Back home following our trip around the world, we sought to resume a more normal lifestyle. We moved in temporarily with my parents, enjoyed another wonderful Christmas reunion there with them and with Noel and Helen, and waited for Cynthia's lease to run out January 1.

Garth had in fact returned home from Greece the end of the previous summer in order to start the fall semester of his junior year at Stranahan High School. He was already living with my parents and working evenings as a bagboy at the local Publix market. (Indeed he had scraped together enough money to buy himself a Commodore C64.)

Fortunately, I had been accepted back at the Oceanographic Center and would not have to look for another job. However, to stay on, I would soon have to find outside support for some new research project, and that was becoming inceasingly difficult. (Waves research had basically had its run and was starting to fall out of fashion with the funding agencies.)

There was some hope, however. Bob Long had been working with Carlisle Thacker at the NOAA lab in Miami on a new scheme for inverse modelling data to estimate the values of parameters controlling the modelling of this data. This had obvious implications for the generation of waves by wind. The partial differential equation controlling this generation, the action balance equation, had been known since the early 1960s, along with the detailed structure of one of its most important source terms, the nonlinear transfer between wave components (both very significant contributions attributable to Klaus Hasselmann, the German physicist who had been a member of my doctoral committee at Scripps). Other terms in the equation, however, needed to be better parameterized.

Another development that bore on the project that was forming in our minds was a scheme that Carlisle Thacker had recently proposed for streamlining the numerical calculation of the nonlinear transfer term. In its original form, this term was extremely consuming of computer time and made iterative model and inverse model computations based on the action balance equation (such as would be involved in the data analysis phase of our project) impractical.

By totally monitoring the wind and wave spectrum fields in an enclosed basin over a sufficiently long period of time and inverse modelling the resulting data, one could hope to discover appropriate values for unknown parameters in the action balance equation and thus help to quantify the processes that control the evolution of the wave spectrum. This was the essence of our proposed effort.

The Bight of Abaco was not, strictly speaking, totallly enclosed, but it came close. And the Bight had several other important advantages. It was reasonably close by and familiar. It was good size, but not so large that remote instrumention would be out of telemetry range or that the instrumentation to monitor the wave spectrum would have to span an impractically large patch of surface area. Its depth was convenient for mounting this remote instrumentation. At the same time, the waves in the Bight were typically short enough that they would not strongly feel the bottom. (Yet the bottom was enough of an influence that we could hope to learn something about the bottom interaction.) There were already five stands in the Bight at the tower site that could be modified to support the wind instrumentation. The weather in the Bight was moderate, so there was some expectation that our instrumentation might survive the field experiments. The Bight was a true backwater, unihabited at its northern end and seldom traveled, so our instrumentation would be safe from tampering, and the chances of this instrumentation being accidently overrun were small. (Additionally, to guard against this possibility, all remote instrumentation would be lit with a flashing light at night.)

We could not, of course, totally monitor the wind and wave spectrum fields. That would be totally impractical. We would have to spot our instrumentation around the Bight and hope to reasonably interpolate the measured fields. (In actuality this is no problem for the wave spectrum field because the inverse modelling process would not require interpolation of this field. It is, however, a problem for the wind field because it drives the process and must be interpolated in some fashion to all model grid points and times. (It is the mean wind field and possibly the mean square fluctuation about this mean that are probably most critical, however, and we might hope to reasonably interpolate these fields.)

I spent the summer of 1985 in Hamburg, Germany, becoming familiar with the software package that Klaus and Susanne Hasselmann had constructed to estimate nonlinear transfer and trying to see what modifications were appropriate to implement Thacker's simplification. That fall I learned that NSF had accepted our phase 1 proposal, and I started looking for someone to engineer the electronics. In thinking through the practical aspects of the project, I had had some critical help from Bob Dhein, who worked next door with Bill Glenn, but Bob was not going to be available for such an intensive long term project. I advertised somewhere (I don't remember where) and got a number of promising responses. In the end, however, I had little doubt whom I wanted.

Terry Thompson proved a tremendous asset to the project. I think Terry basically revelled in having to confront a challenge, in putting his many skills to bear on something a bit on the edge of what is possible. Suffice to say, Terry worked hard and smart and was up to just about anything I put in front of him. Without Terry, the project would probably have fallen flat on its face.

Other holdovers from the days of Bill Richardson also contributed significantly. Laszlo Nemeth came up with many innovations, including an elegant solution for terminating the linkages separating elements of the wave array, and was responsible for all the machining for the wave array and wind instrumentation. Ted Tankard undertook a wide series of assignments and invariably came up with practical solutions to any associated problems. Chuck Wilkins also helped Terry and Laszlo with various tasks.

And yes, Catspaw. This is a story about Catspaw, and this was Catspaw's opportunity to play the research vessel. A significant element in my decision to leave the University of Miami in 1968 for the new Oceanographic Center at Nova University had been that the Center's director, Bill Richardson, had a recipe for field research that I found very appealing: clever experiment design, good support facilities and support personnel, and small boats. We both recognized that larger vessels are required for some projects on the open sea, but they are terribly expensive to equip and maintain. And terribly inflexible. (They can not go everywhere and must be scheduled months in advance.) Moreover, they are not nearly as much fun as smaller vessels.

The early Richardson lab was an exiting place to work. You were surrounded by competent people having fun doing interesting things. And the focus was very much on regional field operations from small boats. There were two boats, the 55 ft Gulfstream, a high speed craft that could transit the Florida Straits from Fort Lauderdale to Bimini in several hours time, and the 65 ft LFR Bellows, a more spacious displacement type workboat that could accomodate a variety of oprations where carrying capacity was more important than speed.

Unfortunately this part of the story has a tragic and perhaps ironic ending. Late in 1975, Richardson took the 55 ft lab vessel Gulfstream to the Gulf of Maine to test some buoys. One evening Gulfstream disappeared, and all aboard were lost, including Richardson. The body of Jimmy Riddle and some debris were later found at the surface. To this day it is not known what happened to Gulfstream on that fateful evening.

Perhaps Richardson made a mistake in taking Gulfstream to Maine in December, perhaps not. I will not judge that particular issue. I will say only that going to sea on a smaller vessel is certainly riskier than going to sea on a larger vessel and is probably riskier than driving down the highway, and we all know that driving down the highway is risky. The point is that we do risky things in life. Ultimately, we have to measure risk against potential benefit and decide whether to risk or not.

In any event, the loss of Richardson and Gulfstream was an enormous blow to the Oceanographic Center. Bill's success at attracting research dollars had basically made it all work. (Rumor has it that for a while he had even carried the university itself, which in the early days had a serious problem with cash flow.) Now he was gone and with him the practical means for supporting the lab he had built. Our new project would be essentially the last project in the mold of Bill Richardson to come out of the Oceanographic Center. (Inevitably, the character of the Oceanographic Center would slowly change. With Jay McCreary as director, it still had some good years in front of it, but the emphasis would be more theoretical. When Jay moved on, the emphasis would again shift; the lab would become primarily a teaching institution, more in tune with the university of which it was a part.)

Gulfstream and the LFR Bellows were gone, but I had Catspaw. Catspaw would serve as a vehicle for the conduct of the new project. I could not do everything from Catspaw, but I could do much, and the rest could be accomplished from the University of Miami's Calanus.

Early on, Catspaw took us down to Elliott Cay on Biscayne Bay to test the float and linkage design for the wave arrays. (The early design did not work very well and went through several iterations before we settled on a workable design. I am a great believer in trial and error as a research tool.)

Eventually there followed a cruise to the Abaco Bight to test the array and check out a possible site for the telemetry base station. Basin Harbor Cay was about the only place in the northeastern Bight that offered any protection from westerly winds. There had been a small abandoned prefab house well inside the harbor on the south point of the harbor entrance. We wanted to see if it was still standing and suitable for use during the coming experiments as a mess area. (It was.)

Another critical task that would bear on the placement of the remote instrumentation was to get some feeling for the range of the radio link. We had brought along several prototype BOA transceivers and high gain yagi antennas. Leaving Terry behind on the bluff on the south point of the harbor entrance we ranged out to the west with Catspaw until comminications back to Terry started to fail. As we had anticipated, we would be pretty much limited to line of sight.

We also tried to locate the old tower site to the northwest. We knew the tower itself had long ago fallen down, but we had a lat/long location based on some sort of fix in the 1970s and hoped that our Loran C would get us close enough that we could spot some of the debris on the bottom. We searched for several hours and came up empty. Not a good development, as we planned to use the 5 stands at the tower site for our new weather stations!

We returned to Basin Harbor Cay and dinghied in to the back side of Cooperstown on Abaco Island. We then walked into town and asked for John Nesbitt. Did John think he could find the old tower site? (He knew it was a good place to fish!) Yes, he thought so. Would he take us there? Yes.

Well, I don't know how he did it. We motored out trailing his small boat. (Part of the deal was that he would get to fish for as long as he wanted.) He would point this way, then that. I don't really know what he was was looking at as we moved along. We were miles from shore in all directions. No navigational aids of any sort. No GPS, no hand bearing compass, no nothing. Finally he lit up and said we were close. We peered intently at the bottom, and, sure enough, presently, there they were, the stands and the base of the tower. We got a Loran C fix and in addition put down several floats to mark the site.

The second lesson for the day was watching John pull in the fish. In half an hour, he had a small barrel full.

Our proposal to continue into the project's second phase was accepted in the fall of 1988. Plans called for major field experiments in the spring of 1990 and 1991. First we had to relocate and prepare the weather station supports, test deployment procedures for the weather stations, test deployment procedures for the wave arrays, test procedures for erecting a radio tower on the south point of the harbor entrance to Basin Harbor Cay, test the radio links and communications and data acquisition software for the weather stations and wave arrays, and test other logistical aspects of the field operations we had planned for 1990 and 1991. We addressed these tasks in an extended preliminary cruise to the Bight in the spring/summer of 1989.

Calanus (a vessel very similar to the LFR Bellows) arrived in the Bight loaded down with fifteen railroad wheels to help stabilize the supports for the weather stations. She would be with us for the first week to relocate the weather station supports and rig these wheels. After completing this task and offloading some other gear and some fresh water to sustain the base camp for the next two months, she would depart for home. The rest would be up to Catspaw.

Calanus found the tower site immediately (with Loran C) and proceeded to pick up two of the tripod instrument supports and deposit them on her afterdeck (using a winch and A frame). The following day these supports were taken to two of the weather station locations and lowered back onto the bottom. In each case three railroad wheels were dropped alongside the tripod and moved into approximate position around the tripod by divers (lifting them off of the bottom with a comealong, attached at the other end to a large styrofoam surface float). A pair of poles was then run from two legs of the tripod toward each wheel (defining a more precise location for the wheel) and the wheel was moved a second time and attached to the outer end of the poles. In this fashion, over the next few days, Calanus completed the installation of the five weather station supports that were needed for the field experiments in 1990 and 1991.

(During the field experiments, we would extend these supports vertically through the water surface by attaching multiple sections of pipe and stabilizing the resulting compound support with cables connecting the three wheels to the top of the support. The poles would prevent the wheels from migrating inward as the turnbuckles linking these cables to the pipe support were tightened.)

We next attempted to completely rig the weather station closest to Basin Harbor Cay. First we leveled the tripod (a built in adjustment), then attached and stayed the pipe riser (as described above). Next we attached a 3 ft diameter steel plate weather station platform to the top of the riser. This platform would in turn support two electronics boxes (the radio transceiver and the remote computer controlling the data acquisition and radio telemetry), a five element yagi antenna (oriented vertically and pointed towards Basin Harbor Cay), and a guyed aluminum mast, capped with a K-Gill anemometer (the principal element in the weather station instrumentation).

Standard practice was to mount anemometers 10 m above the water surface. We would not be able to achieve 10 m, but we wanted to get as high as we could. It became quickly apparent that erecting a tall mast on the platform with the anemometer already attached was problematic. We settled for a 10 ft mast (for the time being). During the later field experiments we would double this height by telescoping the aluminum mast into the pipe riser, mounting the anemometer on the mast at chest level, and then raising and guying this mast.)

The key to measuring the wave spectrum was to selectively monitor the sea surface over a large enough patch of this surface. (Lateral coverage was required to resolve the directional dependence of the spectrum.) One could accomplish this end with either bottom mounted or surface mounted instrumentation. I had concluded that in an experiment involving a large number of wave array instruments, a surface mounted array would be the more practical option. Our anchored spider array could be relatively easily assembled and unassembled in place (piece by piece) from a vessel such as Catspaw, using a small inflatable. Moreover, the array could be relatively easily relocated, and relatively easily repaired (by replacing broken or flooded elements). And none of these operations would require divers.

The question, of course, was how well would the arrays survive the constant motion at the surface? And would the multiple electrical connections required to assemble the arrays in place remain watertight? (Ultimately, there were problems in both departments during the field experiments, but basically the arrays held together quite well, and the loss of individual array elements did not severely impact the resulting data sets. (It primarily made an enormous data set a little less enormous!) The biggest physical problem was fatigue in various PVC structural members, in particular in the PVC tubes suspending the pressure transducer modules from the surface floats).

Ashore we built a concrete and hinged steel plate base for the radio mast on the high ground of the south point of the harbor entrance and tried to erect a three section mast by pulling directly on this mast. The mast was too limber to erect in this fashion, so we removed the middle section. (We would solve this problem during the field experiments by adding a perpendicular arm at the base, stayed to both the upper end of the mast and to its midpoint, and pulling on this arm rather than on the mast itself.)

After erecting and staying the radio mast, we assembled an 11 element yagi and mounted it, with its elements oriented vertically, on the antenna rotor at the top.

We had now been living in our camp for about two weeks. Two larger tents, well out on the point were being employed as work tents. Another more open tent was for cooking. I had not been able to engage the prefab for this preliminary excursion. However, I had made arrangements with the presumed owner of the land in Cooperstown to set up camp there for several months in each of the next three years, and I was later able to engage the prefab for the field experiments. There were other tents, including several for sleeping. A rubber fresh water tank that Calanus had filled from her tank before leaving and a small gasoline generator completed the picture. It was definitely Spartan, but I think people actually enjoyed being there. It was something different, a kind of adventure.

In the following weeks, we put our instrumentation to the test. First we assembled an array near the entrance to the harbor. Later we reassembled this array near station 12, the weather station that we had previously rigged (so that we could simultaneous service both installations with a single visit). Suffice to say we encountered many problems: mechanical problems, electrical problems, and problems with the telemetry software. But the cruise had been invaluable. Now was the time to learn about these problems. We could correct them before building the hardware for the other nine wave arrays and four weather stations. Mostly I began to appreciate how important it was in a project of this sort to be prepared to deal with problems in the field in a flexible fashion. I knew the rest was going to be difficult, but felt we had a shot at making it through.

I will not bore you with the details of the hectic activities of the ensuing two years, including those incurred in the two field experiments of spring 1990 and spring 1991. This is, after all, a story about Catspaw, not about my struggles with oceanographic field research.

I will say only that Catspaw played an important role in both field experiments. Each experiment lasted two and a half months. The first month was devoted to setting up the experiment (constructing the base camp and installing instrumentation), the second month, to the experiment itself, an around the clock collection of data from the remote sites. The last two weeks were spent tearing down the instrumentation and base camp.

Calanus was again employed at the start of these field experiments to transport all of our gear to Basin Harbor and to install the five weather stations (which involved diving operations). She also returned at the very end of these experiments to tear down the weather stations (leaving the pipe risers on the bottom) and transport most of our gear back home.

Catspaw was basically responsible for installing the wave arrays (which she accomplished in pairs) and subsequently troubleshooting and repairing both the wave arrays and the weather stations. A Carolina skiff was also available to service this remote instrumentation.

The conduct of both experiments was controlled by a software package that ran on one of several Compaq Portable PCs that we brought into the field. This package told the base computer when to focus on a particular remote (starting with pointing the base antenna towards the remote and requesting a transfer of data from that remote and ending with restarting its data acquisition), sequentially cycled between all remotes, continuously displayed the current status of the remotes and other pertinent information, wrote a running log, and allowed for a variety of operator interventions. We continually monitored the incoming data to look for signs of trouble. In this fashion we maintained a full month of continuous operation during both experiments and dealt as quickly as we could with problems that arose in the remotes (by sending Catspaw or the Carolina skiff on various rescue missions).

Both the PC control software (TurboPascal) and the EPROM software (C) for the multiple custom computers that managed the acquisition of data at the fifteen remote sites and the telemetry of this data to the base station were adjustable in the field (by recompiling the software on a PC and, in the case of the custom computers, burning new EPROMs). Ideally, of course, one strives to eliminate all software bugs prior to going into the field. However, it is easier said than done. And it's best not to rely on it.

