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Category Archives: Grand Banks

Oak Harbor Marina

Yankee digs the real grass dog potty out on the breakwater at Oak Harbor Marina

Yankee digs the real grass dog potty out on the breakwater at Oak Harbor Marina

Oak Harbor Marina, on Whidbey Island, really goes out of their way to help visiting boaters. We stopped by on our long run up to the San Juan Islands and it was like hitting the proverbial “Easy Button”, the second we arrived.

The price of diesel at the fuel dock was about as inexpensive as it gets and they offer a $0.20 per gallon discount if you are mooring overnight! Marina staff checked on reciprocal moorage for us, then took care everything to get us checked in to guest moorage out on the inside of the breakwater.

It’s a long walk from guest moorage to shore, so Oak Harbor Marina has placed a floating restroom out on the breakwater as well as real grass for dogs to potty on. That’s what I call excellent service and we will definitely be back on our next trip north.

Yes Please tied up at Oak Harbor Marina.

Yes Please tied up at Oak Harbor Marina.

We’d run the 130 mile trip from Olympia to Oak Harbor in about 5 hours, which included a quick touch and go potty stop for the dog at Manchester. It was windy and very shallow when we arrived, but there is plenty of water and navigation into the marina is pretty straight forward.

The walk to town is just less than a mile, but feels good after a long day and there are plenty of food and shopping choices.

Trip Preparation

Anchor Rollers were disassembled, cleaned and greased.

Anchor Rollers were disassembled, cleaned and greased.

I spent most of the weekend prepping the boat for multi-week trips to the San Juan’s and Gulf Islands this summer. I changed the oil and filters in the main engines, then removed both of the Anchor Rollers so I could clean up and grease the shafts. The aft roller was squeaking and the forward roller was frozen. After a little elbow grease followed by some real grease, they are rolling smooth as silk and silently.

Marking the Anchor Chain for depth.

Marking the Anchor Chain for depth.

Once the rollers were working, I flaked most of the anchor chain out onto the deck to inspect and mark it for length/depth. We have always used Red, White and Blue paint and chain markers every 50′. It’s very easy to remember the red, white and blue color scheme. I also found some old yellow paint every 25′, so have intermediate lengths marked as well.

I replaced the start battery for the generator, even though it appeared to be functioning perfectly. The date code indicates that the battery is 11 years old (as are the house and start batteries) and I wanted to be sure we were able to start the generator in case we needed to charge the other batteries. The generator battery was the hardest one to get to, requiring a painful crawl forward and around the outside of the port engine, all the way aft to where the battery is hidden away next to the tail shaft. The positive terminal stud was very loose and was growing green corrosion, indicating it had been a long, long time since the battery had been serviced.

Replacing the Generator Start Battery. Notice the date code from 2005!

Replacing the Generator Start Battery. Notice the date code from 2005!

I understand why, recalling that Matt (surveyor) had been unable to physically get to the battery or the Fireboy extinguisher during the survey. Fortunately, I’m shorter than he is so managed to worm my way back and get er done!

Boathouse

Yes Please parked in her new Boathouse.

Yes Please parked in her new Boathouse.

Yes Please moved into her new boathouse this past weekend. It was a very tight fit, with the anchor only six inches from tagging the plate glass window, but she fits like a glove.

One of the big factors in deciding to purchase the boat was the availability of boat houses in Olympia. I did not want a boat that had so much beautiful teak on the outside without the benefit of covered storage. Parking her in a house means that she will stay clean when washed and means the varnish on the teak should last about three years rather than being an annual battle.

The anchor is mere inches from tagging the glass window to the boathouse.

The anchor is mere inches from tagging the glass window to the boathouse.

Another big benefit, given the rainy weather here in the Pacific Northwest, is that the boathouse makes winter boat work possible and so much easier. It also gave us a good place to store the kayaks!

All of my trucks have always parked out in the rain, but the boat gets her own garage! I must have my priorities straight!

😉

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Jarrell’s Cove

Yankee feels right at home in the cockpit.

Yankee feels right at home in the cockpit.

The sun came out and we decided to take our seven month old puppy out on the boat for the first time. He has gone from an eight pound fluff ball in October to a sixty six pound big boy in just five months! Fortunately, he is still very young, which makes getting him used to the boat that much easier!

Yankee was very comfortable on the boat, until the big engines rumbled to life. All the noise and vibration had him concerned for a minute, but he quickly calmed back down and enjoyed our trip from Olympia to Jarrell’s Cove State Park. He likes to sit in the cockpit and watch the water flow by the hull.

Yankee getting some love from Sherri Ernsberger in Pickering Passage.

Yankee getting some love from Sherri Ernsberger in Pickering Passage.

When we arrived at Jarrell’s Cove, there was only one boat on the dock, so we grabbed a choice spot on the end of the dock and secured the boat. The dog had a great time exploring the state park and was easy and comfortable on the boat. It’s almost like he was born to be a boat dog.

I was unsure about the water depths around the dock, since I remembered a lot of shoaling in the area at low tide. However, the park rangers have posted a very nice diagram of both docks, with depths at zero tide, which I will post below. While at the dock, I finally had time to replace the lame Raymarine Depth Sounder Module (DSM) and the re-furbished one that I installed is working like a champ.

Lauren and Yankee soaking up some sun.

Lauren and Yankee soaking up some sun.

Jarrell’s cove state park is a beautiful gem, hidden away at the very North end of Harstine Island. We will be back and so will Yankee. There is plenty of depth at the docks in all but serious minus tides (see below) and the cove is full of new mooring buoys with room for lots of boats.

The cove is also very well protected from the wind and we had friends that were taking a beating down by Hope Island, so we invited them up to enjoy the peaceful serenity at Jarrell’s Cove.

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AIS tracking

AIS track of Yes Please

AIS track of Yes Please

After updating the Raymarine AIS transceiver with new firmware and modifying the information being broadcast about the boat, I wanted to verify that the unit was working correctly. When we returned from a recent trip to Hope Island, I looked up the boat’s MMSI number via Marine Traffic to see if they had picked up the new boat name.

I was pleasantly surprised that they were tracking the boat so far South in Puget Sound and that they had the new boat name registered. I’m always impressed when new technology works the way it is supposed to!

Inverter Gremlins

Irrational Xantrex Inverter Display

Irrational Xantrex 2512 Inverter Display

One of the minor annoyances listed as a deficiency on the survey was the control panel for the Xantrex Inverter. As Matt Harris so eloquently put it, “the inverter remote control panel display readout is irrational.” Indeed it was and apparently always has been (see photo).

According to the previous owner, the inverter works perfectly, but the display has always been scrambled and no one had been able to fix it. Hmmmm.

I read through a bunch of Xantrex manuals, which are guaranteed to put you right to sleep, no matter how restless you might be. Apparently, the particular model number of the Inverter on Yes Please doesn’t actually exist (P2512M), and a scrambled display is often the result of communication faults between the inverter and display. The solution, hit the reset button (reset to factory defaults).

Non-srambled Xantrex display after the reset

Non-srambled Xantrex display after the reset

Granted, hitting a button that resets to factory defaults is a little scary, since you can’t tell what those factory defaults are, but the button was pushed, the display reset and who would have guessed, problem solved. Now I can at least see what the darn thing is doing!

First Night Out

Yes Please on her first buoy at Hope Island.

Yes Please on her first buoy at Hope Island.

We spent our first night out on Yes Please after a quick trip to Hope Island. It has probably been about 7 years since I’ve been able to pick up and use a mooring buoy (previous boats were too big) and I was delighted at how easy it was.

It was Sherri’s first attempt at snagging a buoy and she accomplished it like a pro, easy and smooth despite the strong currents. We set up a short bridle, turned off the engines and did what boats do, relaxed and enjoyed the quiet. Over the course of our two nights out on the boat, we tested all the systems we hadn’t used yet and were extremely pleased how well everything worked. The stove cooked, the diesel furnace warmed us up, the davit was easy, the dingy started right up, the generator quietly gurgled and we had a wonderful time.

Sherri Ernsberger worshipping the sun at Hope Island.

First mate, Sherri Ernsberger, worshipping the sun on the last day of Winter, at Hope Island.

I was especially pleased with how well the batteries performed. They are ten year old AGM’s that I am planning on replacing soon, but held their charge overnight with only a 0.1 volt drop, even with lots of lights, the fridge, pumps and iphone chargers running all night. Excellent!!

We slept like babies and did NOT want to head back to civilization on Sunday morning.

Name Change

Yes Please, new boat name, is applied to transom.

Yes Please, new boat name, is applied to transom.

The sun briefly appeared on Friday, so I stopped by the boat at lunch time to remove the remaining vinyl from the transom and clean up the goo with some Acetone. After work, Sherri and I positioned the new graphics on the stern and began peeling and rubbing the new boat name into position.

The larger Yes Please name went onto the transom pretty easily, which was surprising given it was three layers of vinyl. The home port graphics were a little trickier (Olympia, WA) due to the small letters. I’ll have to replace the “O” in Olympia at some point, but I am pleased with the results.

After the hard (not) work of renaming the boat, we braved the Fourth Ave Tavern to watch Andrew Landers and the Strugglesville Band. The music was magnificent and that part of Olympia is always entertaining, to say the least.

Bed Time

Queen sized bed with 3 inch memory gel topper.

Queen sized bed with 3 inch memory gel topper.

Our first night on Yes Please was a little restless because the mattress was thin and a little on the hard side. A quick trip to Costco for a 3″ memory foam topper along with a down mattress pad/cover and we were off to very sound sleep.

The memory foam was a little difficult to work with as it had to be shaped around the odd corners of the mattress. Sherri took a new serrated knife to the foam and it turned out really well. The fleece sheets also made the bed super comfy and toasty warm.

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Raymarine electronics

Raymarine Electronics at the helm of Yes Please.

Raymarine Electronics at the helm of Yes Please.

I have never been a big fan of Raymarine Electronics. Almost all of the charter boats that I have operated came equipped with them, so I am familiar with how they work. I also see them on a lot of local boats, so am guessing it is a popular brand.

Yes Please came equipped with Raymarine Electronics, so it was time to re-program the AIS unit with the new boat name (formerly Maverick) and to troubleshoot a very annoying alarm that constantly pops up that the “connection to the DSM module has been lost”. The first order of business was to find the modules, then figure out how to access them. It took a bit of hard pulling on the Autopilot, and eventually the dash popped off and I was able to see how things were hooked up.

DSM and Sea Talk modules

DSM and Sea Talk modules

My mini-usb cable turned out to be a little too short, which necessitated holding the laptop with one hand while typing with the other. Eventually, I was able to re-program the AIS unit with the new “Yes Please” boat name and then updated the AIS firmware to the latest version. This was very easy to do using the ProAIS software and USB drivers. I was also glad the laptop batteries were in good shape, since I forgot the power cable. DOH!

Next, I updated the E120 chart plotter to the latest version of firmware, which helped with troubleshooting the Raymarine SeaTalk network issues. Then I began to investigate the dropping DSM module error that constantly appears.

AIS module well hidden below the helm.

AIS module well hidden below the helm.

It turns out that the Raymarine Depth Sounder Module (DSM300) was the victim of very poor engineering. The Ray supplied power cable is too thin (insufficient gauge) to handle the 8 amps of load required. As a result, when the DSM pings, it attempts to draw 8 Amps of current through the too thin wire, which drops the voltage below the unit’s minimum voltage set point (obviously set too high), so the unit drops out and restarts. Wow, engineering has fallen a long way since Raytheon invented the Magnetron (radar) during WWII!