Jim's blog

A day or so ago while walking around the waterfront I spotted 'Sarnia', my friend Gordon's H28 motoring around to Oriental Bay. Called him and fonud it wasn't him but his brother-in-law and co-owner.

Fast forward a day and I get a call saying why don't we go for a sail after work, take dinner and get Sheryn and Jo along too.



Last evening we had a great sail in light winds across to Point Halswell where we planned to anchor. Find that the sun wasn't going to be there a lot longer we headed back to Oriental Bay and anchoring just out from the fountain. Had a great meal watching the people swimming/walking on the beach etc while the sun went down.

Jo said she'd be happy for us to have a boat we could do that in at times - Folksboat coming up?.

Away camping at Paekakariki. We headed there with a group of friends for our regular weekend out of town. Paekakariki seemed like a good choice as its very close to Wellington so minimised travelling time.

Arrived at the campground late afternoon on Friday and set up our tent. The others arrived over the next few hours and we had takeaways for dinner.

Continue reading "Great weekend - good company" »

Well today was a beautiful day in Wellington and I got out in Hookey for an hour or so again in Evans Bay.

Not a cloud in the sky and temperature in the mid-20s. Wind was from the NE and varied between 0 and about 12 knots. First glitch was a slow air leak in one of the cars tires - I knew it was there but had forgotten to fix it. Turns out there is a nail in it. Luckily there is a garage only a couple of hundred meters from home so got that pumped up OK.

I had a messy job getting out from the ramp - forgot the bungs first - hadn't gone 4 meters before I had wet feet. Quick bale out and a search of the boat and car. Thought I'd left them at home but eventually found them hiding behind my paddles.



Continue reading "Time on the water" »

I have been away a lot lately and the only time I have been on the water was on my friend Gordon's H28 a few days before Mum died. Gordon and I took Hookey down to Evan's Bay a couple of weeks ago but decided that the wind was just too much for fun. 3 or 4 sailors were out racing around in lasers and tipping out frequently.

My 3G Vodem worked a treat while I was away through December and over the holidays.

Unfortunately this week its running like a dog most of the day. Flies along for a few minutes and then seems to stops doing much. A continuous ping succeeds most of the time (up to 30% dropped) but most DNS queries and TCP session requests fail.

I upgraded the VMC for Linux software t version 1.99.17 to get the usage monitor function and hoping that it would sort any problems but it hasn't helped at all.

I dropped in on Charlie a few days after Xmas and he was hard at work shaping the top wooden section of his mast to fit into the aluminium tube. He still has a lot to do but his recent updates show he is getting through them very quickly. Have a look at Charlie's blog for latest updates.

The rudder is a huge chunk of wood nearly 2 meters high with a step on the bottom to assist in getting back on-board in the unlikely event of falling overboard. A useful feature although not one I'd want to use if sailing solo or indeed anywhere offshore.

Rails etc are now fitted and Charlie has been splicing the wire rigging - it's coming together.

I have installed several updates of the Weather Display software now and each seems to work a bit better with my IROX weather station and Linux. Unfortunately I am running it on my laptop and that spends most days disconnected from the docking station so I'm not really getting the full use of it. I plan to get a small system that was originally sold as a firewall running as a datalogger. It is running a Linux based version of Checkpoint firewall software currently.

It has keyboard and monitor connections on the motherboard but not on the case its in so I need to either figure out a new OS install using the serial console or find some cables that will connect to the motherboard. I have got a two port USB expansion connector for it already. Once I get an OS on it it has 3 network ports to play with so I won't need to log on to it directly.

Continue reading "Weather station" »

2008 is now well underway - 2 weeks already - and I am back at work. The last month has been a bit disrupted from the plans I had started mapping out for holidays over the Xmas break. I spent about a week over Xmas in Hamilton with Dad and helped sort out a few of the many things that need sorting after a death in the family. It was a strange time and I felt quite disconnected from the world in a way.

On the way back to Wellington I visited John & Margaret in Ohope and a few days there relaxed me a bit. I also stopped by to see Arnim, Celeste and Anna-Thea in Havelock North. They seem well settled into their new home and we had fun in the nearby school yard with Anna-Thea and a couple of her friends trying to shower us with dried grass and chase us down on bikes - and it was a bit reciprocal too.

After getting home to Jo we had 3 nights away camping at Castlepoint which was great although a bit less wind would have been appreciated. One day we had Jo's nieces Georgie and Erin with their kids and Jenny, Jo's sister in-law visit. That was fun too - kids put a whole different perspective on life and have a totally different view of what is important.