Sometime during the fall of 1989, Catspaw's hydraulic transmission had stopped working. Salt water from the transmission oil cooler had leaked into the transmission fluid. I had removed the transmission and taken it off to be repaired, and I had replaced both oil coolers. When I got the transmission back, however, the shop was not very positive about its repair. I should have paid closer attention. A week into the data collection phase of the 1990 experiment, the transmission failed again. This time it would have to be replaced. I contacted Jody over the ham radio and had her order a new transmission and have it shipped to Abaco. It would be well over a week before it arrived. In the meantime we continued to use Catspaw to run out to troubled remotes under sail. We just had to be a little more careful with watching the weather and with anchoring in the harbor in a manner that would allow us to get out if we needed to. Eventually I picked up the new transmission at Treasure Cay and made the swap at anchor in Basin Harbor Cay.

The second field experiment in 1991 employed a somewhat wider distribution of wave array remotes. Most of these were still in range of the base station, but several had to be polled via an unattended relay station that we had erected on a small cay to the south of Woolendean Cay. (The base station talked to the relay station, and the relay station in turn talked to the remote.) This complication ultimately proved more trouble than it was probably worth. Sometimes the link worked the way it was supposed to. Other times it seemed to encounter situations that had not been fully anticipated in the software.

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It took substantial manpower to execute these around the clock field experiments. Someone had to monitor the base station operation at all times. The incoming data had to be evaluated for signs of trouble. Boat operations and instrument repairs had to be attended to in timely fashion. A generator had to be kept running. (We had a bank of three.) While all this was going on, people also had to have regular meals and get their rest.

To accomplish these ends, we benefited from the (mostly) enthusiastic participation of a large and diverse group of investigators, students, support personnel, and other interested parties who moved in and out as the experiments progressed (flying in and out of Marsh Harbor and riding the Carolina skiff across the flats between Basin Harbor Cay and the back side of Cooperstown). At the top of the list were two co-investigators, Bob Long and Wayne Neu. I had known Bob (and Barbara) for many years and had been his thesis advisor at the University of Miami. I actually met Bob in 1959, before either one of us thought about going into marine science. We were in Nassau on different boats and encountered one another along the seawall in Malcolm Park. (Incidentally, it was the same summer that Bob met Barbara in Nassau's Hurricane Hole.) Bob has recently succumbed to Parkinson's, following a long agonizing struggle with this disease. We all miss his quiet competence, keen mind, and good cheer.

We had many excellent cooks, but Barbara Long was special. She always knew exactly how much food to prepare (there was never any waste), and occasionally she would bake one of her yummy signature cakes. During the first experiment, however, she had a complaint: the toilet (a bucket in the bushes) was inadequate. I was not one to ignore such a complaint from the camp cook. We made sure to upgrade this facility to an enclosed two holer over the water during the second experiment. Barbara is also no longer with us. She recently died of a brain tumor.

Wayne Neu had been referred to me by NSF. An engineer at Virginia Tech, he had been looking for a way to get involved in some marine field research. I was staring at a full time commitment trying to develop the wave array instrumentation and deal with various modelling issues and was happy to turn over the wind measurements to Wayne. Wayne, thank you for your competent and cheerful contribution to the effort. I'm just sorry it hasn't been of more benefit to you.

And, of course, Terry Thompson, without whose expertise such sophisticated field operations would not have been possible. And Ted Tankard, whose dedication, seamanship, and practical sense make him an asset to any field operation. And Greg Gosch, who probably wondered what he had got himself into when his innards took a beating on the Carolina skiff during the second experiment. (Laszlo Nemeth and Chuck Wilkins did not take part in the field experiments, but they were there in spirit. Laszlo has also recently passed on.)

Also at the top of the list was a group of investigators from Delft Hydraulics Laboratory in the Netherlands, Charles Calkoen, Herman Gerritsen, Gerbrand van Vledder, and Cees de Valk. Delft wanted to take part in the field effort and generously contributed a portion of this group's time to this effort. Unfortunately, Willem de Voogt, who initially arranged Delft's participation and was a co-investigator on the project, died very suddenly of cancer well before the completion of the field experiments.

Then there were the many friends of Bob and Barbara, their daughter Katharina and her husband Ken, their longtime friend Jack Leery, and their Canadian friend Colin. And my own Jody and Gavin. And George and Patty Blaha, who made it out for a time. And Ted's friend, I'm sorry I have forgotten your name. And at least one other from Delft whose name I have also forgotten.

And many students from Nova, the two Kevins (who did much of the diving), John Braker, Dave Cripps, Isabel Fuentes, and others whose names I no longer remember. And from Virginia Tech, Dave Fratantoni and others.

To all of you I say thank you. I hope you have all gotten something back from your efforts in the Bight of Abaco that you feel is in some measure commensurate with what you put into these efforts.

Unfortunately, this installment of the Catspaw story does not have a happy ending. As delineated in the NSF proposal covering its second phase, this project was to have been completed in three three-year phases, with a successful completion of each phase presumably arguing stongly for support of the next. In Phase 1, we were to develop the instrumentation and radio telemetry and data acquisition system required to conduct the Phase 2 field experiments and to also develop numerical techniques to exploit Thacker's scheme for substantially accelerating the nonlinear transfer computation. In Phase 2 we were to build multiple copies of this instrumentation (ten wave arrays and five weather stations), conduct two month-long field experiments in the Bight of Abaco, start the reduction of field data, and develop an inverse model of the action balance equation (including the nonlinear transfer term). In Phase 3 we were to complete the data reduction and analyse the data (by conducting the inverse modelling).

To make a rather long story short, NSF had supported the first two phases of the project, and, despite the difficulty and wide scope of the attendant effort, these phases had been successfully concluded (with minor reservations). Support for the third phase, however, was not forthcoming. We tried four times to renew this support, and each time NSF turned us down. Each time, I marvelled at the irrelevance of most of the reviews. Finally, I lodged a formal complaint with NSF (that predictably went nowhere). They had just wasted a very substantial six year investment in collecting an enormous data set that they now declined to have analysed. How crazy was that?

I was quite upset. We had spent six years busting our butts to make a success of this very fascinating, difficult, and cost-effective project, and just when it had reached the point of fruition, with every indication that it could and would ultimately succeed and make a significant contribution, it had been dropped.

But I was not going to spend the rest of my life knocking my head against the wall. I didn't know quite why, but the game was clearly over. If I had to guess, it would be that I had ruffled some feathers behind the scenes. Perhaps a critical reviewer or one of the NSF operatives himself. (From the start, I had the distinct impression that one of these operatives was supporting the project against his better judgement.)

Never mind! For many years I had benefited from this same flawed review process. This was the other side of the coin. Despite the way the project had ended, I had no regrets. I had had a great time. And, if I lived long enough, I might still, on my own, complete the proposed analysis (because it was so interesting!).

Indeed, personal computer technology has advanced to the point where, with parallel processors, supercomputer performance is available in the home at modest cost. I currently have an eight processor system that is basically capable of carrying out the necessary inverse modelling.

First I have to find a buyer for Catspaw. So help me out, folks!

As pleased as I was with the way Catspaw had served us thus far, it was clear that, in designing and constructing her, I had made a number of mistakes. I had already corrected some of these and would continue to correct others as I went along. It's like any other enterprise that carries you into territory you've not tread before. You have to make decisions in order to move forward, and you try to make the best decisions you can, but often you do not fully appreciate where a particular decision might lead.

One such decision that was causing me to have second thoughts was the decision to use reinforced concrete for Catspaw's inside ballast. It was now roughly twenty years since this inside ballast had been poured. This concrete member was still pretty much intact, but it had some cracks, and I was concerned that, inevitably, moisture would corrode the reinforcing and might cause the inside ballast to push out against Catspaw's built down skin. I also did not like the thought of water getting to the vessel's skin from the inside.

Following our trip around the world, I had already modified this ballast in the vicinity of the forward bulkhead, stripping the concrete from the reinforcing rod, laminating a solid fir stage for the mast step directly on the stem and fastening the mast step to this stage (previously the mast step had rested on the concrete), reinforced the hull at the bulkead by adding a lower plywood section to the bulkhead and a pair of external plates to Catspaw's skin (tied on the inside to the aft end of the mast step), and replaced the concrete aft of this bulkhead with a slurry of epoxy and lead shot.

I now sought to replace the rest of the inside ballast. This was a major task that would have to be accomplished out of the water and would take several years. I looked for a boat yard that would take Catspaw long term at reasonable cost and found Paigo Brothers, across from New River Marine. (Jake and Else had long ago sold New River Marine and current rates there were rather steep.)

In order to get at the inside ballast, I had to first pull both masts and remove the shaft, exhaust riser, batteries and battery compartment, and engine. I was not sure the engine could be brought up through the main hatch, but in fact, by tipping it fore and aft with a comealong, it went through rather easily. I then transported it home to the floor of my garage/workshop, where it would sit for for several years while I worked on removing and replacing Catspaw's ballast.

(When, several years later, it came time to put the engine back on its beds at our home dock, I lowered it back down through the hatch using the main boom and a pair of comealongs.)

In the engine compartment, I also removed the compressor and condensor for the refrigeration system, and unbolted and removed both the engine beds and the angle iron frame that supported these beds. In the aft stateroom, I unbolted the mizzen step. I now had full access to the inside ballast from the main bulkhead aft.

Forward of this bulkhead, getting to the inside ballast was more difficult. I would basically have to destroy the builtin water tank to get it out of the way. And to provide full access, I would also have to remove the drawers under the dinette to port and under the lower berth to starboard, and I would have to cut away the supporting framework for these drawers.

I started chipping away at the concrete with a hammer and chisel, eventually renting a small jackhammer to accelerate the process. It was a tedious and thankless job, but eventually, over a period of months, I managed to clear away most of the concrete and reinforcing rod. In the end I left some concrete at both extremes. In each case, residual steel projecting into the cavity (a threaded rod bolted through the sternpost aft and multiple reinforcing rods embedded in the epoxy/lead shot slurry forward) guaranteed a good mechanical bond with the stainless-steel-reinforced lead pig/fiberglass chopped strand and biaxial weave/polyester resin replacement ballast that I was contemplating.

About this time Paigo Brothers sold their yard out from under me. Moreover the new owner, New River Marine across the way, did not want to continue to operate the facility as a boatyard. (They offered to park Catspaw under the highway bridge at the edge of the property and let me work on her there for about twice what I was currently paying, but I couldn't stay where I was.)

I didn't like the looks of the new proposed site (it was awfully low) nor the vibes I was getting from the new owner, so I started looking for another home for Catspaw. Shortly thereafter, I had her trucked (along with her two masts) to Bonnie's Ravenswood Marina.

It must have been a bad time for the marine industry because, before I was finished at Bonnie's, it too was sold to a new owner. But it continued as a boatyard, so I was able to complete Catspaw's transformation there.

First I reinforced the builtdown section of Catspaw's skin from inside using 1/8 in hardwood veneer overlapping the turn of the bilge (with the grain running perpendicular to the grain of the strip planking). This veneer was set in epoxy and nailed into the planking. This reinforcing was then further built up with biaxial fiberglass and capped with 1/8 in stainless steel straps also running against the grain of the strip planking, spaced about a foot apart, and and fastened into the planking with stainless screws.

Before filling the resulting cavity, I built and placed substantial stainless anchors for the bolts that would hold the angle iron frame for the engine beds and the mizzen mast step in place (along with the bolts). I also sought to rectify another problem with the original concrete member by electrically bonding all these bolts together with the keel bolts coming up through the keelson and with a new ground access bolt that I placed amidships, aft of the frame. At the same time, I removed the bolt and external ground strap I had fitted at Little Ship Channel Cay and filled and patched the bolt hole. We would now have a solid ground for our electronics.

I also made a trip to the Miami River and found some lead pigs that could be incorporated into the new ballast member. Also I picked up some more stainless strap at Solomon Surplus that could provide fore and aft reinforcing and some chopped strand that could be mixed with resin to add strength and bulk.

About this time I met Mark Thunder, a fiberglass specialist, working out of the Summerfield boatyard. Mark started helping me with building Catspaw's new inside ballast and eventually agreed to take it over. (It was a messy and clearly somewhat specialized job, and I was not reacting well to working with the resin in the enclosed space of Catspaw's bilge.)

Mark maintained that polyester resin would do this particular job just as well as epoxy resin, and it was a lot cheaper, so we had decided to go with polyester. Because the basic polymerization reaction is exothermic, one cannot simply mold the entire structure in one pour. Instead one has to build it up in relatively thin layers. I would place a layer of lead pigs and some longitudinal reinforcing, and Mark would, over a period of a week or so build up around these pigs a layered matrix of resin, chopped strand, and, where appropriate, biaxial fiberglass. I would then add another layer of lead pigs and reinforcing. In this fashion, over a period of perhaps half a year, Mark completed the new ballast member, capping it with multiple layers of biaxial fiberglass, overlapping roughly a foot of the adjacent planking on both sides throughout the aft stateroom, galley, and saloon. This gave Catspaw a bilge that, for the first time, could be wetted without any water getting to the skin.

I also had Mark section off the very aft end of the bilge (aft of the mizzen mast step), forming a small sump that would catch any water dripping from the inboard stuffing tube. The old mizzen mast step was a little worse for the wear, so I built a new one and mounted it. And before remounting the frame for the engine beds, I had it regalvanized.

The new inside ballast was clearly far superior to the original reinforced concrete member. I felt much better about its long term durability. Thank you, Mark, for doing such a good job with Catspaw's bilge.

Catspaw was still a bit light forward. But there was ample room in the saloon forward of where the new water tanks would go for loose trim ballast, and I had plenty of lead pigs left over.

I had only to add the aft section of the shaft (and propellor), and Catspaw could be relaunched, but first I wanted to refinish her masts and hull. I carefully went over the hull from the ouside, patching any areas that looked problematic and applied an undercoater and multiple coats of polyurethane paint. I then sanded and similarly refinished both masts.

For exterior paints, I have gradually come to use Interlux Epoxy Undercoater and Interlux Interthane Plus (now the rather expensive Perfection) as they are relatively durable and not too difficult to apply and they eventually chalk, rather than peel, so are relatively easy to refinish. (The undercoater must be painted over, however, as it breaks down in the sun.)

(Below decks I use oil based paints and varnish because application of the alternatives requires ventilation beyond what is normally found below decks, and, out of the sun, these oil based products last a good while.)

The masts were trucked over to Playboy Marina, and rigged. (I could not step the masts at Ravenswood because I could not get out with the masts up.) Catspaw was then finally launched, towed to Playboy, and, after stepping the masts, towed home. Two major jobs remained before Catspaw would be operational once again: I needed to fit a new water tank (or water tanks), and I needed to remount and reinstall the engine.

I wanted whatever replaced the old water tank to mount on the existing rim and I wanted to be able to remove it without tearing anything up. This had two immediate implications: It meant two tanks rather than one, and it meant that the new saloon deck and the new framework surrounding the drawers above this deck (under the dinette and under the lower bunk) would have to be removable.

I looked at metal tanks and decided to have two heavy gauge aluminum tanks welded up to match a pair of plywood mockups I had pieced together. These port and starboard tanks hang from an outer flange (fore, aft, and outboard on each tank) that rests on and is lagged into the rim. They pretty much fill the available space, but do not touch Catspaw's skin.

(The framework for the drawers would not be rebuilt and the drawers would not be reinstalled until the spring of 2008. In the meantime we would cruise the Bahamas with a temporary deck in the saloon. The new permanent deck and framework would both be removable.)

What remained was to move Catspaw's engine back aboard, remount it, and reinstall it. This took some time, as there were other matters pressing, and I was starting to feel my age. But eventually I did get Catspaw's engine back aboard and get it running. There were a few problems, but Joe Duggan at Duggan Marine was able to help me past them. (He welded me up a new end cap for the exhaust manifold, and freed up the injector pump, that had frozen in the long layoff.) It had been a difficult few years, but Catspaw was now born again and ready for more sailing.

While the Bight of Abaco project was still in progress, we had staged several family excursions to the Bahamas aboard Catspaw. In the first relatively short excursion in 1986, we had circled the Berry Islands from north to south, stopping in Bimini, Great Harbour Cay (where we noted how rundown the club facilities had become since the early 1970s), Frozen Cay, Chub Cay, and Gun Cay. A second more ambitious excursion in 1988 took us to Georgetown (via a number of stops in the northern Exumas), and from there into new territory, Calabash Bay on Long Island, Rum Cay, Little San Salvador, Conception Island, Cat Island, and Little San Salvador. We particularly enjoyed our visit to Conception Island.

