Sailing for fun?

Thursday afternoon I was called by the marina to let me know that I'd left my boat in a slip that belonged to a year lease holder and would need to move it by next Wednesday, fortunately I was already in the area for work so I just extended my trip a day to take care of it.

On the upside a couple of the Sea Scout families from Ship 747 were available for a sail so we went out for an evening sail Friday night. The weather was great, light winds and comfortable evening temperatures. The sun was setting as we left the marina and we were treated to an incredibly beautiful sunset. We were able to put the sails up and ghost silently along at about 4 knots. The trip lasted about 3 hours and several times we were visited by dolphins crossing our path or shadowing us. There were some clouds but many stars were visible.

I was also able to cross a couple of things off of my to-do list, the outlet in the forward head is now GFI and I fixed the reversed hot in the system wiring for the boat. I also cleaned up an annoying leak in the freshwater  pump hose fitting.

Parade of boats photo

Photo taken during the Parade of Boats as we passed the reviewing ship off Ft. McHenry.

Norfolk!

The next morning we departed Calvert Marina, they were efficient and had left an envelope with maps and a Wifi code for me so we were able to do a quick weather and email check before heading out. We topped off at the fuel dock at 0905, we were the second boat in line when they opened. There were a number of boats headed South as well and we spent the morning following the Mystic Star until they turned off to the West, while we proceeded South towards Norfolk.

By this point we were getting proficient at staying out of shallow water and we spent most of the day in the middle of the bay, away from both shallow water and commercial traffic. We did pass several barges, headed North. Early on I mistook one for a lighthouse - telling Zach to use it as a course reference point; it became a standing joke to point out my "lighthouse" every time a barge passed us.

In the mid afternoon a front passed by and we had light rain for about an hour. Throughout the day Zach and I took turns at the helm. There was some ominous clouds to the West and occasional lightning flashes, but they stayed away and we enjoyed good weather for the rest of the afternoon. As sunset approached we got a call from Zach's mom warning of storms in the Hampton Roads area. We considered our options and decided that most likely they would be past Norfolk by the time we arrived at 2230 that evening. I took some time to straighten the anchor locker, laying out the lines on the deck for inspection and then re-stowing them in case it was too rough or windy to safely dock the boat and we were forced to anchor. I also rigged the radar reflector as we would be crossing several shipping channels and were unsure what the visibility would be.

An hour or so after sunset (2030) we started to feel the effects of the storm, the wind shifted out of the West and started to build. Our instruments reported winds of 26 kts and the waves were about 4 feet on our beam and it was raining fairly hard. I was considering taking down the bimini top and then the wind speed started to drop. By the time we made the Norfolk channel markers it was blowing a gentle 10 knots with a little drizzle. Zach was at the helm through most of the bad weather and did a great job keeping a steady course.

We pulled into a slip in the Little Creek Marina at about 2230 and with the help of one of our new neighbor we were quickly tied up at a T-head. We linked up with Susan Nelson and then went to town for a quick dinner.The next morning, Angie in the office (also a former Sea Scout) went out of her way to make sure we were well taken care of.

Solomon's Maryland and beyond

Over the Labor Day weekend we completed our most ambitious leg so far. Friday after work, one of my co-workers, David Hansen, was kind enough to drop me off at the boat before heading to the airport to fly home. Elizabeth drove up to Norfolk, VA where she connected with the Nelson family who we met through Sea Scouts. Zach is the boatswain for ship 747 and had agreed to join us for this leg of the trip. Zach's mom, Susan shuttled Elizabeth and Zach up to Galesville where we linked up. As soon as they arrived we shoved off bound for Solomon's, MD. We managed to find a shallow spot just outside of Galesville but were able to back off and continue our journey.

