Mitzvot in Hoonah - and Progress

Warm greetings to all of you who are following our adventure! 

Three important things happened this week:

1.) We caught some fish.

Ok, not real fish, at least not yet. (More about fishing below.) You will recall that last week I hung a sign out behind the boat welcoming cruise ship visitors to Hoonah, in Hebrew & English, from the the "Hooner Rov", inviting people to stop by and say hello. Several people did , in fact, stop, point, smile and snap pics. Well, Wednesday evening two lovely Israeli couples actually dropped in: Gaby & Diana and Alex & Claudia. (I am omitting their surnames out of respect for their privacy.) 

We were delighted to offer them coffee on the Sephina. We shmoozed, chatted about how all all these Jews ended up in this most unlikely of places, gave them a tour of the boat, and made new friends. Hachnasat Orchim (we fulfilled the mitzvah of inviting guests to your home) in Hoonah, Alaska. You can find mitzvot anywhere if you look hard enough. Big shout out to Alex, Claudia, Gaby and Diana if you're reading this - great meeting you all!

2.) I spun the engine.

This week I hand cranked the main engine, a Caterpillar 3304 turbo-diesel, for the first time. I'm delighted to report that she spun just fine, no indications of problems. The motor oil looks good as well. I was also able to hand spin the propeller at the shaft, also bodes well.

3.) Bottom painting.

The bulk of our efforts this week went to grinding, scraping, and sanding the hull, and applying the anti-rust primer to the hull. Even with only the bottom painted, it looks like a different boat. And with the bottom looking def, one begins to feel that we're making real progress. 

It takes a full day just to paint one side of the boat, so Sunday and Monday (weather permitting) we will apply the ablative anti-fouling topcoat to the bottom, install new sacrificial anodes (13 of them) and then proceed to phase three: getting the mechanicals ready for sea. After that, I hope to put the Sephina in the water, sometime during the second week of September. 

I also did a little more asking around about Jews of Hoonah. One of the locals said that yes, at one point, there were a handful of Jews who lived here. Were they merchants, trappers, tradesmen? Apparently, most of them were in the smoked salmon business. DUH - all they catch here is salmon (five kinds). OK they also catch rockfish & halibut - but a lot of salmon. In fact, they had a salmon cannery here until the 1960s or so.

I'm told that the winter king salmon they harvest here have the perfect fat content for making great lox, and so the Yidden were here, making lox to sell back east and ship to Europe. Go figure.

Shabbat Shalom and Chodesh Tov from the last frontier - Hoonah, Alaska.

Der Hoonah Rov

This past week saw major progress on getting the Sephina in the water.

1.) I managed to get the inverter to charge the house batteries. I'm not sure if it will invert, i.e., take 24 volts and convert it to 110 VAC, but we'll deal with that later. Keeping those house batteries charged is crucial.

2.) Got the hot water heater functioning. The inner lining of the Bradford-White 19 gallon unit was corroded, so I replaced it with an 11 gallon HWH that I was able to scavenge from an old sailboat. This unit is cool because you can actually heat water with engine coolant (when the engine is running, of course) without needing 110VAC. Sweet.

3.) Still plagued by plumbing leaks all over the boat, especially (it seems) on the hot water side. In particular, there is a bad leak in the aft head in the hot water line running up behind the shower. Problem is, there's no way to get to it without cutting into the fiberglass shower insert...Solution: I'm just plugging that line for now. We have two other showers aboard, so having that shower out of commission is not critical. Should have the last of the other leaks repaired today.

4.) We got to work on the bottom as well. We were about a quarter of the way through sanding and grinding out the rust when we were stopped by the rain. If all goes well, we should have the hull primed and painted by week's end - major step towards getting her in the water.

5.) In the heavy rain, we also discovered a roof leak up on the boat deck. Half the ceiling tiles in the salon have fallen down, because, I was told, of the high humidity associated with the temperate rain forest environment here. Yeah, right. It was really because of the roof leak. Good news is that I know right where its leaking and should be able to fix the leak readily.

I also decided to do a little fishing this week. I put up a sign on the fence behind the boat that reads:

ברוכים הבאים

SHALOM

Welcome to Hoonah, AK

~ Der Hooner Rov

Even though Hoonah is a Tlingit village numbering in the hundreds of people, cruise ships dock here several times a week. No one's come up to say hi yet, but several people have taken pictures of the sign. Haha we'll see what happens this week.

I also find it extremely interesting that there are no fewer than three Jewish headstones in the local cemetery, all dating back to the early 20th century. (I took pictures of the headstones, but we only have dial-up speed internet up here, so I'll upload the photos another time.)

What were Jews doing in Hoonah 100 years ago? Traders? Merchants? No one here seems to know.

Well have a good week. I hope to post more on our progress in very soon. 

Aboard the M/V Sephina
Hoonah, AK

Romance vs. Reality

Last week began with the Fast of Av, which was pushed off to the 10^th of the month because the 9^th fell on Shabbat of course.

It was also the first day we started work on the boat in earnest.

As I surveyed my new vessel, I was reminded of the verses in Eichah where Jeremiah contrasts the once incomparable beauty of Jerusalem with the gut-wrenching scenes of utter desolation after the Babylonians were finished with her.

Not to compare the Sephina with Jerusalem – but it was impossible not to observe how lovely this boat once was, in contrast to the decay, neglect and abuse we saw before us.

We spent most of our first week cleaning, scrubbing, discarding trash, etc. I pressure washed the topsides of the whole boat. There was so much moss and green slime growing on everything, especially the teak, that I wondered whether I had bought a boat or a terrarium. LOL

On the one hand, I like pressure washing because it indulges my childish need for instant gratification: from gray/grungy to sparkling white before your very eyes. OTOH, it’s also pretty boring, so it gives one lots of time to think. And think I did.

After surveying all on-board systems, I decided that my strategy for tackling the work ahead would be as follows:

-      -  Basic cleaning, scrubbing etc. 

     - Making the interior spaces habitable (hot & cold running water, electric, propane for the stove, functioning heads and showers, functioning washer/dryer, etc.)

-       - Sanding, scraping and painting the bottomsides

-       - Work on engine and genset

-          Make sure nav equipment, lights and other safety equipment all meet Coast Guard standards. 

     

     The hull concerns me the most, because the weather is supposed to start turning rainy and cold, and I want to bang that out early in the process. I can work in the engine room (aka “The Holy Place”) during a rainstorm; not so true of the bottom.

So how did we do?

We got 110 VAC (household electricity for you non electrical engineers) to the boat. The good news is lights came on. So did the galley fridge, freezer & microwave.  I also got one of the davit winches to operate. (The starboard davit winch needs rewiring – a project for later.) The bad news is that that’s about all that runs on shore power.

Most of the boat’s electrics run on 24 volt direct current; a few things run on 12 volt dc, but they too get their power from the 24 volt system through step-down transformers or directly from 12v batteries.

And as the 24 volt system was non-existent, I got to work rebuilding it.

We schlepped four 4D batteries (each weighs 120 lbs.) from Pennsylvania for the house bank. Getting those batteries aboard was quite a task, but B”H the winch made it manageable.

So by Wednesday evening, we had a house bank – and lots of other things came on! In particular, the 24 volt salon lights cast a very soft, warm glow on that space. Very cozy.

By Friday I had the 12 volt system up and running. This was critical, because the propane stove in the galley is equipped with a 12 volt cut-off solenoid. Extra safety precautions and procedures have been established with regard to propane use at sea: propane, which is heavier than air, tends to settle in the bilges or the lowest place it can find. One spark and you can cause an - ahem -"exothermic reaction." So for example, constantly lit pilot lights are a big "no no" on board. And the propane supply is regulated by a switch;  no power to the switch, no gas. The oven now works.

Water is a different matter. There are two 275 gallon water tanks on the boat, one portside aft and the other starboard aft. Once I had the 24 volt system up and running (for the water pump) I filled the tanks with water. Not my brightest move.

We discovered multiple water leaks, broken pipes, etc. throughout the boat. Also plenty of clogged drains, in part from biologicals taking up residence in my pipes. I spent a good part of the week patching those leaks, replacing pipe fittings, elbows, opening clogs etc. Still have a major leak that’s pumping water into the aft stateroom head. I hope to have that plugged by Sunday. So I can’t even test out the washing machine until the plumbing is intact.

But we accomplished a lot this first week, and are about 80% of the way to the making the boat functional – hot & cold running water, operable oven/stove, refrigerator, freezer, 

operable heads and showers, washer/dryer.

Next week we’ll finish that last 20% and get going scraping the hull.

Shabbat Shalom.

Allentown to Skagway

A Brief Summary of our drive to Alaska –

We left Allentown Thursday July 18, and arrived in Skagway, Alaska Friday, August 2. The 4,000 mile trip took us through Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, N. Dakota, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, Yukon Territory, and finally, Alaska.

Bison beside the Road

Mountain Goats Crossing the Highway

The trip was as beautiful as it was challenging. Being up close and personal with the wildlife (bison, moose, mountain goats and sheep, porcupines, and bears) was fun, and in particular, the drive from Fort Nelson, BC to the Yukon border was one of the most spectacular drives I’ve ever taken. Highly recommend this drive, especially around the Monchu Lake region. The drive down from Carcross to Skagway past Lake Bennett was also indescribably beautiful.

Monchu Lake

The challenges were all mechanical. I had just had a rebuilt engine put into the Suburban, and although it ran well in town, once we hitched up the RV and really put her to work, several significant issues emerged. Fuel leaks, coolant leaks and exhaust leaks were “overlooked” by the crew who did the rebuild and installation, and we lost two full days (and a great deal of money!) getting most of these issues resolved – 500 miles from PA. Arghhh…

We lost an oil cooler line north of Chicago, and the high pressure oil sprayed everywhere – engine bay, side of the truck, the trailer, everywhere. Although dangerous, I was able to make a roadside repair and continue onward. But from then on – even after scrubbing the truck and the trailer – everything was covered in inky black motor oil. Just leave your clean clothes at home…White shirt for Shabbat? Hahaha

We wound up needing four new tires on the travel trailer, as each one blew serially. But by far the biggest issue we had to deal with was overheating. The GM 6.5 liter turbo diesels have a rep for overheating, but in the 12 plus years I’ve owned "The Beast", I never really had much of a problem with overheating – until this trip. Then I understood.

First, it became clear after the first day or two of driving (during the 105^o heat wave of ’19) that the air conditioning in the truck couldn’t be used if we hoped to keep the engine cool. Luckily, we had a room air conditioner, so once in Toledo we mounted the generator to the top of the Suburban and ran the 120V a/c unit off the genset. Clever solution makes for a happy crew. And the a/c in the RV works like a dream. (As we wended our way north and west, we found ourselves needing the a/c less and less of course.)

The drive is very mountainous, and we were pulling a heavily laden 27’ travel trailer with a heavily laden Suburban. We were lucky to do 60 mph on the straightaways and 20-25 on the inclines. The Alaska Highway has several really long inclines, climbing straight up for over 8 miles or more. Steamboat and Summit Mountains were absolutely brutal. On three or four occasions, the temperature and pressure build up in the cooling system got to where the coolant reservoir hose forced itself off the reservoir fitting, dumping all the coolant onto the road, EVEN running the heaters full blast, and even after I double clamped it. (Always treat Boyle's Law with due respect!) FINALLY I had the  seichel (common sense) to open the cap and relieve the pressure on the system. Of course it boiled over a few more times, but we only lost a gallon of coolant each time instead of four.

But we overcame those challenges and others, and B”H we made it to Alaska. The truck looks like its been to Bosnia and back haha, a real war veteran…

There are no intercity roads south of Skagway in Southeast Alaska, so the plan was to take the State-run ferry first to Juneau and then to Hoonah Island, where the boat is. Only…we were informed that, for the first time since 1977, the Inland Ferrymen’s Union went on strike, so there would be no ferries until further notice. Ah, perfect.

Chasdei Hashem (thank Gcd for small mercies), the ferry strike was settled as we were pulling in to Skagway, but the first ferry wouldn’t be until Wednesday, August 7. As I write this, we are spending time in Skagway, waiting for the ferry tomorrow.

Skagway is an interesting place. It sits on a fjord and is surrounded on four sides by mountains with glaciers. Because it was the jumping off point for prospectors during the Klondike Gold Rush of 1898, they’ve recreated the town to resemble a Gold Rush village. There are five or six cruise ships in port at any given time, so from May to October, the town is crawling with tourists.

And – wonder of wonders – I discovered (after Shabbat unfortunately) that there are a handful of Jews here in Skagway, running one of the tourist attractions!! We went over to make friends – and in the finest tradition of my Bubby & Zayde, A”H, we left them with an Abeles & Heyman salami, since they haven’t seen kosher meat in months.

We spent our first Shabbat on the road with my sister Gabi and B-I-L Mike Mallin, who were, as always, the most wonderful and solicitous hosts. Shabbat #2 was spent at a quiet RV Park in Saskatoon, and our most recent Shabbat was spent in here Skagway.

We will actually first see the boat Friday afternoon, when we drive off the ferry in Hoonah. But no worries – at these latitudes, Shabbat doesn’t come in until 10:00 PM or so.

Then the real adventure begins.