Following conclusion of field operations in the Bight of Abaco, we continued with several further excursions. In 1992 we again visited the northern Exumas via Great Harbour Cay and Nassau. On our return to Nassau we anchored for several days off the beach on Rose Island. One afternoon, a violent northwesterly squall almost put us on the beach (despite the sand bottom!). (It did ground several other boats.) We returned home via Royal Island, Harbour Island, the Abacos, and Great Sale Cay. With Garth and his cat Biff aboard in 1996, we visited the northern Berrys, Nassau, and several cays in the northern Exumas, including Allen's Cay. We returned home via Nassau, Chub Cay and Bimini.

Following the 1996 cruise, Catspaw was hauled out of the water at Paigo Brothers to begin rebuilding her inside ballast. She would not be operational again for several years time. In the meantime, we indulged our wanderlust by making road trips (in summer 1997, 1998, and 1999) around England, France, and the western USA, the latter in our new 1999 Honda CRV, Snowflake.

In 2000, our first opportunity to return to Bahamian waters folowing Catspaw's rebirth, we chose to revisit the Abacos. (They were relatively close, and we needed to be back in time to engage another European adventure, a road trip with Garth and Gavin in Italy, culminating in a reunion of Jody's high school class in Naples and a Mediterranean cruise from Naples to Barcelona aboard the Seabourn Sun).

We crossed to West End and, via the Little Bahama Bank and Great Sale Cay, to an old favorite, Double Breasted Cay, southeast of Walker's Cay and Grand Cay. Aboard for a week or so was a friend of Gavin's from Columbia, Jade Gibson. The inner anchorage at Double Breasted is not trivial to get into (Catspaw has to play the tide) and is tight, but once inside, the view is spectacular. (It's a wonderful place to sit and unwind for a while.)

We continued on down the chain, stopping at a number of cays, including Allen's Pensacola Cay, Manjack Cay (anchoring in the northern bay), and Green Turtle Cay, before dropping Jade off at Marsh Harbor. We returned home via the northern Berrys and Bimini.

In spring 2001, we returned to the northern Exumas with our friends Andy, Carolyn, Chad, and Tami Van Herk, whom we'd originally met in Suva, Fiji, aboard their lovely Crocker ketch, Eryngo. (Actually, Tami was not born until the Van Herks reached Australia.) After spending some time at Little Ship Channel Cay, we made our way slowly south to Warderick Wells Cay, then west across the bank to Green Cay on the Tongue of the Ocean, and across to Andros Island. Sailing north along the coast of Andros from Middle Bight to Fresh Creek, we hooked into a good sized mahi mahi that Chad later cooked up on the marina barbecue.

In spring 2002, we decided to go beyond Georgetown and visit the Jumentos Cays, a chain of mostly uninhabited small islands and cays that lie between the Exumas and Cuba to the south. Even more remote than the Exumas and more exposed, the Jumentos are also dificult to get to. The back side of Great Exuma is quite shallow. For a vessel drawing five feet, there are basically only a few channels that provide access. The most popular of these is Hog Cay Cut between Little Exuma and Hog Cay to the southeast. This channel carries only a meter of water at low tide.

We spent a most interesting week at two of the northernmost cays in the Jumentos, Water Cay and Flamingo Cay, but did not follow the chain any further south (where it ends in Ragged Island). While we were there, a Cuban refugee arrived on a small boat and was taken aboard a fishing vessel to be delivered to the authorities in Nassau. (We wondered what might eventually happen to him.) We hiked extensively, took lots of photos and videos, visited Flamingo Cay's caves and breeding ground for nurse sharks, and nervously monitored the distant thunderstorm activity to the west in the evenings. (The anchorages were all simple lee anchorages, and the holding was none too robust.)

When it was time to return to home, we picked our way carefully across the reef strewn Great Bahama Bank north of the Jumentos and skirted the shallows fringing the west side of Great Exuma, sailing past Duck Cay and Rocky Point and eventually accessing Exuma Sound via Pudding Cut.

That fall we were invited to join Fred and Gayle Bieker aboard Quintet in the Pacific Northwest. We embarked in Lund, British Columbia, and sailed south to Texada Island, Smuggler's Cove, Newcastle Island, Vancouver Island, and the San Juan Islands, eventually helping Fred and Gayle to bed Quintet for the winter in Port Townsend. Cruising the Pacific Northwest was very different from the tropical cruising we were accustomed to, but it was clearly very attractive in its own right. As in the Bahamas, you could muck around for months at a time in pretty spectacular surroundings, but remain relatively immune from the full fury of the open ocean. You didn't feel much like going for a swim, but you had all that glorious scenery!

2003 was a very busy year. The spring found us back in the Abacos. After crossing the Little Baham Bank to Double Breasted Cay and working our way south to Green Turtle Cay and Great Guana Cay, we stopped at Marsh Harbour to pick up our good friends from the Nova Singers, Dave and Denise Welch. Unfortunately, the head was out and we'd have to make do with some buckets I'd found at the the local hardware store.

We spent several days enjoying (as well as one can, with a bucket for a head) nearby Man-O-War Cay (from a mooring in the harbor) and Elbow Cay (from the anchorage near Tahiti Beach). We then sailed to the south end of Abaco Sound, where we visited Little Harbour and the reef at Sandy Cay.

During the subsequent crossing to the Berry Islands, the weather was rather unsettled. There were frequent waterspouts reaching down from the clouds overhead, sometimes all the way to the water surface, and we several times lay ahull as a squall passed. We had expected to make our landfall at Hoffman Cay, but opted instead for the east side of Great Harbour Cay (behind Hawksnest). (It was not the best holding, but there was plenty of room, and it was just a dinghy ride and a short hike into town.

Later, over a period of several days, we sailed home via the blue hole at Hoffman Cay, the beach at nearby White Cay, and the reef at Mammy Rhoda Rock (by Chub Cay).

Shortly after returning from Abaco, we drove north to my home town of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, to attend the 50th reunion of my high school class. It was a very well organized and well attended event. I had not seen but one or two members of my class since graduation, and had been close to only a handful of them. (I had been pretty much of a grind in high school and had not socialized that much.) The reunion gave me a chance not only to touch base with that handful I was close to, but also to get to know, perhaps for the first time, some others I had not known so well. One of the links at the foot of my home page (Russ Snyder's Home Page) is to a recreation of the Reunion website that I pieced together for the occasion.

Later that summer we flew to the Azores to join our good friend Evi Nemeth on her sloop Wonderland. Evi had been a guest aboard Catspaw a number of times in the past, and she had been a longtime friend and mentor for Garth. (They had in fact collaborated on a best selling handbook on Unix and Linux system administration, which was now into multiple editions. The royalties from this book had supported Garth for many years and eventually put him through medical school at the University of Rochester.)

Upon retiring from the Computer Science Department at the University of Colorado, Evi decided she wanted a sailboat of her own and bought a used 40 ft Norway sloop, a very nicely appointed and capable cruiser. She had sailed Wonderland to Bermuda and then across the North Atlantic to the Azores (on her way to the Mediterranean, where she was intending to spend a season or two before eventually returning with the tradewinds to the Caribbean).

We joined Wonderland in Ponta Delgado on the island of Sao Miguel and later sailed from Ponta Delgado to Angra and Praia on Terceira, eventually returning to Ponta Delgado to fly home. In the two weeks we were there, we toured both Sao Miguel and Terceira by car. The combination of Portugeuse culture, recent volcanic activity, and hydrangias lining both sides of the roads was hard to resist.

On Terceira we saw a running of the bulls at Porto Judeu. I didn't know quite what to make of this tradition, but it certainly made for good videos. (The bulls were goaded into jumping off a 10 ft cliff into the sea. It shows the value of keeping your wits about you, which of course is difficult for a bull.) We also visited a volcanic cave (lava tube) in the middle of the island and attended an elaborate festival in Praia. In Furnas on Sao Miguel we watched a more clearly religious procession/festival, in which blossoms were strewn on the roadway.

Our planned trip to Long Island and return via Conception Island in spring/summer 2004 was interrupted by another engine problem. By the time we reached Georgetown, the fresh water pump had developed a leak around its seal that was so bad, it was impossible to keep fresh water in the engine. Moreover, I did not have a replacement pump, and would not be able to deal with the problem until we got back home.

We picked up Garth in Georgetown, Exuma, and debated what to do. I was particularly anxious to visit Conception Island once again because I had enjoyed it so much the first time we'd been there, but it was upwind, and the anchorage there was exposed to the west and was riddled with coral heads. I was just a little uneasy about being anchored there without an engine.

It was not, however, a situation that called for ending the cruise and sailing directly home (such as the situation we faced in 1973 when the engine quit off Jacmel). We could probably run the engine for perhaps five minutes at a time without damaging it. That was enough time to up anchor and to get in and out of most anchorages. So we could still enjoy the rest of the summer. We'd just have to be careful about picking our anchorages and watching the weather.

I was, however, immediately apprehensive about one possibility. I knew that, whatever the weather threw at us, we'd eventually make it to Gun Cay on the eastern side of the Florida Straits. But the late summer was notorious for spells of very light to vanishing wind. What if we got becalmed in the middle of the straits? Answer: we'd quickly be swept north to the Palm Beaches and beyond. They tell me that this prospect cast a pall on my demeanor for the remainder of the summer.

We elected to give Long Island and Conception Island a pass and headed back north along the Exuma Sound side of the Exuma chain. At Galliot Cut, we crossed on to the bank and anchored for the night behind Big Galliot Cay. From here, we had a clear path up the bank side to Big Major's Spot, and, the following day, from Big Major's Spot to Fowl Cay (west of Compass Cay) and out Conch Cut into the Sound. Rounding the north end of Hall's Pond Cay, we headed back south on the bank side of Hall's Pond Cay and anchored off the beach.

After a couple of days at Hall's Pond Cay, we moved over to the Hog Cay anchorage at the south end of Warderick Wells Cay. This was a more intricate passage that threaded its way past a number of small cays and rocks, but we had a favorable wind and did not have to use the engine until the very end. This anchorage was not as popular as the one by Exuma Park Headquarters, but was quite secure and very scenic in its own right.

From Hog Cay, we sailed north to the cut at the south end of Norman's Cay, reentering the bank there and anchoring in the cut not far from the pier. A day later, we sailed out around Norman's Spit and headed for Nassau.

Approaching Nassau the wind died. It was late in the day and we faced the prospect of spending the night anchored on the bank. But the breeze returned and we were able to sail into the harbor and drop anchor near the BASRA station. From Nassau on the wind was fickle and the weather unsettled. We waited a few days and then set off for the northern Berrys, eventually reaching the anchorage behind Hawksnest Cay on the east side of Great Harbor Cay. There we waited a few more days for some more unsettled weather to clear, then took off around the north end of the Berrys for Gun Cay, arriving there sometime the following morning.

The forecast was for very light winds throughout the coming week. There was indeed some wind, but it wasn't much. If it held, we could probably get across without having to tack too far back along the coast. Should we chance it, or anchor and wait for a more favorable wind?

We were indeed all anxious to get back. It had been a long, tedious, and hot sail from Nassau on. Gavin had several commitments pressing, and we might not get a better forecast for a week or more. We decided to chance it. We sailed out through the cut between Gun Cay and Cat Cay and headed west southwest. We were doing perhaps 3 kts to start, but gradually the wind decreased, and by nightfall it had ceased altogether. We were now about 20 miles out, not yet to the axis of the stream, and drifting pretty rapidly north.

Along about midnight we were suddenly illuminated by a vessel close at hand. It was the Coast Guard on the look out for drug traffickers. They asked us what we were doing there. We replied that we'd lost our engine and were waiting for some wind.

Well, the wind was not forthcoming. We were rapidly moving north. We had three choices. We could continue to try to cross to the west. If we did this, we certainly would eventually fetch the coast, but we'd get there well to the north of our destination, and we'd have to tack south along the coast, most probably in light winds against an adverse current. That might take days. The second choice was to try to head back east, find a place to anchor, and wait for better conditions. If we tried to return to Gun Cay, it might also take days, and we'd still have to cross the stream. The third choice was to call for a tow. That would have us home sometime the next morning. I knew it would be expensive, but I got on the VHF and called for a tow.

Interesting how one's premonitions aren't always so crazy.

The towboat, a large inflatable powered by several monster outboards arrived about dawn and proceeded to hook up a bridle through Catspaw's forward chocks to her bits and pull us home at about seven knots. I was a little concerned to be towed so rapidly, but Catspaw rode very well, and we made it back without incident.

Back home, I was afraid I might not be able to find a replacement pump. Indeed, there seemed to be only one possible source for parts to Catspaw's engine in the entire country, Isuzu Motors America, and they did not have a complete inventory of parts. Fortunately, they still had the fresh water pump. I ordered two.

It would be over a year before I got around to installing the new fresh water pump and several years before we would return to the Bahamas. In the meantime, we took a break from cruising. We had long wanted to visit Alaska. Many of our friends had been there and spoke glowingly of its raw natural beauty. Most had seen Alaska from the decks of one of the many cruise ships that run back and forth between Vancouver and the Kenai penninsula (Seward or Whittier). Others had gone there by car. We decided we were going to do both. SE Florida is about as far away from Alaska as you can get (inside the US). It would be a at least a three month trip. We marked it down on our calendar for summer 2005.

We started looking at campers. Previously we had camped in tents, and we had enjoyed the experience, but we were much younger then and more able to endure the discomforts of tent camping. What we wanted now was something more akin to what we had on Catspaw, a dry comfortable place to sleep, a stove, a refrigerator, and electricity to run a radio, CD player, laptop computer, and other electronic devices. Clearly there were many options available to us that had these perks and much more. You could basically be as comfortable in a large motor home as you were in your own home. The problems with such a solution were severalfold. It costs a great deal to buy into this solution, it costs a great deal to maintain and operate it, and you are essentially driving a truck down the highway. (What's the pleasure in that?)

We quickly found our solution: the Aliner camper. The Aliner is essentially a hard tent (no canvas, whatsoever) that collapses into a light (1000 lb), low (3 ft), relatively short (15 ft), single axle trailer that can be towed behind most moderate sized vehicles. It's up and down in about five minutes and has two builtin berths, one a minimal double berth, the other a single berth. It comes with a small table (that makes into the single berth) and a sink. It can be fitted with battery, gas stove, and small three-way refrigerator (gas, 110 VAC, and 12 VDC). A porta potti provides a toilet.

Jody found a reasonably priced used Aliner over the internet and jumped on it. The only problem was that the camper was in San Francisco and we were in SE Florida. Also it did not have some of the perks we wanted; they would have to be added. Gavin was living in Las Vegas at the time, there was an Aliner dealership in Las Vegas that could upgrade the camper for us, and the current owner was willing to tow the camper from San Francisco to Las Vegas. Accordingly, we agreed to meet the current owner on the dealer's lot in Las Vegas (on a date certain in late 2004) in order to complete the transaction.

Jody and I flew into Las Vegas on a Friday, and at 10 O'clock the following morning were on the dealer's lot. There was no one there. Something was very wrong! I had anticipated that the owner, coming all the way from San Francisco, might not be on time, but where was the dealer? I had talked with the dealership over the phone earlier in the week to let them know we'd be there on Saturday; they had said nothing to indicate any problem with this timing.

Presently we learned from someone close by that the dealership was no more. It had in fact gone out of business ... would you believe ... the previous day! Talk about the influence of chance events on one's life!

Well, it proved not such a disaster after all! Eventually Javad Mirsaidi, the previous owner of the Aliner, arrived, and, while we were wondering what to do about the situation, Steve Krawcheck, the mechanic who had worked for the dealership also drove up. He didn't quite know what he was going to do with his life, now that his job at the dealership was gone, but he thought that he could personally take on the job of upgrading the Aliner, and he was willing to do so. Hallelujah! It was a resolution that entailed some risk, to be sure, but Steve looked like a reasonable guy, and we were not about to back out of a deal that had brought Javad all the way from San Francisco. So we signed on the dotted line, and have not lived to regret it. Javad even threw in a promise to put our names on the California registration for the Aliner, so we wouldn't have to reregister it for a few years. We looked at the license plate ... Chez Moa. Chez Moa? OK! Chez Moa would be our name for the Aliner!

The following May, we drove Snowflake (our white CRV) to Las Vegas to pick up the Aliner and begin our long trek to Alaska via Glacier Park, Banff and Jasper Parks, and the AlCan Highway. What glorious scenery and what a glorious trip! In all Snowflake travelled 16,000 miles, Fort Lauderdale to Alaska and back. At one time or another we were on virtually all the paved roads in Alaska (and some that were not paved). We saw many glaciers, bears fishing for salmon, Denali Park, the Kenai penninsula, Homer, Anchorage, and Valdez. We visited high school classmate Carl Jeglum and his wife Connie in Fairbanks. And, with Garth and Gavin, we flew a small plane over the mountains and glaciers bordering Mt McKinley (Denali) and sailed on a Princess cruise from Whittier to Vancouver via Glacier Bay, Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan.

