He’s the founder Melbourne deserves, but not the one it needs.
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I‘ve got a friend staying with me for a week, so I took her out in MV Smol yesterday to visit the seals. And this time I got video…
Note: despite some of Lisa’s commentary, at no point were any seals at risk of being hit by the boat. The motor is in neutral long before we get near them, and the idea is to drift past them, not through them. But if they come over to investigate the boat of their own accord, well…
We left the main body of the herd well alone, but a few of the big bulls came to check us out and then lurked around for an extended period (presumably in the hope that we’d start fishing and provide scraps they could pinch).
Watching them when they’re diving under the boat is interesting; they leave trails of exhaled air bubbles when underwater, so you can partially track them and try to guess where they’ll pop back up.
It was very cool. 
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I watch a few sailing/boating channels on Youtube.
One of them, The Sailing Frenchman, began as the account of a young bloke (Hugo) fixing an old yacht (which he bought for a bottle of beer) and solo cruising the Mid Atlantic and Caribbean.
But then Hugo got a job…
The Clipper race is a similar sort of deal to what I had when I was on HMB Endeavour. Each yacht has a couple of professional crew, while everyone else are amateurs who are paying for the experience. But unlike the historical theme of HMB Endeavour, the Clipper folks get to experience life on a modern ocean racing yacht.
They began in London, and had a fairly cruisey time of it in the Mid Atlantic. But now they’ve hit the Roaring Forties, and things are getting a bit more adventurous…
It’s good viewing if you have a taste for such things.
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Such as:
Tarka is probably my favourite sailing channel. Whereas Hugo (The Sailing Frenchman) is a hyper-capable experienced sailor, Tarka’s Bryan is an extreme amateur and learning as he goes. He seems to be a very good-natured dude, and his camerawork is spectacular; it’s good relaxing fantasy-fodder.
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Away from the sailboats, I also watch this:
Stu is a boat mechanic who lives on Dangar Island (north of Sydney), and his channel is mostly focused on his efforts restoring a rusty old trawler. But he also covers a variety of general boating topics, and some general life-on-the-river stuff.
Good value if you appreciate creative engineering.
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MV Smol is soon to have a new home. And my new home is mere metres from the water, and comes with its own private jetty:
However, that’s at high tide. At low tide, it looks more like this:
The entirety of eastern Port Sorell is super-shallow, super-flat and dominated by the tide.
Depth markings in metres, stripy = “too shallow to bother charting”.
Fortunately, MV Smol is a very little boat. I only need about a metre of water to motor along, and if I lift the motor and break out the oars I can manage with just a couple of feet.
Still, I won’t be surprised if I occasionally miscalculate and end up sitting in the boat for six hours while I wait for the tide to rise enough for me to make it home.
Not a problem; I’ll just have to make sure I add a book to the boating emergency kit. 
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I started watching Dangar Stu, right around the time he bought his trawler. Do you watch Brewpeg too? Any time I am discouraged about a daunting project on my trawler I just watch an episode of either channel to remind miself that at least its not their problems!
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My dad is in step zero of building a little wherry from a pygmy boats kit.
I offered to help him with it, and he says he’ll ask when he needs it.
It certainly won’t be seaworthy on the Puget Sound, but should be good enough on a calm pond or creek.
He wants to use it salmon fishing.
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Only bits and pieces. Mostly I watch sailing channels.
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In other news, the house with the private jetty was bought out from under me, so MV Smol will not be gaining a wet berth. However, the other house that I bought instead is close enough to the boat ramp that I could tow Smol there with the ride-on mower.
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Dangar Stu’s had an oopsie:
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I saw that! I just sat my daughter and wife down yesterday after having them watch his explanation to give them the old “now do you understand why I say keep your body inside!” He is lucky he did not sever them at the wrist! I feel so bad for the guy, He is basically fucked for a few months.
I’m currently anchored for a few days while I wait for an alternator for my genny. Some day, someone will have to explain to me why an 8 kilowatt generator needs it’s own little generator to charge it’s starting battery. Maybe stew can explain it. I’ll ask him and he can add it to one of his videos now that he is layed up.
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Working on a bodgy tow-hitch adaptor for MV Smol.
I need to connect this:
To this:
So, it’ll probably look something like this:
I’m going to add some aluminium plates around the attachment points for reinforcing, and I may need to add some sort of bump stop to the top to keep it from sagging too much. But it’s just cheap pine 2x4’s (it doesn’t have to cope with speed above a brisk walking pace, the boat & motor weigh less than 100kg combined, and it’s only 750m from my shed to the boat ramp), so it’s no major hassle if I have to scrap the first prototype and redesign it.
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Oh boy! A boat forum! I found you!
This is the love of my life/ bane of my existence, my 19ft Bayliner! She’s a dream on the water and we take her out to the reef off of Key Largo to snorkel, dive, take pics of pretty fishies and catch some snapper or grouper for lunch.
Today she’ll get some wiring work to accommodate a new GPS/nav/fishfinder sonar that will replace the little one in there now. Can’t wait to check it out on a trip to Alligator Lighthouse reef off of Islamorada!
Pics will follow! Y’all don’t go away now!
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Once it’s dry, I’ll give it a test fit and add a bump stop at the top to stop the hitch from sagging too much.
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That looks both fantastic and functional. Well done!
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For the next project make sure you use tidebond III instead of II. I made that mistake on something that gets wet from time to time and the bond finally failed.
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The tow hitch should be staying dry, and it has a coat of varnish to protect it from incidental dampness.
I don’t actually take the mower down the boat ramp; I’ve seen too many Youtube videos of cars sliding into the water. I unhitch it in the parking lot and launch by hand; the wheels are set up at the balance point, so it takes very little effort to move on flat ground.
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I don’t usually watch sailing content on YouTube (because I’m not a sailor, although I have been thinking about learning to do it now that for the first time in my life I live by an ocean and have some disposable income) but about a week ago I randomly got recommended a video by Sailing Uma and I watched a few of their videos. (https://youtube.com/channel/UCXbWsGV_cjG3gOsSnNJPVlg).
Well, guess what I saw in the harbour on my way to work the very next morning?
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