Philippines, Subic Bay

Hello

Hi Everyone,

  Randal and I are fine.  My Red Sox are not so fine.  3 wins, 4 losses and they are at the bottom of the AL East.  Only one way to go!  I have no sense of panic yet.  They’ll be fine.  It’s amazing how a World Series Championship the prior year calms one’s fears.

Our friend Carol Carino came back to visit this weekend and we have had a wonderful, too short time. This weekend is a holiday weekend to honor the memory of the  Bataan Death March.  Mt. Samat. in Bataan,  has a memorial and museum dedicated to the Bataan March and we went there Sunday. It was an all day Bataan adventure with Carol as the leader and her driver for the guide.  It was great!   Saturday we took DoraMac into the bay to test our new anchor, and the redone “fish” which, sadly,  still aren’t perfect, but are getting better.  Everything needs to be tested to make sure it will work; and then it will be galvanized.  Our friend Greg came with us too, to help and offer advice and support.  The weather was slightly overcast so that made it nice; not so hot!  That evening we all went back to our new favorite restaurant,  Aresi for a meal of good food and conversation. 

  Earlier this week we had tested the anchor in the sand on the beach.  Nick had suggested this test and it did seem to go well.  Some of the sand was really too hard for the anchor to dig into, so that part of the test didn’t work out.  Here are some photos of the test with Nick and then the bay test with Carol and Greg.

clip_image001 Arriving at the beach with the anchor.  Nick and Randal make a plan.

clip_image002 We didn’t bring the real anchor chain, but just a heavy duty rope for the test.

clip_image003 Attaching the line to the suv.

clip_image004 The anchor has dug into the sand.  The man on the right owns the Lighthouse Hotel and also the sailboat, Purpose Driven.  Randal had sat with him at the last awards dinner for the races.  I opted not to go to the dinner.

clip_image005 First the anchor had been pulled straight back. 

This test pulled it sideways to see if it would turn itself around and dig in.  It dug in well enough to spin Nick’s wheels.

clip_image006  The anchor

clip_image007  This is actually not far down the beach from our land test.  We needed to get into shallow enough water and the depth goes from like 100 ft to 5 feet very sharply and that is only a very slight exaggeration.

clip_image008  The anchor seemed to work well.  We had forgotten our washdown hose so the anchor is a bit mucky.

clip_image009  Randal, Greg, and Carol on our way back to the SBYC

Ruth Johnson

DoraMac