The next summer, we took Chez Moa up the east coast of the US to Maine, visiting friends in Kingston, Martha's Vineyard, Damarascotta, Friendship, Boothbay, and Hampton, and stopping in Acadia Park, Stonington, Castine, and Bar Harbor. We enjoyed a chamber music concert in Rockport (part of the same series that Noel had started back in the 1960s with some fellow students at Curtis), and we spent a memorable day taking part in the delivery of some gravel to Monhegan Island.

Meanwhile I was having a hard time getting back to working on Catspaw's engine. This was partly because I was starting to feel my age. I no longer had the stamina and flexibility to work long hours doubled over in the bilge or the willingness to grin and bear a particularly ugly task. I had to force myself to begin such a task, and I had to force myself to finish it.

In order to make the replacement of the fresh water pump easier, I decided to pull the engine up off of its beds. This meant removing the forward section of the shaft, removing the exhaust riser (which I took to be xrayed), removing the batteries and the battery compartment, disconnecting all electrical connections to and the raw water line to and from the engine, lifting the engine with a comealong from an eye set in the cabin top, and dropping the engine back down on a pair of 4 by 6 in supports bridging the top of the two fuel tanks.

While the engine was up, I also took the opportunuty to remove the raw water pump, alternator, starter, and exhaust manifold. I took the pump to a marine engine shop to be rebuilt (they changed the seal, bearings, and shaft) and the alternator and starter to a starter shop to be checked and serviced.

I could not get the copper core of the heat exchanger to slide out of the aluminum manifold (apparently a consequence of running the engine in short spurts without fresh water during the 2004 cruise), so I took the manifold to a radiator shop to see if they could get it apart. They couldn't. But I had both a spare manifold and a spare core, so I could rebuild the heat exchanger and remount it.

Pulling the alternator, starter, and manifold had revealed a new (minor) problem. Several freeze plugs on the port side of the engine were starting to rust through. I replaced these plugs and repainted the engine before remounting the alternator, starter, and exhaust manifold, and dropping the engine back on its beds.

In spring 2007, I discovered termites in the aft stateroom and in the forepeak. Several panels and drawers in the aft stateroom and a deck panel in the forepeak were affected. There were also telltale holes in one structural member, the sternpost, and in several nonstructural members in the vicinity of the berths in the aft stateroom and the deck panel in the forepeak. The galley and saloon and the skin of the vessel throughout the interior appeared to be free of any infestation.

My response to this development was severalfold. 1) I cleared the interior, removing all panels, drawers, cabinet doors, and anything else that was loose or could be unfastened from the boat. 2) I replaced the affected panels with new panels. 3) I treated all drawers and panels with borate and repaired the affected drawers. 4) As a preventive measure, I (liberally) coated all accessible exposed wood throughout the entire interior with borate. 5) I had Terminix inspect the boat and treat the affected areas locally with something stronger than borate. 6) In August 2009, just prior to putting Catspaw on the market, I had the Miami firm Krypton fumigate Catspaw below decks. (The guarantee is transferable to the new owner.)

(The actual physical damage to Catspaw from this infestation is very minor, but it is clear that one of the downsides of a wooden boat is that it is susceptible to termites and that one must be ever vigilant to spot them. Having received the above treatments, Catspaw is now less susceptible to termites but is not totally immune to them.)

Well in advance of the 50th reunion of my college class at Wesleyan University in May 2007, I started making plans to attend. I had two special goals in mind for this reunion. I wanted, if possible, to reassemble the string quartet I had played with three of my four years at Wesleyan (The music department had created a special tutorial class for us, and we had worked up three concerts each year, each of which we had performed in several venues. I was not a music major, but this quartet experience had been a highlight of my days at Wesleyan.), and I wanted to see my old friend and fellow classmate and physics major, Naren Bali, who was now living in Buenos Aires.

I did not succeed in reassembling the quartet. There were just too many problems. In particular, the first violinist (a dedicated MD) was still working and basically could not spare the time, and the second violinist (a retired MD) had physical problems and was also somewhat disillusioned with his alma mater. The 'cellist (now with the philosophy department at Lake Forest University) was also still working and may have had some problems with attending, but I'm afraid I never even made it past the upper strings.

Regarding the second goal, however, I had much better luck. Were Naren and his wife Margarita planning to attend the reunion? Yes, if we were going, they would come also. Would they be interested in joining us in the Abacos aboard Catspaw for a week or so following the reunion? Yes.

Getting out to the Bahamas is typically not the most enjoyable leg of a Bahama cruise. So I decided that Naren and Margarita would join the cruise in Marsh Harbor. This meant sailing Catspaw to Marsh Harbor prior to the reunion, leaving her there while we attended the reunion, and, after the reunion, returning to Marsh Harbor with our guests.

The trip over to the Abacos was uneventful, except that by the time we reached Foxtown on Little Abaco, it was clear that there was something wrong with the engine's cooling system, and that it was getting worse. In Man-O-War Cay, where we had decided to leave Catspaw at a friend's dock, I pulled the raw water pump off the engine and inspected the impeller. All eight blades were cracked and all but two had broken off. Thus was first posed a mystery that was not resolved until the end of the following summer. What was causing impellers in the raw water pump to fail? Was it some constriction in the raw water line upstream or downstream of the pump? Or was it something else?

The situation was further complicated by the fact that I could not extract the impeller from the pump. I took another impeller out of the parts drawer and walked into town to try to find someone who could help change the impeller. Fortunately, I was able to find someone and he was able to make the exchange, but, significantly, he remarked that he had to force both the removal of the old impeller and the insertion of the new impeller. It seemed the shaft and the impeller were not entirely compatible. But I would hopefully not have to worry about this issue until we got home with Catspaw.

Following the reunion at Wesleyan, we returned to Man-O-War with Naren and Margarita and proceeded to enjoy a long week of sailing and mucking about in the middle Abacos. After spending a day on Man-O-War, we sailed north through the Whale Cay passage to Green Turtle Cay, anchoring for several days in White Sound and dinghying from there to Alicetown and, via Black Sound, to the lovely beach on Green Turtle's southeast coast. We also spent a day dinghying up to Manjack Cay and back. The next day we sailed back through the Whale Cay passage to Guana Cay and, a day later, to Hope Town.

Although we had not used the engine very much (mostly to charge the refrigerator) it was clear by the time we reached Hope Town that we were close to losing another impeller. What was going on here? I had occasionally worn through impellers in the past, but they had normally given me at least a season's use. This latest one had lasted perhaps 5 hours. Something was not right.

After spending a day in Hope Town, climbing the lighthouse and walking the beach and town, we set out mid morning for Marsh Harbor. Naren and Margarita were scheduled to fly home the following day. There was mostly no wind, but we persevered and by late in day we had picked up a slight breeze that allowed us to tack up the crowded harbor and drop anchor.

The following day, we said goodbye to Naren and Margarita and hello to Garth, who flew in to Marsh Harbor the same day, and also to our good friends Neil and Lollie, who sailed in on Nautigal. We had bad news for Garth. We had no engine and therefore no refrigeration. Moreover, we weren't sure exactly how we were going to make it back across the Gulfstream. It was a pattern that was becoming all too familiar!

If the first impeller had been stuck on the pump shaft, this one was stuck even worse. I couldn't get it off, and the boatyard in Marsh Harbor couldn't get it off either. Now we had no pump!

But we had a laptop and internet access, and we found our pump model listed with Depco Pump Company and ordered one shipped to Marsh Harbor. With duty and air freight, it was quite expensive, but it would provide some much needed insurance for the return trip. We would once again be sailing home, but this time would not be a repeat of the last time. We would have 5 hours of motoring in reserve for the Gulfstream crossing, just in case we lost our wind in midstream.

It took the better part of a week for the pump to arrive in Marsh Harbor. In the meantime we relaxed and socialized. Nautigal was there. And Keewatin. I had first met Ron Turner in Governor's Harbor, Eleuthera, in 1963, and here he was in Marsh Harbor in 2007, about to take a troop of boy scouts on a cruise in Abaco Sound. We also met Marc Andre, who fashioned driftwood fish with drawers and sold them at the Ebb Tide in Hope Town.

We mounted the new pump and took off with Garth for the southern part of the Sound, stopping overnight at Hope Town and continuing on the following day to Sandy Cay and the Pelican Cays.

After spending several days anchored behind Sandy Cay, snorkelling the reef there, and exploring the ruins at nearby Wilson City, we took off around Hole in the Wall for the Berry Islands and home. We stopped briefly at Hoffman Cay, visiting the blue hole, and continued north around Great Stirrup Cay and then west towards Bimini, entering the Great Bahama Bank south of Gingerbread Ground. We sailed past Mackie Shoal in the middle of the night with a good following breeze, and altered course for Cat Cay, arriving there at daybreak.

The forecast for the following day was SE 10-15 kts, but the weather was unsettled. We rounded Gun Cay Light and shot out into the Florida Straits with wind to spare, but, within an hour, the wind had died, leaving us in a very confused and uncomfortable residual sea with no way to steady the boat. We waited, anxiously. We were still pretty close to the Bahama side of the channel, so we weren't losing too much ground to the north, but we didn't want a repeat of our 2004 crossing.

Several hours later, we started to get some air from the southeast. Very gradually, it increased, and we resumed sailing. Fortunately, the wind held, and we made it back home without further incident, despite the very threatening sky that enveloped us as, late in the day, we approached the south Florida coast.

2007 Abaco Cruise Photos

2007 Abaco Cruise Videos

Our 2007 cruise to the Abacos had left us with several engine problems. Most perplexing was the loss of impellers in the raw water pump. Could the problem be with the impellers, themselves? (The impellers I'd been using in recent years had been sitting in my parts drawer for a very long time.) Or was a constriction in the raw water line simply making the impellers work too hard?

I set about looking for a constriction. I broke apart the raw water line, but I could not find any obvious constriction. Just to make sure, I took the heat exchanger and exhaust riser to a radiator shop to be cleaned out. I looked closely at the thruhulls for both the raw water in and the exhaust out.

I inspected the impeller in the pump that I'd installed in Marsh Harbour. Interestingly, it too had several cracked blades! But how long had this pump and its impeller been sitting on the shelf at Depco?

A second problem was that the another freeze plug on the aft end of the engine was leaking fresh water. I replaced this plug, but the engine continued to very slowly lose water (perhaps half a cup a day). There was, however, no water in the oil. The water was in fact dripping into the bilge from the aft end of the engine. Could there be still another freeze plug under the cowl between the engine and the transmission (covering the flywheel)? (The manual, unfortunately, does not provide an aft view of the engine.)

While struggling with these engine problems, I also started to rebuild the lower saloon. Ever since replacing Catspaw's inside ballast, we had cruised with a temporary deck above the water tanks in the saloon. I now sought to install a permanent deck and refit the port and starboard drawers between this deck and the dinette on the port side and the lower bunk on the starboard side. There was one important difference with the previous construction. The deck and framework supporting the drawers had to be removable so that the two water tanks could be accessed and, if necessary, removed.

In anticipation of putting Catspaw on the market, we also wanted to refinish the interior. But what better place to do that than our favorite haunt, the northern Exumas?

We made plans for our very last cruise aboard Catspaw. Gavin had lost his job in Seattle, but was planning to enter Columbia Law School in the fall. He was free for the summer and could join us for the whole trip. And Garth would fly into Staniel Cay and be with us for a long week.

Prior to departing, I ordered several new impellers for the raw water pump, just in case we needed them (as I expected we would).

As in the previous summer, we were fortunate to catch a southwesterly breeze out of Fort Lauderdale. (We sang a final spring concert with the Nova Singers the previous evening and hoped that the wind would still be there in the morning.) Indeed it was, and it held until Great Harbour Cay.

Turning on the engine to motor into the marina at Great Harbour Cay (in order to clear customs and immigration), I discovered that it was running warm. I was not sure, in fact, that we could make it to the dock without overheating (a run of several miles). So, instead of going in to the marina, we sailed Catspaw up around Little Stirrup Cay and dropped anchor in Slaughter Harbour. I removed the raw water pump and inspected the impeller. Sure enough, it was shot. But this time I replaced it with one of the new impellers I'd purchased just prior to leaving. We would see how long a new impeller lasted.

In fact the new impeller lasted throughout the summer and was still going strong when, some 30 engine hours later (mostly from charging the refrigerator), we arrived back home. Mystery solved and lesson noted! Don't use impellers that have been sitting around for a long time (years).

Perhaps in recognition of the fact that this was our last cruise, the summer of 2008 was like no Bahama summer we'd ever experienced before. The weather was almost perfect the entire time. One nasty frontal passage overtook us between the Berry Islands and Nassau, but, except for a late afternoon westerly squall later on at Bell Island, that was it. We almost always had a fair wind to get us where we were going, and there was, in fact, so little rain that we had to take on water at Sampson Cay. (Normally, we keep our tanks full by catching rain water in the cockpit awning.) We slept with blankets the first month and with just a sheet the rest of the summer.

After clearing in at Nassau's Yacht Haven, we crossed to Allen's Cay, where we spent over a week, unwinding and refinishing the aft stateroom. (We worked mornings and went on excursions with the inflatable in the afternoons.) It was a bit messy living aboard and refinishing the stateroom (particularly the sanding part), but we were able to confine the mess pretty much to the aft stateroom and we vacuumed frequently. (Jody and I slept in the saloon.)

From Allen's Cay, we moved on to Shroud Cay for a couple of days, then on to Hawksbill Cay and Warderick Wells Cay, where we took a mooring in the inner harbor. Here, over a period of about a week, we refinished the galley.

After stopping at Cambridge Cay for several days, we continued to Sampson Cay, where we did a laundry, replenished our fresh water, and took on other supplies. We then backtracked to one of our favorite Exuma anchorages, west of Thomas Cay. (You have to play the tide to enter, but once in, you are snug and surrounded by small cays, bars, and rocks. and the anchorage provides a wonderful base for exploring the neighborhood by dinghy and inflatable. Here we settled in for another long stay, during which we refinished the forepeak. (The saloon had been refinished integral to its transformation earlier in the spring.)

Garth and his friend PJ were scheduled to fly into Staniel Cay in a few days time, so we moved on to Pig Beach on Big Major's Spot to await their flight. Here we were joined by Neil and Lollie on Nautigal, who were ending their customary Abaco excursion with a swing into the Exumas. (Their trip back home would parallel ours.) On July 4th, one of the megayachts in the anchorage put on quite a fireworks display from the north end of Pig Beach.

With Garth and PJ, we spent a few days at Big Major's Spot and then returned to Pipe Creek. (As short as their stay was, this was the best place to spend it.) We then returned to Staniel Cay to witness Bahamas Independence Day (a much more muted celebration than our 4th) and see Garth and PJ off on their return flight.

From here we headed back north along the Exumas to Nassau, more or less in company with Nautigal. Our first rendezvous was at the northwest corner of Bell Island. I was not entirely comfortable with this anchorage from the very start. (I look for sand, and this narrow anchorage did not have it.) One afternoon, the western sky started looking rather threatening, and I decided to move out into the channel on the north side of the island, which was exposed to the west, but gave Catspaw plenty of room to drag. Nautigal stayed behind. The squall did not disappoint, and I was glad I had moved. Nautigal, however, seemed to have no problem where she was. My hat was off to Neil. He seemed to know that Nautigal would be just fine in this situation.

After looking for and finding Johnny Depp's motoryacht Vajoliroja moored behind Little Hall's Pond Cay (just north of Bell Island), we sailed on to Norman's Cay, Highbourne Cay, and Ship Channel Cay, visiting the tidal flat on the north side of Ship Channel Cay with the inflatable, before setting off for Nassau and home. It was late July and the wind was starting to go light.

In Nassau we anchored off BASRA and visited both the Atlantis aquarium one final time and Neil and Lollie's favorite Nassau restaurant for the first time. We then crossed to the Market Fish Cays in the Berry Islands (where we basically had the anchorage to ourselves) and spent a few days relaxing and enjoying the bird life there, after which we sailed around the Stirrups and across the Great Bahama Bank to North Rock and the west coast of Bimini. The wind had been light, but we had been in no hurry and were eventually able to put down the hook and get some rest before crossing the Stream.

Despite relatively light winds, this crossing was uneventful, even pleasant, and we returned home in very good spirits. A very successful Very Last Hurrah for Catspaw!

2008 Exuma Cruise Photos

2008 Exuma Cruise Videos