboat is Our Island, a 68-foot DeFever-designed steel trawler featured in the current (April/08) issue of PassageMaker magazine.

For us, an ideal cruising destination combines solitude with a chance to explore new territory. We seek places that are little covered in the cruising guides and where few people go. Besides an appealing anchorage, we are always on the lookout for interesting side trips, such as a trail to a view or a lakeside perch, or a lagoon to explore in the dinghy or kayak. We’ll periodically post locations that for us meet this criteria under the “Secret Coast” category. Some are documented in Cruising the Secret Coast, while others are beyond the scope of the book, such as in the south Puget Sound or the northern central BC Coast. We’ll start with Suquash.

By boat, Suquash is thirteen miles southeast of Port Hardy, opposite the western tip of Malcolm Island. The Suquash Coalfield is the reason that nearby Fort Rupert—which offered the closest shelter—was established in 1849 by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) of Great Britain. Mining was halted in 1852 when a superior coal source was found near Nanaimo, but the HBC continued to operate Fort Rupert due to their investment in the outpost.

In the early 1900s, a private company deemed the Suquash Coalfield worth mining. This time, it was a major operation that anchored an on-site settlement large enough to support a school, post office and regular steamship service. It closed before the Second World War, but much of the equipment was abandoned in place. It is an easy walk from the beach at Suquash to see the ruins, and they are extraordinary. The first ones we found were huge shovels, perhaps four metres high. Farther along was a metal wheel with one-meter spokes.

To the south, and closer to shore, were the ruins of the foreman’s house. Two intact river-rock chimneys soar skyward, blending into the second-growth forest. Inshore and south was a narrow concrete and stone structure, about seven metres high, with an archway through the centre. We couldn’t guess its purpose. Beyond was the mine shaft itself, where a massive steam engine rests on a concrete bed. The engine ran a huge spool of cable to raise and lower a carriage through the mine shaft. The shaft is said to extend across Queen Charlotte Strait nearly to Malcolm Island. Legend has it that miners could identify ships passing overhead by the ships’ vibration signatures.

For more detail on Suquash, directions and anchoring advice, see chapter eight, Fort Rupert, in Cruising the Secret Coast.