July 13th was quite a lazy day.
It was momentous however in that Pam conquered her anxiety about
climbing the mast. Although I only went as high as the first set of
spreaders I now know that if need be I can haul myself up the mast. Our
mast climbing ‘rig’ is a 3 to 1 pulley system with a ratchet block.
The ratchet block is hauled to the top of the mast and secured. A
second line is secured as our ‘safety’ line. We put a rock climbing
piece of hardware called an ascender on the safety line. As you pull
yourself up the ratchet block holds you somewhat in place and you move
the ascender above you and it also holds you in place. If you need to
stay in place longer you have your partner on deck tie off your loose
line and you can hang there and do things like put the radar reflector
back up and change the light bulb that the last person kicked on his way
down the mast. Our rig gives complete control of the climb to the
person who is climbing which is nice. We have decided however that we
want a 4 to 1 set-up so that it is easier for our muscles to haul our
bulk up the mast. After this task we took the dinghy ashore and
explored Ucluelet ending up with sipping a brewski at a pub with wifi so
we could catch up on emails.
July
14th and 15th Carl continues to fill our crab pot in his never ending
quest for protein. We dined on fresh red rock crab one night and are
storing new crab for a crab feast when Barb and Craig arrive today.
They will join us for about five nights out in Barkley Sound. We first
discovered this part of the country on a road trip with Barb and Craig
about 4 years ago and have been coming back almost yearly since then.
It is great to have our own boat here. We are currently anchored just
off shore from the condos that we stayed in on our first trip. One of
the things I enjoy about being this close to inhabited shore is the
gleeful squeals from kids as they discover yet another starfish!
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