You’re the first mate on your boat. It’s kind of nice because the captain’s responsible for everything, even though he (or she) really does need your help in so many ways: steering, landing, anchoring, provisioning, navigating, etc.

That list gets even longer if you’re out cruising for a week or three months.

In The First Mate’s Guide to Cruising the Inside Passage I explain that a good first mate:

• Learns her (or his) boat duties, maybe not perfectly at first, to a tee.

    We just installed a Charles Marine isolation transformer in L'Esprit.
    Honestly I'd never even heard of the thing until we arrived in Petersburg, Alaska, and had to move from the preferred North Dock to South Dock, which was farther from town.
    Our crime? Every time we connected our shore power, we kicked on the dock's circuit breaker. Maybe a ground wire came loose. Maybe a current decided to change paths. Whatever. I'm not an electrical genius. All I know is we had to pull up stakes and move to the far end of town, and that we were in danger of electrifying the surrounding water and divers within.
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   I love soft hoses. So does Captain Dave, which surprised the heck out of me since he loves all things industrial strength.
   I love them because they’re easy to store. They collapse into a supple half-a-Trader-Joe’s bagful, instead of a stubborn coiled pile that’s the size of a car tire. That means I can store in a closet or under the floor boards without hogging a lot of space.
   And they weigh a fraction of what those big-guy hoses do. With one finger, I can lift that Trader Joe’s bag that’s holding my flexible hose.  

   It rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest, which means your shore power cord is vulnerable to corrosion. Corrosion, as you know, creates resistance to electrical flow exactly where you don't want it: where the male end of your plug meets the female end of your shore power. At least that's what we've found aboard L'Esprit.
   But thanks to Shawn Clarke of Pacific Marine Electric in Bellingham, we have learned to combat this problem.

   One of the really fun aspects to cruising the Pacific Northwest is anchoring in secluded bays and coves, where you are the only boat for miles. But that's also kind of scary because, if you're like many boaters, you worry about the trustworthiness of your anchor and chain.
   Capt. Dave, as he is wont to do, read an article about some survivors of a Caribbean hurricane. One thing they attributed to their survival was a Wasi Powerball, a well-made German stainless steel anchor-to-chain connection swivel.

If you boat in the Inside Passage (anywhere between Olympia to Glacier Bay), there a some excellent books you’ll want to have on board. In fact Capt. Dave and I think they’re so important, we have a copy of each at home as well as on board.  Here they are: ​

First published 10/26/17
By guest blogger Fred Kaufhold, of M/V Dreamweaver, â€‹Anacortes, Washington. This post is an addendum to "Ground Your Boat for Swimmers' Safety."I thought my isolation transformer would be enough.
   Recently, while cruising our boat in SE Alaska, we entered Petersburg where we intended to stay for two months for various reasons not germane to this story.  Because of our extended stay, we wanted to be in the north harbor which is in the center of town rather than the alternative south harbor.  After receiving our slip assignment, I dutifully plugged my shore power cable into the impressive new power pedestal on the dock, turned on my own shore power breaker on the boat and promptly tripped the dock breaker.