Zinc, Sacrificial Anode – A metal that is designated as the metal you want to erode away and sacrifice itself to save your important equipment in a saltwater environment. It erodes away and saves your important metals such as drive shafts and other critical parts of your boat. Zinc is the metal of choice and there are parts made of that are designed to bolt onto your boat and then slowly erode away. My boat had not been checked for a while and as a result, I wanted to get it looked at quickly. I recommend T and C Diving. They were prompt and took care in checking my boat out and replaced the zincs within a day of setting the appointment up with them. I can say that my Zinc was almost gone but there was a little left. My new zincs are doing their part every hour of every day, throwing themselves in the front of the important stuff like critical engine parts and rudders and such so that the boat may live another day. Thank you Zinc, and T and C divers for taking care of my boat.
This entry is to share my experience with the Bremerton Marina. You can derive your own conclusions and decide for yourself if it’s right for you. For me it wasn’t so I have moored my boat elsewhere. The following is my story of why I decided that the Bremerton marina wasn’t right for me.
I found a boat on Craigslist and knew I would need a place to keep it. The hunt began and ended almost as fast as it started. I made a call to the marina and got a nice young lady on the other end who told me about the rate for my boat. It was about $225 a month but with a special buy one get one free deal they had going, the price would be half of that and this looked great. The monthly cost was going to be about $140 a month. A price I could live with. I made the offer on my new boat and the owner accepted. I then contacted the marina once again to complete my rental of the slip for the boat. This is where it gets interesting. The person answering wasn’t not the same person who I spoke to a few days before and they told me what I had been quoted was wrong and in fact, The new bill was going to be closer to $190 a month on the buy one get one free offer. My boat was too small to get the Buy One Get One offer and I would have to purchase a larger slip for the rate. Seemed like a waste since I needed a smaller slip. I made a case to Kathi the manager for renting me the slip at the original rate I was quoted of $140 a month and I would sign the two year lease.
She had to check with upper management and all I got was “unfortunately, we can’t make any concession for the mistake in the price quote since we are a public agency”. At that point I felt like I I had no choice but to accept the higher slip rate but I was frustrated because of my decision I had made and frustrated by the bad information that was given by a public agency. It’s clear that they are quite disorganized and will NOT accommodate when they make a mistake. Instead they hide behind the fact that they are a public agency. Not the best way to attract customers. Especially when there are s many commercial options that do a better job of working with customers. The other concern is that the lease agreement is written in such a way that you cannot cancel it…even if they raise the rates. The answer to my inquiry about this locked in lease and the free ability of the port to raise rates was that they have never raised the rates and don’t expect to with such a low occupancy. Which by the way is only 40% filled. It’s no wonder. The rates are steep, the lease is terrible and the marina has strong currents when the tide shifts. I was encouraged to come and go during slack tides as a result of such strong currents. It’s clear that this marina was built to be pretty and it definitely has the appearance of a world class marina but it’s sad that the big selling points are focused on the bathrooms and a downtown area of Bremerton that is still not a destination spot. In addition, you can only have one car parking pass. This means that any guests you choose to have aboard your boat will have to pay for parking.
The bottom line, they made a mistake, hid behind the fact that they are a public agency, refused to amend a lease agreement so that I would come spend my money renting a slip and as a result, lost at least a 3K revenue stream over the next 2 years and have one less slip filled and the taxpayers get the bill as a result. At the time of this writing, they are at about 60% empty.
It would be wise to stop pretending that they are in Seattle and trying to price the slips at the rates found in the larger city. It’s also clear that very few people want to moor there as there are many other local marinas that have lists with people waiting to rent with them instead.
Seems the answer is to privatize the marina and get the local and state government out of the Marina business because while it’s clear that the staff are trying do a good job, the bureaucrats are getting in the way.
I found a very quiet and reasonably priced spot for my boat and it’s not tied to the foolishness of poorly written lease agreements and I don’t worry about getting bent over by someone who is getting pressure from the state to turn a buck at the expense of customer service. If I decide to leave, I can just haul in my lines and sail away. No harm no foul. I like the place enough though that I am not in a hurry to leave because I love the place I have found.
Tacoma to Kitsap via the water. No sense buying a boat that won’t make the trip. It was about an hour and a half run along with a fuel stop at the Point Defiance fuel dock. The owner had a friend that was a mechanic and he offered to make the trip with me and serve as a guide of sorts. This was a nice way to get a decent intro to the systems on the boat and to ease my concerns if anything bad were to have happened along the way that I didn’t know about. Nothing did and the trip was excellent. The sun was out and the water was calm. I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to make the run.
Recently, I acquired a boat after selling my last one. I have pondered back and forth about writing about it at the risk of sounding like it was a bragging blog and then I decided that it’s truly not about that but more about keeping a log and a way to look back and maybe share some useful tips and information. I have been looking at boats all last year and beyond. I have wanted to get one that I could use more often and leave in the water because launching a boat each time I want to be on the water is not the way I wanted to “boat”.
