On the water after dark

A prudent mariner will not venture forth  into darkness unnecessarily.

So, prudently, Ms. Bettencourt left the dock a little before sundown last night; (the old nautical maxim being silent on the matter of returning after dark).

The mission was to have a look at a part of the Savannah River we see most often in daylight. It became very dark, very soon. It was black out there, but not as black as expected.

The promenade along the top of the levee was lighted brightly, as were the aisles leading upwards to the arbor at the top of the Jessye Norman Amphitheatre

Looking downstream, the brightest light in the middle of the photo at the right illuminates the area outside the gift shop at the marina.

The 6th Street railroad bridge crosses the river about there, but it's hard to see from this distance.

Downtown Augusta reflects on the river in this photo, shot from a point downstream from the marina.

There's not much nighttime action in this part of town, though a new downtown Convention Center, due to open soon, could liven things up.


The lighting along the Georgia side is so bright that glare makes it difficult to see anything from the water.

Reflections from the tall street lights approaching the the Augusta Rowing Club's Boat House facility make it hard to judge the distance between the riverbank and a row of submerged pilings that I know extend down the middle of the river around here.




I find I can see better with my glasses off. I have also learned that Ms. Bettencourt's instrument panel lights wipe out my night vision. They were turned off shortly after nightfall.

The rest of the night patrol was unremarkable. We just followed the GPS track south towards Ms. Bettencourt's home berth...

...where this apparition was photographed from the dock ramp.

Adding flash to the photo (right) reveals the identity of the looming lurker pictured above.













Lessons learned: The GPS and depth sounder were important aids for piloting. Glare on the water was a problem. Something needs to be done about the over-bright instrument lights.

Note: Click a photo to enlarge and improve detail (maybe somewhat).

Cold, wet, rocky, shallow...

... end of the line

This is about as far from the sea as you can go in a propeller-driven boat on the Savannah River.

Ms. Bettecourt's depth sounder was showing three feet when I snapped this shot in an upstream direction from a point on the river north of North Augusta, SC.

If you click the photo to enlarge it, you should be able to see rapids.

Had you been there with me, you could have looked down through surprisingly clear water to see big rocks, some patches of sand and streamers of weed. This is as close as Ms. Bettencourt would go to the rapids on this trip.

 I ventured closer several decades ago. One blade from the bronze propeller on the houseboat I had then didn't make it back from that excursion.

Yesterday we were at the rapids, on an outing to test a long-unused backup chart plotter. It still works.

I was also seeking some peaceful solitude to contemplate upgrades to this 12-volt mare's nest behind Ms. Bettencourt's instrument panel.



Ten years ago, this was a very neat installation, replacing a 30-year-old jumble of un-labeled wires, glass fuses and rusty connectors.

This modernized 12-volt distribution system is still fully functional today, but I think it needs a capacity expansion and a lot of neatening up.

Perhaps I will work on this instead of starting on the next set of curtains.

More curtains? No worries!

Start with a roll of butcher paper, some tape and a felt-tip marker.

Make a template for each window, showing gasket outlines and where the rods go through bulkhead brackets.

Make the first cut of the fabric fearlessly (after measuring and re-measuring).

Stitch up the hems, headers, footers and rod pockets.

Hang'em up.

Deploy a 3-pound hammer and a chisel to crack two epoxied rod brackets off the bulkhead so they
can be re-positioned correctly.

Curtains for one window completed. Five more sets to go.

Unfortunately, this installation was not as easy as it may appear to be.

My friend Erena made the two-panel curtain set pictured here from the template we traced for the port window in the forward cabin.

But, the curtains would not fit the port window at all. I tried them on the other side and they didn't fit there either -- until I whacked those rod brackets loose. (Click the photo to enlarge so you can see how far the brackets had to move).

So what happened? The cabin's side windows are not rectangular. They are wedge-shaped, with the taller ends toward the aft end of the cabin. Our curtain panels are rectangles. It seems to me that we must have accidentally fitted the curtain rod pockets to the shorter end of the window opening.

Chalk up another learning experience!

On the  positive side, this pair worked out anyway and I like the look of the result. But, we will probably try something different on the next set of panels.

Please stay tuned for more exciting developments.

About those curtains...

Regular readers know that I have been dithering over Ms. Bettencourt's new curtains for months, beginning here: http://tinyurl.com/aoc8vca

To recap the back story: After a lengthy search, I had special-ordered a quantity of very expensive fabric. I then turned complete coward when it came time to start (irreversibly) cutting the stuff for sewing. 

My friend Erena Creighton, a celebrated interior designer, and sewing person without peer, had generously offered to help me through the process. But still, I waffled. More time slipped away.

Erena called last week -- to set a date to begin the sewing. No place for me to hide. "Bring the fabric," she said. "Bring the window dimensions. Only six windows. This will be easy." 

So my roll of fabric and I show up at Paul and Erena's on the appointed day. Then the project stalled yet again. We found that my carefully-drawn windows dimensions were not completely understandable.

Somewhat legible but, unfortunately, incomplete

Of course, my dimensioned drawings seemed perfectly understandable to me--until I was asked to explain why none of the curtain rods were parallel and why the ceilings were so low.

We needed to know how much room we have to work with above and below the window openings.

We needed to know the precise locations of the curtain rods above and below the window openings.

I could not provide this information with any degree of certainty.

It was decided that the cutting and sewing must await answers to these vital questions. I was given assignments: Go and make paper templates; one for each window, with each showing where the rods are located. And take a lot of pictures of the areas above and below the window openings.

So that is what I am doing this weekend. We are to reconvene with the templates, the pictures and the still un-cut fabric next Tuesday morning. 

There may be more progress to report after that session.