Saturday's journey was uneventful as we proceeded South. That changed once we turned West on the entrance to Solomon's. We were arriving after dark, so were relying heavily on our GPS as we approached the unfamiliar harbor. Before we made the final turn into the marina the course to steer pointer on the GPS became disoriented and pointed us towards shore, as the water got shallower, we figured out something was amiss. As we felt our way back out to the channel and bumped the bottom several times but eventually made it to the correct side of the channel marker. A quick look at the GPS led me to question the GPS, it was showing the direction of travel was oriented 90 degrees to port, so it kept telling us to turn to starboard and into the houses along the shore. While I was trying to reorient to the  landmarks Elizabeth prayed for guidance. A few moments later we heard  a VHF call to the boat trying to enter the harbor.  This helpful call from a local boat "Key West" offering to help guide us into the marina. After a brief conversation it turns out they were offering to help another boat but we took them up on their offer and once they described what the general approach to the marina looked like from a "shore lights" perspective we were back on track and following the channel markers into our dock. We found our parking spot just as described and were quickly tied up and then walked up to the "The Back Creek Bistro" for dinner, we were seated even though we were a little under dressed, and put our order in minutes before the kitchen closed. The meal and service was excellent and we look forward to our next visit.

Baby Steps

The past few weeks have been particularly challenging, we've not been able to do any work or move the boat closer to home; however, that doesn't mean that nothing has been done.

Last week Atlantic Spar and Rigging came down and completed a rig inspection as was required by the insurance company to cover the rig and gave us a clean bill of health with the exception of a few minor items. They also tuned up the rig, I'm looking forward to the next sail.

Hartge Yacht Harbor also did some work on the anchor locker, reglassing the compartment and then painting both the anchor locker and sail locker.

Something different - manipulating IP address strings in Excel

This is not normally the sort of thing I post on this blog but a quick search didn't find anything quite like it and it may be useful to someone else.

The following are a series of excel formulas that break down an IP address and allow you to manipulate the octets within the formula. The other examples I found all use vba, etc. These formula, although not terribly elegant, should be reasonably easy to deal with.


In these examples the field D6 is the target IP address:

# The length of the IP string and the first octet delineator
=LEN(D6)
=FIND(".",D6)

#Octet 1
=LEFT(D6,FIND(".",D6)-1)

#Octets 2-4
=RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6)))

#Octet 2
=LEFT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-1)

# Location of the second "."
=FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))

#Length of last three octets
=LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))

#Lenght of the last two octets
=LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))

#Octets 3-4
=RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6)))))

#Location of the third "."
=FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))))

#Octet 3
=LEFT(RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))),FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))))-1)

#Octet 4
=RIGHT(RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))),(LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))))))

#Last Octet with incremented (by 1) host IP
=TEXT((VALUE(RIGHT(RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))),(LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))),LEN(RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(D6,(LEN(D6)-FIND(".",D6)))))))))+1),"0")

#Reassembly of the new IP address, the number +2, near the end of the string is the amount the host address will be incremented by
=CONCATENATE(LEFT($D6,FIND(".",$D6)-1),".",LEFT(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))),FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-1),".",LEFT(RIGHT(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))),LEN(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))),FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))),LEN(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))))-1),".",TEXT((VALUE(RIGHT(RIGHT(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))),LEN(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))),(LEN(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))),LEN(RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6))))-FIND(".",RIGHT($D6,(LEN($D6)-FIND(".",$D6)))))))))+2),"0"))

Last weekend's route

Last weekend's route down the Chesapeake Bay. Went back and looked at some of the details of the route we took down the Chesapeake Bay, first into Baltimore and then down to Galesville, in total we moved the boat about 100 miles down the bay.

The next leg is planned to take us down to the Norfolk area.

Sea Scouts in Baltimore

Once we arrived in Baltimore we connected with the other members of Sea Scout Ship 510, which hails from Patriot's Point in Mount Pleasant, SC. Unfortunately it was a rainy weekend and although the forecast kept calling for better weather it was damp through the weekend. On the positive side, all the storms passed Thursday evening so all we had to contend with was light rain. We spent the first two days of our visit on the sea wall with no shore power.  The boys did a great job dressing the ship and the flags really made her stand out. About halfway through the exercise I had the boys double check their flag sequence to make sure we weren't signalling an unkind message.

On Saturday Dimi II participated in a parade of boats from the Baltimore Inner Harbor out to Fort McHenry, we were joined by several other Sea Scouts and leaders including the NE Region Vice Commodore for the short trip. The rain briefly left us as we passed the reviewing boat anchored off of Fort McHenry. Upon our return we were moved from the sea wall to one of the slips with access to both water and shore power! The dinner at the Rusty Scupper was filled with Scout fun including two cakes each with 100 candles - fortunately there was a fireman's convention in town for the weekend as well. 

Sunday morning the weather continued to be overcast but we were starting to dry out. One of the highlights of the weekend was the blessing of the fleet and we are ever thankful for the Lord's protection and provision. The high tide was at 9:36 and we left shortly after that. We saw several other SSS's as we motored South and enjoyed improving weather as we went. The light wind was on our nose so it was a day of motoring and watching traffic and depth as we traveled. On two occasions I tried to shortcut between bends the marked channel but each time the rapidly shallowing water chased me back near the channel.

We arrived in Galesville early in the afternoon, nearly an hour ahead of our planned arrival time. Unfortunately we are still working on our boat putting away routine and it took us nearly two hours to get on the road. The drive home was uneventful but long, on the way I had the opportunity to work on my post sail checklist, hopefully we can cut our put away time in half for our next voyage.

Sea Scout Centennial at Baltimore

On July 19th, we took our maiden voyage aboard Dimi II. That morning my brother Nick and I re-installed the starboard side fixed window. Things went very smoothly and the installation only took about a half hour. Cleaning up the residue where the neoprene gasket was trimmed away will take a little longer. At the time we didn't know it but the quality of our work would be well tested by the time we docked in Baltimore.

After loading gear aboard I along with Debbie and Pamed, the previous owner's daughters, brother Nick and son David motored out into Chesapeake Bay leaving the dock at North East for the last time. Just before we reached the channel markers we found the bottom, gently. After backing off we were able to work our way over to the channel, from then on we were able to avoid the bottom.

We motored nearly the whole way to Baltimore only to have the wind pick up as the Francis Scott Key Bridge came into view. Not to let good wind go to waste we cut the motor and enjoyed a perfect breeze of 15-20 knots. After we passed under the bridge ominous clouds and lightning began to bear down on us from the North and we began to shorten sail - but not fast enough. About that time we lost the bimini to the wind. Rolling up the head sail went smoothly but by the time we started to drop the main the rain had started, the wind was howling and the lightning flashing. We continued on through the squall, sometimes only able to see a boat length ahead from the rain. The Lord watched over us as we made our way blindly into the harbor.

The winds calmed as we motored past Fort McHenry and we were left with a heavy rain and a the waterway covered with a layer of trash washed from shore by the rain. The rain ended as we entered the Baltimore Inner Harbor. We approached the trident dock looking like drowned rats but grinning ear to ear at having come through the storm.

We were directed by the Scoutfleet dock master to tie up to the sea wall where we were met by a crew of helpful Sea Scouts and so the first leg of our trip came to an end.

A New Chapter

This month we're opening a new chapter in our Charleston Bound saga and the phrase "Charleston Bound" takes on new meaning. On July 2nd we closed on the purchase of a sailboat, two days before our 25th anniversary!

We've been boatless since we sold our faithful Catalina 27 - Mental Patience and moved from California. I'll be chronicling the process of putting our new boat in order and then bringing from its current home, North East, MD to Charleston, SC.

We're excited for our new adventure and looking forward to sharing our discoveries while we are Charleston  Bound!

The Legacy Continues

This evening we celebrated our youngest's 12th birthday - and continued a legacy. I passed on my Honda 50 Mini-Trail, after a few days in the shop it was running again and just in time. It still needs a little work, the muffler has seen better days and the lights don't work . . .yet; but we're on our way now.

Family Sailing

A few weeks ago we joined the College of Charleston Recreational Sailing Program and last Sunday was our first family sail outing since we moved from California. The weather was great - not too windy, a great day for a new sailor. Some friends came along and helped crewing. The tide was with us and we made it most of the way to Fort Sumter before heading back to the sailing center at Patriot's Point.

"Cougar" the J-22 we took out was a fun boat to sail - more lively (and less roomy) than the Catalina 27 we sold before we left California. Hope to get out again . . . soon.