I made a trip out to Blue Pelican Marine in Alameda CA.  This is a marine consignment store run by Tom Bliss.  They recently expanded, more than doubling the square footage, and I believe he also does a fair online business with e-Bay consignments.  Blue Pelican is the kind of place you go looking for something and leaving with something else. There’s a variety of vintage nautical gear as well as lines, teak, chandlery, safety equipment, winches, books rigging and usually a couple dozen items you wouldn’t expect to find anywhere.  Prices are generally very fair.

Cockpit grate material – some shutters and 1×2 teak

I went in today looking at some material for a cockpit grate for the Nor’sea.  In picked up some type of louvered hatch and some 1x2x6′ strips that I believe I can turn into a serviceable grate that can be used to cover the cockpit. I am not sure the 1/2×2 material currently used in the slats will be rugged enough for long term use as a cockpit grate, so I thought I could beef it up with the 1×2. In any case it was $40 for the grate and $30 for the three pieces of unfinished teak, 1×2″ x 6′.

Infrared Space heater with a nice nautical wood box

I also found this cool infrared heater, which has a thermostat, LED display and a very nice wood cabinet.  It has wheels on the bottom, too.  It might fit into the area between the Nav station and the galley counter where the current stove is.  It was $49 and retails online for  around $120

Some beautiful 6-loop handrails

This pair of beautiful teak 6-loop handrails was $59.  it will need some new teak plugs and there is a chip down toward the end. I have 5- and 4- loop rails on my Nor’sea.  I have new 4-loop rails.  I’ll need to decide whether to cut these down to 5-loop or use them as-is on the Catalina 27. This was about the same price Defender charges for a single 5-loop handrail, unfinished.

This relief band is worn on the wrist and sends out a periodic electrical stimulus. Supposed to last a couple hundred hours on non-replaceable batteries.

Finally, I found this interesting anti sea-sickness device, which is designed to electronically stimulate acupressure points in the wrist.  A year ago I worked with a gentleman at Cardica, Inc. who previously was involved in marketing a similar medical device for nausea. Could it be the same thing?  It’s called the ReliefBand.  The website indicates it was discontinued and replaced by the prescription-only Reletex. It was $8, so I figured I would give it a shot This is intended for my wife, Kathy, who can get seasick on the dock. . Batteries are non-replaceable, but I may be able to find a way around that, being an electrical engineer in another life.