Just a quick update for my regular readers who may be wondering where things stand with Makina now that we have found a safe winter port in Halifax. It surprised me how much demand there is to get ones vessel on to the hard in the area. One local club offered to put me on a waiting list which was at 60 people at the time!
The Armdale Yacht Club, which had been my family's club in my younger years, came through for me with the offer of a wet berth. Not sure if my nostalgic email of my family's experience with AYC may have been a factor. 😎
'Wet Berths' are slips offered in their back harbor where air is pumped into the water to avoid ice formation. Vessels can remain in the water over the winter without concern of ice damaged.
This will allow easy live-a-boarding. With the forecast of rain turning to light snow last night, it seemed like a good opportunity to try staying on board. Even with the oversight of a porthole being left open it was a pleasant sleep. This morning, with the porthole now closed, it is becoming very cozy on board with just one of the two electric heaters plugged in.
The winter lease starts on Nov 1st. Until then the Club seems content at keeping me on the gas dock; which is fine by me as the last few nights have been spent at home. We have created lists and priorities for the move, yet there was also the Alpha release of an anticipated MMO game called Ashes of Creation which was played for most of the weekend.
The plan is to live stream some of my game play. In that regard some experimentation was done with @sircork's hivestreams.live dapp.
Progress was made on character development over the weekend, managing to get my Ranger up to level 7 with some half decent gear and weapons. The game will come online each weekend for the next couple of weeks and then, likely, become more static in the first week of November or thereabouts.
My Daughter, Son-In-Common-Law and myself have decided that we will use Makina as our floating condo until an except-able replacement home is found. It should prove to be unique content setting up two PCs on board. As far as capacity goes, over the course of my passage from Scarborough time was spent with a crew of 3 a couple of times. Once with Jason and Lori from Scarborough to Kingston and once with Pierre and Mr. Fish down the St. Lawrence. It was close yet comfortable.
We are planning on having a walk through of a a house of interest today at 16:00. Prices seem to be adjusting in the overheated market here in Halifax and it appears that a replacement property might be had well under our selling price of our present property. This will mean more boat kitty funds than expected without having to touch any crypto bags.
Now home for over a week, in hindsight it seems that my approach to the 1200NM passage from Scarborough to Halifax was somewhat cavalier when starting out. It was likely romanticized over the decades that had passed since being active in sailing. It was further minimalized by the fact that my sailing experience had been that of a crew on my Father's boat. Being your own Skipper is a very different story.
There was a lot of growing into the experience. In the beginning this meant being very reliant on others to help me along on the journey. Without the many kind souls who had aided me it would have been very likely to have failed very early on. Hopefully they have been mentioned in detail in past postings. You know who you are. 😍
It was after leaving Gaspe solo that the passage seemed to have taken on a different dimension as my confidence level hit overdrive. This was largely fostered by Pierre's pep talk suggesting that self confidence was something that needed some personal development on his last night on board in Gaspe.
The two long and moonless nights out on the Gulf of St. Lawrence did just that. It not only gave me confidence in myself but even more importantly confidence in Makina. It is now my feeling that she will take me anywhere on this planet that it is my intent to travel. With a sea anchor she would be able to ride out all but the most vicious of weather, though hopefully that never need be tested.
This winter should include intense gaming in an MMO that many gamers have been waiting for for decades. Hopefully this winter will include HIVE streaming, boat projects such as compost toilet, radar and electric anchor winch installations, a navigation course through the club and a new land residence which my Daughter and Son-In-Common-Law decide upon.
Come spring we should then have a full summer to introduce my Daughter and Son-In-Common-Law to sailing as well as hone my own skills more. Who knows where a year from now shall find us? Palm trees and clear blue waters perhaps?
Regardless of the future that awaits, the overwhelming feeling is that of thankfulness and being blessed for what has already transpired on this incredible adventure.
May the wind be at your back!
A chronological listing of my recent sailing posts:
https://hive.blog/sailing/@novacadian/novacadian-s-blog-index-sailing
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That wet berth still sounds quite fascinating. I'm sure when the time comes you'll be sharing a pic or two, right?
How was the house? I looked at the listing and it looked nice and really huge.
The house was amazing. The one drawback, and probably the reason why it has remained on the market for as long as it has, is that it has a very busy road running in front of it. This would likely make it unattractive for those with a young family to be so close to a busy artery.
The rear of the house has a great deck though and one is sheltered from the traffic noise and such. Planning on leaving this choice up to my Daughter and Son-In-Common-Law to decide (and they are very taken with the place) as my motivation is that it is also lower in price than most places in the city. This bodes well for the boat kitty as there is a good gap between its asking price and our selling price of our current property; so shall try not to bias their decision. 😉
Never heard of pumping air into water to stop ice formation. But then again I sail in the Med.
Oh, that must be nice! Winter always takes things to the next level. I'm also curious how Makina will fare as a condo during the cold on the water. Guess we can stay tuned to find out!
On the Great Lakes in Canada water fans (probably not their technical name) are placed around individual boats to hamper ice formation. The piped air is the same principle on a much grander scale.
Thanks for the update! Do glad to hear you're enjoying your new long anticipated game! And, great news about house prices. #winning. :)
Yeah the past weekend's game play was great. Even at this very early Alpha stage which intended for testing it was impressive how smooth it generally went. Such MMO openings generally have a shit show aspect to them with long waiting queues to get into the game due to networking issues and crashes once too many users are brought on board. Those at Intrepid who are developing the game seem to have been ready for it to a large degree. It could be a lot of fun to try this streaming thang here on HIVE.