On the right side bar, click on “CATALINA PHOTO BOOK” to go to the Buoys & Gulls website then click on the Buoys & Gulls icon to view the Photo book information.

This book is must  have as it contains over 200 pages of beautiful photos of different items and locations on the island.

give Kirsty Moyser a call at (310) 510-0416 for more information about the book and how it came to be or to place an order for the book.

We really did not get to cruise a lot this past summer due to demands from the business.  When time did permit, we escaped to the boat and hid out at the slip.  Spent a lot of quiet time reading, listening to music and just kicking back.

We are still on the marina’s waiting list to move to a new slip on the other side of the marina but there aren’t many slips equipped with 50 amp 208 volt power outlets that the Makai requires.  The gangway that we are on now is at the east end of the marina and that is where most of the garbage ends up since there is no flow through to move it out of the marina.

Sometime in November we will haul out at Basin Marine in Newport Beach to get the bottom painted and a new application of Propspeed for the props, shafts and rudders.

With the delamination problem fixed, a couple of cracks in the gel coat repaired and a fresh coat of Marine Polish, the Makai is almost ready for the season.  Next is to haul out for bottom painting and have another coat of Propspeed applied.

We found a section of surface on the starboard side of the cabin that was delaminating. We notified our dealer, Heritage Yachts, who called in Steve Phelps of Cap’n Glass to assess the damage and determine what the cost would be to repair.  Steve made the quote to Dave Plotkin/Heritage Yachts, Dave gave the quote to Tony Duni, the owner of Heritage and Tony in turn submitted the quote to Mainship.  Even though the hull warranty had expired, Mainship covered the entire cost of repair.  Kudos to Mainship and Heritage Yachts for standing behind their product and taking excellent care of their customers.  This is our second Luhrs/Mainship boat and we will buy from Heritage/Mainship in the future if we decide to move up in size.

Sad to say, we have not been able to spend too much time on the boat during the first quarter.  A combination of bad weather, rough water and a busy work schedule did not work in our favor.   Being house bound with the business did give me time to return to an old passion of target shooting with rifles.  It has been a long time since we did any shooting so we used the web to to do some research and found that the shooting world had changed drastically.  Technology advances have raised the accuracy and distance bar for target shooting not to mention the new long distance sniper style weapons that are available.  The advent of the 50 caliber sniper rifle followed be a less damaging 338 Lapua Magnum cartridge have provide the ability to hit targets out to a mile and beyond.  We jumped in and ordered a Savage 110 BA rifle in 338 Lapua Magnum with all of the goodies and also converted two existing hunting rifles to long range target rifles.  Rather than bore those who do not shoot, you can follow the shooting progress by clicking on Long Distance Rifle Shooting on the lower right had side of the home page.

After mounting the dingy on the new Sea Wise Davit in the raised position, the dingy hides the stern light which is against the Coast Guard Navigation Rules pertaining to lights.  We are having an additional mast mounted white light installed on the transom that will extend above the top of the dingy and provide 135 degree coverage and can be seen for 2 nautical miles.  Problem solved.

Derek from Alcom reinstalled the FLIR Mariner camera and the system came up immediately on power up.  FLIR replaced our faulty unit with an upgraded model.  We can see the difference in contrast levels.  When the camera output is routed to the flatscreen TV in the Salon, the picture acuity is much greater.

        After many adjustments the dingy and the davit finally came together.

The Outboard had to be raised to clear the bottom (port side) pontoon.

Now to have the cover modified and wait for the conversion to electric and then we are done.

The installation of the Sea Wise Davit is more complex than it seems.  Alignment of  the attachment brackets on the dingy and associated hardware on the swimstep  is very precise.

The FLIR Night Vision camera system developed a problem.  When the system is powered up, the initial screen  (system information, etc.) displays for about 10 seconds and then the screen (Raymarine E80) goes blank with just the word Flir in dim grey letters  displayed at the top right of the screen.  When left on for over 30 minutes, the display shows what the Flir camera is pointed at.  The system continues to work without any problem until powered down.  If the system is immediately turned back on, it works and displays correctly.  If the system is left in the off position for 5 or more minutes, it displays a blank screen when powered up again.  Referred the problem to Gary at Alcom Marine Electronics.