My next post was supposed to be about my six days in the boat yard (fascinating!) but something way more interesting intervened.

I was motoring back from the boatyard, in as bad weather as I’ve ever seen on San Francisco Bay, when a can of Pepsi fell of the galley bench and exploded on the carpet. When I docked I hosed out the carpets and laid them on deck to dry. I was ready for a break from the boat after six days in the boatyard, but the next day decided to nip down to the boat, just to put the carpets inside before the evening dew. If it hadn’t been for the exploded Pepsi, I might not have come back for days.

The April issue of SAIL has a page of illustrations of Bird Scarers by Dick Everitt (page 76). If only I'd known. In 2007 I sailed to Peru. The country suffered an out-of-date reputation left over from the Shining Path era, and I was one of only eleven foreign boats to check in that year. I blogged about this back then, and first heard of Ben Ellison and Panbo, because even Ben took notice of my poo situation. The welcoming La Punta Yacht Club, just outside of Lima, had very secure moorings and shore boat service:

Multihull sailors have been saying it since the sixties: “If you want to sail fast, get the lead out!”

Now the monohull world has caught on, and lead keels are being ditched like old dishwater.

“I got rid of seven tons of lead in my keel, now replaced with foam, and hey, big surprise, my boat sails way faster, especially off the wind,” says Francis Scupper, a weekend racer from Tampa, Florida.

Thanks to relentless investigative reporting by the SAILfeed staff (Charlie pointing out the obvious to me), we have deduced that The Road Warrior and Hans Klaar are brothers. The Road Warrior is Alex Klaar. I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

This has not been a happy discovery for me. I wanted to write a post about my old cruising acquaintance and his cool boat, but instead I've been plunged into the Heart of Darkness and learned:

1. Michael Klein, who I believe I also knew in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, was found in the companionway of his boat in Nosy Be, Madagascar with his severed head in his lap, or at his feet, depending on the report you read.

It's been all over the news in the San Francisco Bay area. Three people, two men and a woman, stole an Oyster 82 from Sausalito, then ran it aground in the surf in Pacifica, just 20 miles to the south. Dopes!

Once on an airplane I saw a terrible movie, which featured John Travolta, Tim Allen, and William H. Macy playing suburban dads who rode Harley-Davidsons on weekends. They'd made up matching leather jackets.  One day they were pulled over at a bend in the road when a real motorcycle gang rode by - about fifty of them - real meth dealing, bar fighting rebels. One of the suburban dads said, "There they go, boys. That's the real deal."

Even though I'd been circumnavigating for six years, this is how I felt when I met The Road Warrior in Tanzania. I don't think cruiser is the right word for him, and he defies classification within the cruiser archetypes - definitely not a  Yacht Club Officer On Tour.

Chagos, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, is paradise for cruisers. Except for a giant US air base (which is on another island, which you're not allowed to go near, so you never even know it's there) the entire archipelago is uninhabited. Some cruisers marvel at the tropical idyll. Some snorkel and fish. Some play beach volleyball. Me? I take pictures of crabs.

The Daddy is, of course, the coconut crab. Stepping on one of these on the way to your dinghy in the dark will make an impression. Once one mistook my leg for a tree and started to climb me:

There are aquatic crabs:

And ones that run around on the beach:

A month ago I had to scrub the bottom of Condesa and replace the shaft zinc. I left Lola, our lab mix rescue dog from Baja California, in the cockpit, with her leash looped around one of the cockpit cleats. I thought we’d be in for a drama, since she freaks out when I go in the water, but she didn’t bark.

 I scrubbed and scraped for a while, then popped up to check on Lola. She panted happily.

San Francisco’s water is cold, so I was in full combat mode: Hooded wetsuit, booties, mask, fins, weights, gloves, and a big scraper. Bottom scrubbing becomes meditative, and I heard only muffled scraping and the occasional crunch of a barnacle.

I checked on Lola again and she seemed to be enjoying the day.

...it doesn't dry up in the cartridge.

This may seem trivial, but these cartridges run $15-$25 each, and it's always a bummer to find your sealant has dried up right when you need it.

Silicone, polyurethane, and polysulfide are the three sealants commonly used in the marine industry, and many boatyard brawls have ended in bloodshed over which is better. Polysulfide seems to be the one I always keep loaded in my caulking gun, and the best all-around for bedding and sealing. This same no-dry-up property seems to keep it flexible and intact for years after other sealants crack and crumble.

Following Paul Calder's example of setting up an index to his technical posts, here is an index to mine. Between the two us us we could really damage a boat...

Wire Styling

All About Bilge Pumps

Bilge Pump Nirvana

Blue Sea Systems' Multimeter

Wiring Harnesses

How to Equalize a Battery

How to Make a Baggywrinkle

Electric Shock Drowning