I woke up very early, at sunrise, and had a bout of sneezing first thing in the morning. I’d had some sneezes in the past day that gave me no warning, so now I believe that I have a slight allergy to something that is blooming or perhaps putting out a burst of pollen before withering during the drought. I suppose I could see a doctor to find out what I might be reacting to, but what can I do with that knowledge? I recall coworkers going through lengthy and arduous periods of desensitization (note to self: does that word actually exist?) with no guarantee of success and I don’t think that the effort is worth it.
At about 10 AM we finally got some rain! For those in more temperate and wetter climes, this might not sound like anything special, but Zanshin hasn’t seen anything more than a sprinkle that didn’t even wet the teak decks in over a month and there’s a lot of salt caked on all over the place that I’d like to get rid. That salt is also doing nasty work on the exposed stainless steel, but without an opportunity to wash away the salt I can’t get rid of the inroads, advances, sorties and bridgeheads that Mr. Rust has made in his relentless battle for Zanshin. The rain started slowly, perfect for soaking the boat and letting the dry earth ashore get porous for the showers that came about 15 minutes after the first drops came down. I was outside the whole time after the decks were wet down, working with a soft brush on the deck teak and gel coat. Then the dodger transparent panels, hatches and deck glass got the good new from me with a cloth. When I finished those primary tasks the rain was still coming down so I cleaned up all the stainless on deck as well as the lifelines and supporting stanchion and I believe I got even the caked-on salty residues removed completely. That does mean that once the sun makes an appearance once again I’ll have to join the rust battle again and get rid of the biggest and unseemly blotches first.
My main winch, the port forward one which I use for most tasks, had the jaws come apart a bit last season and I’ve been using extra turns on the winch drum since then. I have a spare part and hadn’t gotten around to replacing the winch but decided to do that today. I combined cleaning and servicing the winch with jaw replacement and everything went brilliantly until I put the winch back together. One small slip and now I have a permanent stain on my Sunbrella cushions.
At least I finally managed to get the spinnaker line down today. It took a lot of time and effort, at first I tried duct tape with the sticky side out to catch the line and let me wrap it around the pole. Unfortunately Dyneema® is too slippery and the big line wouldn’t wrap. Then I attached a pair of pliers to the end, with the handle pointing out; this was supposed to catch the big line and slide to the metal pull ring, which would get a friction grasp at the narrow end of the pliers and let me pull it down. No luck there, either. In the end I used duct tape to attach a screwdriver pint obliquely down. This was supposed to go through the eye of the pull ring and let me pull the line down. I thought that this would be like trying to thread a needle, in the dark, while riding a roller coaster and after too many drinks. But, fortunately, it worked on the first try and took only seconds to let me get the line back down to deck level!
 |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |