So here it is…  your simple answer..  Zest = grated lemon rind

Essentially you use a small plane, small grater, or worst case a large cheese grater to grate just the yellow part of the lemon skin.  You don’t want the white part underneath the outer layer of yellow so you will need to keep turning the lemon to hit all of the outside skin for the best zest.

Another tip I found, if the recipe calls for juicing the lemon also, make sure you zest it first.  Once you juice it, the lemon will not be firm enough to make zesting an easy task.  So zest the lemon while it’s still whole, then cut it in half and juice it.

We have a small grater that I believe is for parmesan that seems to work well for the lemon zest.

More info..

Oh yeah, the Shrimp Lemon Pepper Fettucini was great also!

So tonight my work meetings finished up late and I didn’t get to the store until 5:30pm.  Today I actually attempted to find some recipes that used produce and/or meats we already have in the house.  This made it a little more difficult to settle on something that sounded inspired.  We had some potatoes, carrots, and shallots on hand and I’ve been dying to use shallots in something.  Seafood sounded good so I searched around for something with shellfish but didn’t find anything that sounded awesome and then I ran across a Maple glazed Salmon recipe that seemed easy and tasty.

Maple Salmon on Allrecipes.com

Asparagus seems to be the thing to make when we grill Salmon in the summer so I started searching for an asparagus dish and most of them are pretty basic.  For some reason when I was at the store I walked up and down the produce section about 5 times and never found asparagus.  So I quickly googled for “potato carrot shallot recipe” and found a roasted vegetable dish that sounded tasty.  Of course as soon as I found that recipe, I also found the asparagus so I decided to do both.

Roasted Potatoes, Carrots, and Shallots on Epicurious.com

For the asparagus, I improvised on an onion and asparagus recipe I found that called for sliced onions and onion salt.

Pan Fried Asparagus with Onions on Allrecipes.com

I chopped the onions for this instead of slicing because I thought it would fry up a bit better and I think it turned out really good.  The recipe also calls for “onion salt” which confused me.  I’ve heard of onion powder and garlic salt, but onion salt was a new one.  And I didn’t see any onion salt in the seasonings aisle at the store.  A quick google and I found multiple sites that essentially said it was 3 parts salt to 1 part garlic powder.  So fear not, it’s super simple to make.

On another note, peeling Shallots (which is needed for the roasted potatoes, etc dish) is a pain, a little more difficult than peeling garlic cloves and onions.  This tip seemed to help but I skipped the boiling water part.  Cutting the ends off and making a very shallow slit down one side with a sharp knife made a difference.

One of the other reasons I chose this potato dish over a couple others I found was that the oven temperature it called for was the same (400F) as the Maple Salmon so I was able to put both of them in the oven at the same time.  I started the veggies (which take about 10 minutes to prep and just under an hour to cook) and then worked on the Salmon next.  The Salmon dish calls for marinating for 20 minutes or so then baking for 20 minutes.  So I made the glaze, brushed it on, then put in the fridge.  About 20 minutes before the veggies were supposed to be done I put the Salmon in the oven.  In the meantime I had prepped the asparagus and onions (to which I added parsley and garlic as well) and in the last 10 minutes of baking I fried up the asparagus.  Everything was done at about the same time and it was all pretty tasty.

A couple final comments..

I really liked the maple glaze for the Salmon, it was great.  I used dried Rosemary in the vegetables but I’m sure chopped fresh rosemary would be better.  From the time I started chopping veggies to putting the finished meal on the plate was an hour and 15 minutes.  There was enough downtime in between tasks that I was able to clean up most of the dishes also.  The roasted shallots were awesome too!

Okay, let’s get started.

Recipe Ideas:

Since I’m not very creative when it comes to meal time I’ve resorted to Google for recipe ideas.  Most of the stuff I’ve found has been coming from the same couple web sites with Epicurious and Allrecipes.com being the most common.  Allrecipes.com has a cool recipe spinner app for iPhone that I’m using now where you select a type of meal (side, main course, salad, etc), then one primary ingredient (eggs, pork, pasta, etc), and a prep time (20 minutes, over an hour, etc) and it gives you a list of matching recipes.  Since it’s on the phone it makes shopping for the ingredients pretty handy.

Planning Time:

On my dinner nights I have set a calendar appointment for 3pm to remind me to start at least planning dinner.  Because my work schedule allows for it, I usually make a stop at the nearby grocery store at around 4:00 or 4:30pm to pick up anything I need and most days I’m browsing for recipes on my phone while I’m in the store.  This isn’t necessarily a good idea, it just happens to be the way it has worked out lately.  Ideally I would plan the day or night before, check the house for ingredients on the morning of, and make a shopping list for the stop on the way home.  Since I plan just a few hours before dinner and go straight from work to the store, I tend to buy things we already have.

Basic Tools:

A tablet, an iPad 2 in my case, is super handy for checking the recipes while you cook.  And since the web browsers typically support tabbed browsing you can have multiple recipes up in different tabs and switch back and forth while you cook.  Also, after I search for recipes on my phone’s browser and use that to shop, I then open the same recipe pages very easily on my iPad once in the kitchen because Safari and Chrome sync the open tabs between devices automatically.  If you use the Allrecipes.com Dinner Spinner app I mentioned above you can save favorites and create shopping lists that are accessible on your iPad and iPhone.

Since cooking is messy, you may want to find a way to protect your tablet from that mess.  There are a variety of cases you can use.  I haven’t personally addressed this issue yet, but I really want this Belkin Chefs Stand and Stylus which unfortunately seems hard to find.

You also need a set of good knives, pots, pans, and a pasta pot or pasta insert for another pot.  If you don’t use a pasta insert, your pasta will sometimes stick to the bottom and burn.  The insert keeps that from happening making pasta cooking almost hands free.

A word about knives:

If you don’t have a really good, sharp, knife you will get frustrated.  I happen to have a couple large sharp knives now and it’s made things much easier.  My favorite new knife is a chefs knife with a curved blade edge so you can rock it over vegetables.  It makes chopping small things (think cilantro, parsley, etc) remarkably easy while saving your fingers.

A word about Garlic:

Buy a ton of it! You can put garlic in pretty much anything and it’s good for you.  The easiest way to buy and use it is in the minced form.  You can get this super large container of minced garlic at Costco or many grocery stores and it lasts a long time.  1/2 teaspoon is equal to 1 clove of garlic.  Most recipes call for minced garlic anyway so this saves some time.  If I need full cloves for a recipe I usually just buy them the day of.

Remember the basic tenet of garlic is there is no such thing as too much garlic, so you really don’t have to measure it accurately.

Having been a bachelor for quite a few years before getting married, I am not the biggest chef.  When I cook, you can generally expect top ramen or if you are lucky, a pot of pasta and a jar of Classico sauce (which, by the way, is one of the best tasting and healthiest pre-made sauces around).  For several years, I actually ate dinner at a dive bar every night.  Accordingly, expectations for my meals are not high.

The rules were simple for my dinner nights, actually only one real rule:  The meal must include some sort of veggie or salad to help make the meal somewhat healthy.  On the first night of my dinner reign, I stopped by my local Safeway and picked up a filet of Alaskan Salmon, combined it with some potatoes we had and pulled out some leftover apple salad that my wife had made for a party.  During the last few weeks of 2012 and into 2013, I’ve been experimenting with different meals and yes, I’ve been perfecting my spaghetti sauce, something I’ll post about later.

As inspiration and influence, earlier last year we spent two weeks on an amazing vacation in Italy and one of our takeaways was that the food we eat at home is too processed.  The quality of every meal in Italy was extraordinary, in part because the ingredients are all fresh and local at every restaurant.  Ever since that trip we’ve been making an extra effort to cook from fresh ingredients whenever possible.  We’ve started getting fresh produce delivered from a CSA and the neat thing about it is that it forces you to be creative with your meals, in order to use whatever fruits and veggies that you happen to get that week from the CSA.

I’ve got to be honest, the veggie-with-every-meal requirement is actually much harder than I thought.  It’s easy to throw together a simple side salad but you can’t have the same old side salad every night so I have to find alternative ways to get veggies into the meal.  I’m not super creative when it comes to cooking but I’ve been getting better at this.

So now that I’ve set the stage, stay tuned as I write about my continuing journey from take-out techie to an engineer of extraordinary edibles!

Ingredients:

• 1 Slice – Deli Sliced Honey Roasted/Smoked Turkey Breast
• 1/4 Cup – 4-Cheese Mexican Blend Shredded Cheese
• 1 – Fresh AA Large Egg
• 1 Roll – Whole Wheat Sandwich Thins
• 1 Tblsp – Butter (Optional) (or some other type of spread you like)

I just happened to have these flavors and brands in the fridge, you can adjust based on what you have in your fridge or to your preferred tastes.

Preparation:

First, separate the two halves of the Sandwich Thin Roll and place face up.  Spread butter on the inside faces of the rolls if desired. Tear one slice of Turkey in half and cover one half of the roll overlapping the two turkey pieces to fit the roll.

Sprinkle the shredded cheese to cover the second roll half evenly.

Cooking:

Place both roll halves on the middle rack of the toaster oven, set to Bake, 350 deg, 5 minutes.  (My Breville Oven preheats first, then starts the countdown timer once preheating is complete.  This actually works out well as I’ll describe in a moment.)

Next, crack the egg into a small pan (I happen to have a really small pan that is about the same diameter as the Sandwich Thins) on on the stove and break the yolk.  Allow the egg to cook on medium heat.

Meanwhile, the oven will beep when preheating is complete and start the 5 minute countdown.  Remove the cheese covered half from the oven and allow the meat side to continue cooking.

When the egg is nearly cooked you may want to flip it one time to finish the top, then remove it from the stove and place it on top of the cheese covered roll.  The egg will be done just about the same time as the 5 minute oven timer.  Remove the roll from the toaster oven and put the two halves together to make the full egg, cheese, turkey sandwich.

Nutrition Information: (I am not making any health claims, I am simply providing this for informational purposes)

1 Egg, 1 Slice Turkey, Sandwich Thin, Cheese

• 300 calories
• 14.5g fat
• 24.4g carbs
• 23.3g protein

Optional butter adds 102 calories and 11g fat. (Other spreads or skipping the butter may be a good idea if your are trying to keep your calories and/or fat intake down.)

• Alta Lake State Park
• Lake Wenatchee State Park
• 25-Mile Creek Campground (on Lake Chelan)
• Perrygin Lake State Park
• Lincoln Rock State Park (on Lake Entiat)

This year I decided to try Sun Lakes/Dry Falls State Park near Coulee City and aside from some variable weather that is always a bit of a challenge on Memorial Day Weekend, this location delivered a lot.

Dry Falls

First, the scenery is amazing and the group site, which is on a little hill between the main campground and the RV sites, is situated perfectly to take in the scenery right from your tent or picnic table.  Within walking distance of the campsite, there are miles of trails, a swimming beach, kids play area with climbing toys, a 9-hole golf course (Vic Meyers Golf Course), an 18-hole mini golf course, water balloon battle facility, water skiing, fishing, and paddle boating.  With a short drive (5-30 minutes depending) you can visit Lake Lenore Caves, Dry Falls Visitor Center, Grand Coulee Dam, and several different lakes for more fishing and boating opportunities.  For the 2011 Memorial Day weekend, the weather held to around 65-75 degrees during the day, two short rain periods (30 minutes each) came through, and on Sunday morning from about Midnight till 9am we experience very strong winds (30-40+ MPH) which toppled a tent and a screened shelter, and flattened several other tents.  The rest of the time it was sunny and nice.  At night it was pretty cold so heavy blankets/sleeping bags are a must.  Weather at Sun Lakes is typically very nice during the main part of summer (July/Aug/Sep) with average temps of 85 degrees during the day.

Speaking of winds and tents, I took some pictures of various tents that we had this year and how they were faring during the wind storm.  Most interesting was the two versions of REI Hobitat 6 tents that were next to each other.

Old REI Hobitat 6 in front, new version of Hobitat 6 behind

The older version (closest to camera) could not handle the wind even with all of the guy wires staked out for support.  The newer version held up just fine without any support lines.  Our screened shelter started to fall apart because we hadn’t properly secured it but once we staked down the support wires it stood its ground.  Our new, huge, tent held up great in the wind, except for the ground stakes that were included.  We had to switch to different ground stakes which worked much better.

Coleman WeatherMaster 10 16x8 3-Room Tent (Model # 2000008678)

This Coleman WeatherMaster 10 is a special Costco Only version based on the WeatherMaster 6 I believe.  The 6 has a screened porch while this Costco model had solid nylon to close the screens making the porch into a 3^rd room.  It’s 16×10 feet in size and has near vertical walls on all 4 sides.  The hinged door is way more handy than you’d think it would be and it barely moved in the strong winds.  It’s huge inside with room for porta-crib, dog bed, bags and 2 queen air mattresses without trying very hard.  There were no rain leaks and it was easy to set up.  However it’s quite heavy to pack (about 50lbs) and it takes 20 minutes to assemble.  If you think you will see any wind, scrap the included tent stakes and buy the Coleman 9 inch ABS plastic stakes which are about $3 for 6.  You’ll need 22 ground stakes for this tent with the rain fly.  Make sure to bring a hammer or mallet and sink the ground stakes as far down into the ground as possible and at a slight angle (top of stake pointing away from the tent).

Coleman Tent Stakes ABS 9" (Model # 2000003425)

One thing to note… this WeatherMaster 10 tent is not the same one that Coleman lists on their website or that you’d find if you Google’d for it and based on the reviews I’ve read of that tent it’s a good thing.  The normal WM10 has angled walls on the ends that make it hard to stand up near the ends; the Costco version has much more standing room.  Costco sells this tent for $143 right now which is a screamin deal.

Several years ago I picked up a Coleman Tent Light which mounts to the inside wall or ceiling of the tent using a magnet with a metal plate on the outside.  It has been really handy and works with pretty much any tent.

Coleman Tent Light (Model# 2000000032)

Last year, we also replaced our leaking air bed with the queen sized Coleman Quickbed.  There are several versions of this with varying thicknesses and some with built-in speakers for MP3 players, others with attached carrying bags.  Regardless of which one you choose, the primary reason thing you need to look for is the built-in battery powered air pump.  You might think that you can use any pump to blow up your air mattress, and you’d be right, but having one built-in to the mattress provides several benefits.

1. You don’t need to remember where you put your pump when you want to use the air mattress.
2. You have a valid excuse for not letting other people borrow your air pump.
3. In the middle of the night, when the air temperature has dropped and the air mattress pressure has dropped as a result of the denser air, you can reach over your pillow, turn a knob on the mattress, and pump it right back up without leaving your sleeping bag.

This air bed is one of the best things we’ve ever purchased for camping in my opinion.

Coleman Quickbed with MP3 Speakers and Built-In 4D Pump Queen

This year my wife has been experimenting and blogging about make-ahead cooking and she decided to apply it to camping.  So instead of bringing raw ingredients and preparing everything at the campsite, all of our meals were prepared ahead of time in various ways, some cooked and frozen, others chopped and ready for cooking, etc.  This made meal time quicker, easier, and tastier and also made clean up easier.  To cook the food we brought the usual two-burner propane stove (mine is an Edmund Hillary brand I’ve had for many years) and a griddle that fits perfectly on the stove.  For cookware we brought our Magma Nestable Non-Stick Stainless Steel set.  We originally bought this set for our boat and realized its size makes it perfect for these types of camping trips.  The set is definitely not light enough to pack in a backpack, but otherwise it’s awesome.  It cleans up easy and has pretty much every type of stove top pot/pan you need.  You can get this set at many marine supply stores or online at Amazon which has it for just about $200.

Magma Nestable Non-Stick Stainless Steel Cookware (10 piece)

While picking up our tent at Costco, we also noticed the Coleman All-in-One Cooking system and decided to buy it.  It’s a stove that can also be made into a grill or griddle and it comes with a stock pot that acts like a slow cooker.  It’s actually a pretty nice setup and Costco’s price can’t be beat.  We used all the modes and it worked quite well with one exception.  The slow cooker was a tad too hot even when the burner was on low so our chili kept boiling a little when we wanted it to just stay warm.  Other than that, a pretty sweet kit.  The kit includes the Coleman Insta-Start stove plus accessories that are normally optional but the kit’s price is lower.  It appears that it is only available as a complete kit at Costco, Sams Club, and Camping World and Costco’s price was $99.

Coleman All-In-One Cooking System (Model # 2000003609)

Another Costco purchase was the pack of three LED Flashlights.  They are TechLite Lumen Master flashlights with 150 lumens of output and run on 3 AAA batteries.  Online the price seems to be about $30 for the set of 3 but Costco had them for $19.99.  These are the brightest flashlights I’ve used, LED or not, period.  Totally worth the money and they are rugged aluminum and fit in your pocket.

TechLite Lumen Master CREE LED

Well, that wraps up this post.  I hope this is helpful to anyone looking for some camping ideas.

———–

This is a wonderful sailing boat, very fast upwind and comfortable cruising.

The Cal 2-29 is a Bill Lapworth design and is a cruiser/racer class sloop. Bred from the same cloth as the famous Cal 40.

Specs: 

• LOA – 29.34 ft
• LWL – 24 ft
• Beam – 9.25 ft
• Draft – 4.5 ft (fin keel)
• Displacement – 8000 lbs
• Ballast (lead keel) – 3350lbs
• Sail Area – 434 sq ft

Farymann A30M Diesel Inboard w/Nanni 2:1 Reduction transmission (12HP 1-Cyl)
Overhauled in August 2010

Features: 

• Farymann A30M Diesel Inboard w/Nanni 2:1 Reduction transmission (12HP 1-Cyl) – Overhauled in August 2010
• Wheel Steering with Ritchie Compass and Auto Helm
• Galley and Vanity Sinks, pressurized water
• Raritan Head with holding tank
• Sails: Main, 135 Genoa, 150 Genoa, Spinnaker
• Harken Roller Furling on head sail
• New Harken Mainsheet traveler
• 3 Burner Propane Stove/Oven
• Propane Cabin Heater
• Xantrex Heart Inverter/Charger
• Trojan AGM Batteries
• Icom ICM422 VHF
• Pioneer Stereo/CD Player with iPod Cable
• Garmin NMEA2000 Display with Depth/Speed/Temp transducer
• 2 year old West Marine Inflatable Dinghy
• Magma Propane BarBQ
• Gory Solid Brass Folding propeller

More Pics at http://gallery.me.com/tech_savvy#100144

Most of the projects are hold-overs from 2009.  My wife and I got married in April 2009 and we took quite a bit of time off work for the wedding and honeymoon.  As a result, we took our sailboat out only once or twice for a few hours that’s about all of the time it spent out on the water.  For pretty much the entire summer of 2010 my wife was pretty pregnant and combined with work and preparing our house for a tiny human, we again did pretty much zero sailing, with one exception.

We decided that it would be fun to have a guys trip a few weeks before my wife’s due date.  This trip would be a way to get some use out of the boat, and for me to bond with friends and family.  My wife and I worked on the boat for a couple weeks to get it ready for the trip and we finalized the crew of myself, my good friend Jason, and my dad.  This trip ended up very memorable and you can read about the calamities at sea we endured in this post as well as this follow up.

Last month as our lives seemed to settle down a little, getting more used to being parents, I started to think about all of the boat projects that needed progress and decided that I should find a way to dedicate time to that.  So I decided to pick one day a week (Wednesday was the chosen day) to head up to the boat after work and stay the night.  I could use these weekly visits to start tackling interior projects (engine, electrical, trim, cleaning, etc).  I’ve spent one night up there so far and accomplished nothing.

Actually, that night was particularly rainy and windy and when I got there I found out that the deck was leaking water into the boat.  A quick trip to West Marine to pick up a tarp and bungies stopped the leak for now.  Unfortunately that problem has now re-prioritized my project list and added another item, replace the hand-rails on deck and re-seal the through-bolt holes.

For 2011, we definitely want to use the boat more than we have the past two years, so we are planning another 8-9 day trip in the summer as well as a few day sails and overnights.  But before those trips I have a ton of work to do.

1. Replace teak hand rails on deck
2. Replace forward stanchions
3. Install new middle stanchions
4. Replace all lifelines and fittings
5. Install solar vent fan in forward hatch
6. Completely rewire and re-plumb bilge pumps, installing a second electric pump
7. Replace engine alternator and regulator and rewire engine-electrical
8. Build an electronics panel for the VHF, Stereo, and iPod out of starboard or teak
9. Finish making teak trim rings for the interior lights and install new interior lights
10. Replace running lights and anchor light with new LED lights
11. Add new task lighting for galley
12. Haul out and refresh bottom paint

There are several other things I’d like to do but they aren’t necessarily required for now, and most of them cost money so they may have to wait.  Now if I could just find time to work on these things…

The engine fired up just fine and sounds much better than it used to.  It runs and idles smoother, doesn’t smoke, runs cooler, etc.  So we headed out for sea trials in the bay and cruised around for about 45 minutes at different RPMs, heating and cooling the engine to stress it a little looking for any problems.  The boat runs great!  Under engine power we move about 1 knot faster than before too.  I think the engine has been running poorly for quite a while before it failed.  Anyway, satisfied that the boat engine was performing well, we headed back in to the dock.  I paid the bill, we loaded out provisions and headed out with just enough time to make it to Deception Pass for slack tide.

In the immortal words of Captain Ron — “Well, the best way to find out is to get her out on the ocean Kitty, if anything’s gonna happen, its gonna happen out there.”

20 minutes out, a new sound develops from the engine compartment.  It sounds like metal rattling–a very distinct, sharp sound.  Down in the engine compartment it’s a very loud sound, an exhaust leak from somewhere.  A couple phone calls and we turn back to Anacortes.  We clearly aren’t making it to Deception Pass tonight.  The engine is not quote right yet.  Mechanic shows up and determines that the head gasket is leaking, might have been a defective gasket.  But it’s solid copper and a new one is several days away.  Another mechanic joins us at 8:30am the next morning and finds out that the head bolts loosened during the sea trial and subsequent motoring.  He tightens then up and its running fine again.  So out for another trial, then back to cool the engine and check the bolts again–still good!

So we finally leave Puget Sound’s own Bermuda Triangle for home.  We pass through Deception right on time and continue south towards Coupeville on Whidbey Island.  In another moment of calamity on our eternal 3-hour tour, we are moving along at over 6 knots when the boat suddenly stops dead in the water and pitches forward.  Jason who was in the galley, flies forward into the head and falls down while dishes go flying.  A quick check of the depth sounder (showing 2.8ft) confirms my fears..  we hit a sand bar.  It turns out the navigator (me) was too preoccupied on his cell phone dealing with plans for the night and talking to the car dealer about the Mazda’s coolant leak, to notice that we were about 100 yards outside the marked channel.  Reversing the engine does nothing to help and the current is pushing us against the sand bar pretty hard.

If you read the previous post, you’ll remember that the dinghy saved the day when the engine failed..  Well, another notch on the dinghy’s stern is due after I threw it off the bow, mounted the Yamaha motor, and used it as a mini tugboat to spin the sailboat around into the current to push off the sand bar.  I’m contemplating renaming the sailboat and dinghy to “The Problem” and “The Solution” respectively.

We made it safely to Coupeville and had a wonderful afternoon and evening.  My wife and baby drove over to meet us for dinner and the next morning we shoved off early for Everett.  We got a little wet on this last run due to rain but made it home safe, locked the boat down, hopped in the car and went home.  It’s a series of mini-adventures I will never forget.

On the plus side, our little old sailboat is now better equipped, I have a new found respect for the dinghy, and I got to go boating once more before summer ends, even if it did cost us a lot more money than we had planned.

Over the 4^th of July weekend, we spent nearly 3 full days getting the boat ready for this trip.  Washed inside and out, installed new convenience items, changed the oil, checked the transmission fluid, batteries, electrical systems, etc.  We taken several short and long trips with our Cal 2-29 over the past 5 years and there hasn’t been a single trip over 24 hours that didn’t require a repair of some kind.  Once, the bilge pump sucked water INTO the boat and we had to re-plumb the bilge pump system with makeshift hoses available at the nearby port.  Another time, while docking in Friday Harbor, my wife leaned too hard on a stanchion, causing it to break off and sending her into the cold Puget Sound water.  Twice, an over-zealous helmsperson switched from reverse to forward gear while the engine was at speed and tore the flex coupling on the prop shaft in half.  Both times we were close to docking so we just drifted into port and made repairs.  After that we thought we had finally seen the last of the major issues for a while.

On Tuesday morning, we left too early to fuel up so I brought a 5-gallon can of Diesel on board.  35 nautical miles later that proved to be a good idea, when we almost ran out of fuel, while navigating the tight and dangerous Deception Pass.  We refueled without stopping using a makeshift funnel made out of a plastic water bottle.  Afterwards, the engine was clearly turning more than 2000 rpm based on sound and boat speed but the tachometer was showing 600-800 and bouncing wildly.  Something to look at later since the engine seemed okay.

An hour later, on the west side of Fidalgo Island, entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca, we were planning our final destination for the day when the engine began to lose power for an unknown reason. Finally, we saw what seemed to be unusual black smoke from the exhaust.  At that point we shut down the engine to check on things.  We were a few hundred yards from a rock wall, which was cause for some concern, but we had a little time to assess the situation.

At first glance, the alternator belt was very loose but it didn’t make sense because the bolt that allows for adjustment had clearly not moved.  It turned out that the bolt on the other end of the mounting arm, the one that secures the arm to the engine block, had sheared off and the arm was free of the engine.  Since the engine is an old diesel, which does not require any power or electronic systems to run, we decided we’d try and remove the belt and go without the alternator until we can repair it.  We also found a few random bolts and screws in the engine compartment.

While working to secure the belt out of the way with zip-ties we noticed the starter solenoid had pretty much fallen off of the starter, the spring was visible even.  The bolts had come loose and one was missing, plus reattaching would require a lot of work due to the location of the bolts.  Well, being a single cylinder small diesel, the Farymann A30M can be started with a hand crank when warm, so we secured the solenoid out of the way and figured we’d fire it up with the crank and get to a nearby marina.

Hand cranking failed to produce a running engine, and we really don’t know why, we may have needed the glow plug on which we forgot about until a long time after giving up.  It was looking like we were going to have to call Vessel Assist, when I remembered a story I heard about someone pushing their sailboat with their dinghy lashed to the side of the boat near the stern.  So we secured the dinghy, fired up the Yamaha 2.5hp motor, and amazingly we were moving along at 4knots just in time to move away from the rock wall that was now only about 100 yards away.  An hour later we dinghy-motored our little 35 year old Cal into Flounder Bay on the northwest corner of Fidalgo Island.  Some steaks, corn on the cob, and a healthy dose of Captain Morgan over the next few hours helped the mood and the day was done!

At this point we’ve found that not only was the alternator and starter solenoid loose from the engine, one of the two engine mounts was about 30 minutes of running from falling off also.  It’s likely the loose engine mount added vibration, which caused the other bolts to loosen, causing more bolts to fail completely–a multi-stage failure of sorts.  Today, our goal is to work with the marine service tech to get the engine put back together and tightened up, then see if the engine will run, and assess anything we find there.  At $92.50 per hour, this could be a costly day.

This experience, and the previous ones we’ve had as well, reminded me that you need to be prepared for anything, especially when your life depends on it.  When your customers (internal or external) depend on your IT systems, you should be prepared for anything to go wrong, and you might have to patch things together to get it going until you can fix it the right way.  And that’s okay.  Remember, duct tape and zip-ties can pretty much fix anything! 

And it’s only been 24 hours since the trip started.

Follow up here