Take a close look at this picture and tell me what kind of project I’m working on.

Hint: it’s related to the most-viewed page on Navagear.com, after the front page.

OK, you know those cool time-lapse videos like “Panama Canal at 600 knots” and the like? Well, I thought maybe I could do some time-lapse video of my local waters, and it might be kind of fun.

So here’s what I came up with. Don’t laugh.

Anyway, I mounted my little camera onto this preposterous tripod contraption and set it to take pictures at one-minute intervals. That’s the quickest it will take pictures.

And then I went for a little circuit of Lake Union. I took some nice pictures, but one minute is not NEARLY often enough for this sort of thing. I need a camera that takes pictures about once every five or six seconds.

Once I’ve got my pictures, I’ll need to figure out how to build them into a movie. Anybody with some experience here, please feel free to make recommendations in the comments! Thanks.

Oh, you want to see some of my “movie”? Well, it’s more of a slideshow, and without the sensation of motion, it’s a fairly boring one!

…etc. I think you get the point.

One thing that becomes clear is that the camera isn’t QUITE level! In my boat, I need to adjust the camera so it will be level while I’m at the helm (starboard side), NOT so it’s level while I’m standing on the bow adjusting things. Hmmm.

Yet another example of the sort of story I used to feature here on Navagear. Nowadays, you can find this kind of story over at Puget Sound Maritime.

First, you can read about the Last voyage for lumber schooner Wawona. Then check out the Wawona photo gallery, including several archival photographs from the Northwest Seaport, like this one:

Our friend Todd Lappin of Telstar Logistics has gotten himself published in a real newspaper! Great job, Todd…there’s no telling how long these print-media dinosaurs are going to survive, and you’ll be able to tell your grandchildren you were published in the New York Times.

My friend Tom Forsythe of Level Sky (the go-to outfit for brightwork refinishing in Seattle) took some pictures yesterday. He didn’t indicate that the boat was about to flop over from the weight of the snow and start filling up with lake water, so all’s well, I guess. Actually, she looks like she’s floating to her lines, pretty much.

I’ve had Two Lucky Fish in my new slip on Lake Union for a week now, and I’ve got to say I picked a hell of a week to move in to a new, unfamiliar location! In freshwater, no less. I’ve learned a lot.

First, it virtually never gets cold enough for Lake Union to freeze. Seriously, it’s incredibly rare. Very unlikely. But you will note that I didn’t use the word impossible.

Second, when boathouses (like the one I’m tied up to) get a lot of snow on them, they sink a few inches. When it rains on the snow, and the snow holds all the additional water on the roof instead of allowing it to drain off, they sink a few more inches. So make sure your lines have a bit of slack in them. Mine are fairly tight, but they are all arranged at acute angles to the dock; none run perpendicular from the boat to the dock. They should be fine, but if it starts raining hard, I’ll make sure I get down there to make adjustments and remove snow from the boat.

I’m positive I should be able to come up with some suggestive double entendre involving “my Johnson”, but for the life of me, I can’t think of a thing!

I went down to the boat today to add some mooring lines and see that everything was made fast and battened down in anticipation of another “weather event”. This one calls for snow AND wind, but perhaps not so much wind as we were anticipating.

So anyway, while I was there I took some pictures for y’all.

One problem, though…I couldn’t get my camera to work until I’d warmed the battery up! Sheesh…

And then I discovered another problem. I couldn’t adjust some of the lines. They were frozen into solid icicles.

I can only imagine how those old sailors made it around Cape Horn in sub-freezing temperatures!

Anyway, happy winter holidays to you and yours! At our house, we celebrate the Winter Solstice, and then we celebrate Christmas.

I’ve written before about how much I appreciate Rite in the Rain all-weather paper products. I used one for my log aboard Two Lucky Fish, and I carry another smaller one with me every day.

But today, we put a sheet to the ultimate test!