I few weeks ago, I spotted a great deal on Craigslist and the negotiations began. As it turns out, this boat was well cared for but the owner had a tendency to get seasick on the dock. In short, he wasn’t really a boater and I am sure he just wanted out. This boat came with everything from a full set of good tools, life jackets, spare parts, a well stocked refrigerator complete with beers (good ones) and soda. It also came with a small boat and that boat also had it’s own little engine. It been a nice way to enjoy a little time after work relaxing on the water.
The deal was completed and the day I was planning on going to buy the boat, I sold the one I had listed only 5 days before. That is a story in itself.
I was thinking that I would need to sell my existing boat and that would do a few things. It would free up some yard space and make the cost of the upgrade to the new boat an affordable one. The old one was listed and within just a few days there were a lot more posted and I was worried a little that mine would be lost in the cache of excess boats on Craigslist. On Wednesday I was laying down for the night and had contemplated re-listing my boat to get it to the top of the list. Then about that time, I had this little voice in the back of my head that said, “You have not, because you ask not”. So I got down on my knees and prayed that the right buyer would come at the exact right time. THAT is exactly what happened. I got an email the very next day and it was the buyer for my old boat. I shared everything that was in need of care or repair and they came to my house the very next day and bought my boat for exactly my asking price. That same evening, I completed the deal for my new boat and brought it home that night.
This arrival of the new to me boat will be the source of the blogs in the “Marine Life” section and I hope you might get some useful information and maybe some enjoyment out of it.
After just over a year of living in the desert and a world nothing like the one I had lived in all my life, I have discovered that my recent adventure was probably a little like the Half Time of a football game. While I hope it’s not exactly the halfway point and I hope to live longer than it would suggest, it could be that halfway point. It’s the point where you can look in the mirror and self asses a little bit. It’s that time when you look at what you thought you knew and figure out just how much you don’t. It’s a turning point where you realize that there are very less fortunate people in the world that have a life that is much harder than your own. It’s also that point where you can make a decision to change your life’s course and do those things you have been meaning to do forever. It’s when you realize that life isn’t going to slow down and tomorrow may never come or even more often, it does come and today is that tomorrow you put off yesterday.
Whatever the case, my halftime has arrived and while I know that there will be more life events that will deepen this view, I see things differently and I think more clearly than I did before. Colors are brighter, life unfolding around me has more meaning and the daily business of living isn’t as stressful as it once was.
I’m thankful that 18 months ago, I was presented and opportunity and started moving towards what has become one of the best adventures and life changing events in my short existence on this planet. It now drives me to find out more. I know that not everyone gets such an opportunity but I hope to make the best of mine and maybe inspire you to take a chance if you are given one and make the best of yours. Just remember that no one can really tell you enough to change your own life as much as you living it.
Today I went for an interview in Seattle. On my way to and from I encountered some funky people and I’m not talking funk and soul…just nasty funk. I truly do not understand how people can run around with such a cloud of B.O. surrounding them and just not notice. Stringy smelly hair and just a lack of concern for personal hygiene literally takes my breath away.
I can’t imagine it’s a lack of having a place to get clean but rather just not caring. I know times are tough and money is tight, but Im thinking that commuters going to and from work should consider bathing more frequently and they probably have the means. Try once a day rather than once a week! It’s a shame the people are so lazy that they just let themselves go like that.
The worst of it was on the ferry boat. I used to commute on it but it has become more of a smelly rusty freak show that makes me want to take a sanitizing chemical shower just after being on it. Quite disgusting!
The same bathing suggestion goes for the stinky couple in the store that “breezed” right on by me and made me gack! For the love of god in heaven…SHOWER and WASH your clothes!
It’s a Sunday evening and I am just finishing up a job application. I have discovered that I don’t really need the job, just the money. But I haven’t quite found that pot of gold and even though we get rainbows here, I don’t think the leprechaun’s loot would be easy to find.
I have been enjoying these last days and being able to not panic without work has been a way of life I could not have imagined but I love. I am enjoying it for now but I know the day is coming when it could all change. So, I continue to look for the elusive perfect job to avoid the panic. I suspect it’s out there. I just need to find it.
In the middle east…where I spent an entire year the weather is now back in the 90’s for heat and the weather is stuck here as if it were winter still. I really am growing tired of living in a place where everything is wet and cold all the time. I never thought I would miss the heat but I sure do now. In fact, I have a fire going in the stove and it’s about 85 inside. I am a happy warm camper…that’s in interesting word to pop up in my thinking…”camper”, as I do feel a little like I am camping here in my own house. Not quite the home it was but I have the required items to survive comfortably. Not quite home because I have discoverd a world well outside of what I had been living in for the last many years. Figuring out what really I want now that I have figured out what I do not want is a lifelong journey. Each day I do a little here to organize my life a little more and eliminate the junk that I collected over so many years before. It has become clear that for the most part, holding onto that piece of junk or the widgets just serves to slow a person down when they are attempting to move on in life and be nimble without having to manage said junk/widgets.
It feels good to eliminate stuff and clean out the closets and rooms. It gives me hope that at some point I could travel again or work abroad with less worries and live daily without the hassle of tripping over something I’m not using and may never use again. I spent a day cleaning up an old RV and afterwards realizing that I haven’t used it in a long time, I felt like it was just something that I will have to consider ridding myself eventually if it’s not used. It’s not a finacial drag but having it here is just one of those things that is something to manage. It also is my shelter in a time of emergency so for now, I’ll keep it…reluctantly.
Tomorrow is another day to scoop up and throw out or at the very least, organize with the newfound space of the scooped and tossed. Life has become one big cleanup operation from a self misguided past of living with to much junk and not enough quality everything else….that my friends is changing.
I hope you enjoy as I continue to write and if I am the only one….it’s ok too because I can always look back at where I have been and how far I have come. This year has been one of the best for learning for me…so far and I’m looking for ward to many more of these experiences.
Life is good.
Been reading about an increase in gas prices coming again. This time it’s due do more EPA regulations. Has to do with regulations to minize the sulphur content of motor fuel. Sulphur is a natural element…just like carbon.
The EPA is a government agency that like most any agency is funded by tax dollars. In order to get funding each year, most agencies must be able to justify their existence by showing that they have done something the year before to make a difference.
If no funding comes, the agency would have to lay off workers. This cycle of making changes to get funding to keep EPA workers employed sets up a condition that has created a very destructive agency. We outsource so much of our work because of environmental issues and the costs associated with EPA regulations that we have lost our ability to make much of anything affordably. We have continued increases in EPA vehicle emissions regulations and they are now further tightening the regulation on a naturally occuring element, sulphur. Is this regulation to justify the EPA’s existence and show they are making a difference or is reducing an emission of a naturally occuring element from the periodic chart of elements a way to recieve funding for the coming fiscal year?
I spent some time living in a country that doesn’t have this foolishness and they seem to be doing quite well. The busses puked out a black cloud of smoke sometimes when they started from a stop and refineries there burn off unusable waste products of the oil refinement process and create smoke and smells that while a little unpleasant, represents jobs for the local people. They are one of the wealthiest nations in the world partiality because they don’t have agencies like the EPA wringing their hands as a special interest group worrying about the emission of naturally occurring elements.
Maybe they could make something up about the harmful vehicle emissions of the inert gasses and regulate them. At least on paper it would look like they were doing something and could be funded and keep their jobs.
I am two good drinks into this afternoon. A nice wheat beer and a hard cider. They are light, yet doing the job. The sun is out and the service is great inside. I’m feeling no pain and for the first time in a while, I have a sense that this return back home just might work out well. I think that the sun has something to do with it but I’ll take the pass and enjoy it.
The chatter in the restaurant is not foreign and it’s intelligible. A first in a while. I think back to some of my friends in the desert and wish that I could share these few minutes of bliss…
After living in the desert, its apparent that my world view is different. I’m enjoying today but at the same time am acutely aware of an altered approach to my surroundings.
Im not sure that I would want to go back to the sandbox based on today. It is this feeling that makes me think I have landed back home…finally.
An older, unpublished entry.
Been looking toward going home again. A break from playing in the sandbox is a good thing. I forgot about the airport chatter. Languages you don’t understand can become irritating when you have no idea what you are hearing. I’m sitting on the floor of a packed airport listening to a woman taking (loudly) on a cell phone in a language I just don’t understand. It’s one thing to hear someone babbling on their phone and quite another to not understand the language. It’s just a reminder that i am the foreigner. A novelty of sorts. I suppose am not the first American these people have seen but I still know I am different. In some ways, I get better treatment here. After all, It was the Americans who rescued this country from the edge of existence.
I will say it has been an interesting experience working here as a resident. Most people wouldn’t even think of such things, let alone actually try moving overseas for a year to work in a non-westernized land. It is different. I have come to enjoy some aspects of it. While others, I look forward to leaving behind. My job here is in some ways the one thing that makes it worth doing and in others, makes me want to leave. This time of the year here has been very nice, like late spring back home. I knew that I would get to enjoy a year of summer weather and it has been fantastic. In nine months, it has rained a total of four times. Most of that has been in the last three weeks.
Something else I have noticed is that the women here really try to keep themselves. Not in a superficial way but dressed nice and not with everything hanging out on display. There’s a certain attractive quality about that. Couple that with some of the perfumes they wear and it creates an allure like none other.
In some ways it’s overdone but it shows that moderation can be a good thing.
I have been here long enough to have learned a few things that have given me a different view on the world.
Rowland Ramble - 