Laminating the Front Face of the Paddle

I spent a few hours at Charlie and Amy's house. I feathered out the fiberglass laps from Saturday's work, and placed the carbon and fiberglass on the front face of the paddle. I shaped in a curve to the edges of the paddle - and because of that the carbon kept wanting to lift off the edge. I had to coax the carbon to make it stay on the edge as the epoxy cured. Here is the finished product. I thought it turned out well. I should be able to surf with this on Saturday (oh wait a minute - some @ssh0le stole my truck Sunday night from the apartment complex parking lot!!!! UFB!!!! For the record, this is the third car that has been stolen from me while living on Oahu... what is it about me, Oahu and stolen vehicles????) - what am I going to do without the Surf Taco....

Before and After

This one is a bit out of order... This is the Surf Taco loaded for bear before the surf session on Monday. Not exactly at capacity - I could have loaded several more beach toys in the bed and if needed, I could make more room by strapping the paddles up on the top rack. After the surf session, the load grew by two more "larger than the first set" boards. Now this was just a hair on the side of "OK" capacity wise. The straps almost didn't wrap around and there wasn't much room anywhere. Nice getting to haul a bunch of stuff again!!!

Getting to Work - Just Barely

Here are a couple of pictures of the truck with the racks on going through the parking garage I park in at work. Even without the racks, the antenna provides entertainment in the form of scraping against the bottom of the garage ceiling.

Racks Back on the Surf Taco

Like the post title says, I put the rack back on the truck on Saturday. I have been hesitant because the parking garage I have to use when I'm at work has a couple of spots where the antenna 'rubs' the concrete beams. I've been studying the clearance issue and I believe I can get to the floor where I am supposed to park without getting stuck. I have a couple of inches clearance from the top of the rack to the top of the antenna - I may do a test run today (Sunday - nobody should be at the building so I can take my time driving the route, stop and get out to look at the actual clearance). I have also noticed I have been getting better gas mileage without the racks on. I only have three tanks of gas worth of data, but I'll take the racks off again in the future to test this out. It may be the fact that I had the spark plugs changed out as well... In either case, it feels good to have the racks back on - the truck stands out from a sea of similar vehicles (this is the favorite truck of Hawaii by far) and I can find the truck faster in a parking lot.

Front Hitch Receiver All Pau

Here it is - lucky I was at my sister-in-law's house (she was a heavy equipment mechanic in the Army) - I needed a bunch of tools that I didn't have with me... Thanks Clarinda and Anthony! I slipped the bike rack in since I didn't have any other attachments handy. The rack is really high compared to the rear hitch receiver. I am planning to use a cooler carrying rack with rod holders in the hitch, but also try using the front hitch to maneuver a trailer around - I haven't tried it, but I have heard it is easier than backing a trailer. The Bed Extender that I had used to carry the Big Tuna kayak also inverts into a vertical extension - I am going to see how it can be used up front. I've also seen fishing beach carts mounted in hitch receivers with the right accessories - looking forward to the experimentation and making the Surf Taco more versatile!

Surf Taco Surgery

So before I ship the Surf Taco across, I wanted to put a Front Hitch Receiver on it. I ordered a high-mount version from CBI Offroad. I had to take the grill, the front bumper cowling, the sway bars and the actual bumper off. The hitch receiver actually tucked in very nicely (after tons of unbolting of other parts). I thought the project would take a few hours. After six, I was resetting the last screws. I'll post pictures of the final product shortly.

Not Big Boards

For the longest time now I have been ferrying really big SUPs on top on the Surf Taco. I wasn't even sure the Beater would fit between the rack span. I'm only posting because this looked really funny to me.

Land Yacht

Yesterday was my last day working in the Navy. Today I start my permissive TDY (job finding and house hunting leave) and terminal leave (my built up leave). I go off active duty at the end of August, so between then and now my priorities are as follows: relax and spend time with the family (making up for lost time on deployments/unaccompanied tours); flyfish; surf; prepare the house for the packers; find a job; start looking for a house. A major part of this is where the heck we will put our heads at night. This move, especially since we don't know how long it will be or where we will end up, is positioned to be the most chaotic one yet. That was until yesterday. My first official act (or act in general) in my non-working mode was to go and pick up a used camper trailer. Now we don't have to worry about what hotel we are going to stay in, or which friend's house we are going to crash at, and staying at a campground is way more affordable on a fixed income. The other reason we are doing this is to make sure we can adjust to a life aboard a smaller living space (i.e. a liveaboard catamaran) - doing this on land is a way cheaper way to determine if we can get along with less stuff and live in a more confined space. And when you really break it all down, the truck cab space is the helm and engine room, the truck bed is hull and hold storage space, the trailer when opened is the interior (and external) living space - this is our big catamaran distilled down to the basics (just in a terrestrial form). The camper towed very easily. I even had to drive through two thunderstorms with really gusty winds. It didn't even strain the engine. I have visions of waking up next to a surf break in my head - we are going to have an awesome time with this trailer!!! Technically, if we are treating this as a boat, we need to name it, but La and I have not discussed that yet - I am for the name "Sabbatical". Oddly enough, we're going to store the trailer in the garage until we depart... I just cleared the garage and now I have something bigger to jam in there...

Paddling Maze

Besides fishing Mason Springs, we made the drive out to paddle the Mattawoman Creek. We launched from Salvens Boat Ramp and went with the current and wind. Along the drift, we found a cut through - or at least we thought it was a cut through. We really wanted to be on the other side from where we were - but there were a tons of glitter boats (bass boats - they are all so sparkly) blocking access to that part of the water way. If this cut out worked, we would have been back up current and up wind of the launching point. Well - we got a big dead end. Fun nonetheless! On the way back, the kids got tired and a tow from La (Hooyah PT) I don't think I could get four paddleboards, lifejackets, rinsing water and fishing poles packed smartly on any of the other vehicles I was looking at a couple of years back. I'm glad I got the Surf Taco!

Easter Sunday at Shenandoah National Park, Part 1

I took the family over to SNP to hike the upper portion of the Rapidan River - this is about 4 miles above the spot I was at a few weekends back. This section was also skinnier than to lower section. And worst of all, I did not see one single trout. We did love hiking along the boulders and four wheeling to get to the different spots!

Buried in Snow

Yes that is my truck. Yes that snow is piled up on the tonneau cover to nearly the height of the cab. Yes we had to dig the truck out - 3 hours of shoveling. Now I really hate winter. Thank goodness we have a short driveway...

Amphibious Assault

This should have been the first post of the weekend - the Surf Taco all dressed up for a full on assault on the beaches of lower Virginia! We had everything from the Beater board, the Fourth Gear Flyer (which the kids used), fishing gear (which I unfortunately didn't break out), and even La's sewing machine all packed up. I love this truck more every weekend!

Pulling Out a Stuck SUV

I took a trip to Kauai a few years back and got a Dodge Charger for a rental car (it was all the rental company had). I had a little free time and I wanted to check out a beach I had hiked to a much longer time ago. The paved road ended and turned into a hard packed dirt road. The hard dirt road ended in a series of cutouts between naupaka bushes where you parked your car, walked out to the wide beach and proceed to have a wonderful time. Dodge Chargers and deep sand banks disguised as hard pack dirt road don't go well together. After sweating my ass off trying to dig the car out (by hand), a local guy in a Toyota 4x4 pickup truck came rolling along and offered to pull me out. He got me back out on to the hard pack and I offered him the money I had in my wallet ($60) but he said 'no - I'm just glad to help out'. I said mahalo and we parted ways. Since that time, I bought my Surf Taco and one of the first things I bought was a tow strap. Yesterday I got my chance to pay it kokua forward and pull someone who was stuck out of their predicament. I love my truck!

Hooked SUP Arrived, Part 1

I've been tracking the delivery and I saw it arrive at the local freight terminal this morning. I called and asked if I could just stop by and pick it up. I loaded it (104 degrees out today) and drove it home. I had a migraine by the time I got home so I didn't unpack the board until evening time. No issues with the box or pick up. The Bak Flip Tonneau folded up and I had the boxed board (with a red flag of course) hanging out the back of the bed. Have I said I love my truck??? If not - "I love my truck" and I am stoked the board is here!