Here’s Blake, 7-month-old offspring of Navagear founder and publisher Aaron. Blake likes paper. He doesn’t write on it. He crumples it and gnaws on it. Sheets of normal paper last about two minutes before some conscientious adult feels obligated to fetch all the goopy bits from his mouth and throw them away.

The Rite in the Rain paper Blake is clutching in his right hand has been actively used for about half an hour.

Once he finally relinquished it, it looked…pretty good, actually! Great products.

In case you couldn’t find just the right item on Navagear’s Holiday Gift Guide, maybe this will help.

It’s the VideoRay Scout, a Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV) with onboard video camera. Heck, this might just fill the gap until I can afford my own personal mini-submarine.

The Scout is VideoRay’s entry-level model, and includes the 8-pound submersible with color video camera, control box with 7-inch LCD color display, 130 feet of neutrally buoyant tether, manual, and tool kit. All components fit neatly in a watertight, rolling Pelican case that fits easily in the trunk of a car or in airline luggage compartments. The entire system, including case, weighs 70 lbs and costs around $6000.

Oh, what could you DO with a VideoRay? Um…lots of stuff! You know, look at things. Underwater things. I figure I need it to check anchor sets with my new Rocna anchor. Actually, Tim from gCaptain spoke recently with Brian Luzzi, Sales & Marketing Coordinator of VideoRay, and learned a lot about how these units are being used.

That’s where I found this great video, by the way. Thanks, gCaptain!

Today, I got to see another Class B AIS installation on a small cruiser: Merv and Kathy Floyd’s Rosborough 25, Kingfisher II.

Perhaps you can tell from such clues as the dual VHF antennas aft, the dual GPS antennas and the dedicated AIS antenna just aft the radome that Merv and Kathy like to be prepared! The radar mast swings forward for trailering.

They had some help from Les at E.Q. Marine, the same talented fellow that commissioned Two Lucky Fish, my C-Dory 22. Here’s the port-side overhead console Les fabricated, with the ACR Nauticast B unit mounted where it’s not in the way, but where you can still see the status lamps. The power switch (”AIS”) and the silent mode switch (”stealth”) are visible on the right.

The windshield “wiper” switch on the left is there so that the passenger doesn’t have to ask the helmsman to “please run the wiper on my side.” In the Pacific Northwest, this feature is practically a must-have for cruising couples!

Also visible in the recessed “glove compartment” shown above is the serial cable for an auxiliary laptop, should one be brought on board. The AIS unit is connected to the boat’s Raymarine E120 chartplotter through an Actisense NDC-4-A NMEA multiplexer, which allows this extra NMEA output channel for a laptop.

Kingfisher II and Two Lucky Fish are hoping to do some on-the-water Class B testing this winter. Stay tuned!

By the way, it was just a little bit foggy today…all day, which is a little bit rare. Usually it burns off by noon or so. I took a lot of experimental pictures; here are a couple I liked. You can click to see the large version, suitable for desktop wallpaper, with all the foggy details!

For those just joining us, I accidentally broke a Zerk fitting off during my do-it-yourself oil change last weekend. See that little tiny spring, covered with blue grease? That’s part of the guts of the Zerk.

Well, I got it out of there, with the help of a bolt extractor bit, known to many as an “EZ Out”. In my case, it actually was pretty easy!

First, I removed the spring; it pulled right out of there. Here’s the E-Z-Out, held with a small pair of vice-grips, inserted into the Zerk. Then just turn it counter-clockwise…GENTLY.

And in a case like this, where the problem is NOT a frozen fitting, it comes loose easily.

Here’s the vice-grips, the extractor bit, and the threaded portion of the broken Zerk:

Here’s how the extractor bit works; it’s reverse-threaded, and it tapers, so it gets tighter and tighter as you twist it into the hole. Since you’re twisting counter-clockwise, at some magic moment the bit stops turning in the hole, and the broken fitting starts turning in its threaded hole. That’s the theory, anyway, and I’m just glad it worked in my case!

The replacement Zerk has been installed: