Day 33 A stinky day in Newport

Started out the day clearing out the "garage"--also known as the storage hold on the bow  of the boat.  Several feet wide by three feet by 5 feet deep.  A great place to keep things that you need but want out of the way.  This is also where the tank is for the forward head.  You remember--the tank that split a seam and needed to be fixed?  The same place that the pump out for the tank lives.  Lucky me--I got to take everything out of the "garage" and dismantle the pump.  It still acted like it was pumping--going up and down--but it wasn't pumping anything off the boat as it is supposed to.  To make a long, smelly story short, I got it all cleaned out and parts replaced and now it will work fine.  Unfortunately, I can't fix the seam on the tank until it warms up enough to use the fiberglass repair kit.  It needs at least 65 degrees and we are no where near that.  Low to mid 50's at best.  Today was totally cloudy--never saw the sun.  Afterwards, everything back into the garage.   Maybe tomorrow but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Ran errands in the afternoon.  Hit up the local marine supply store.  They had been closing on Saturdays at 3pm but expanded their hours to 4pm today for the Summer.  Wow--open clear to 4pm.  Still closed on Sunday as is most of Newports businesses.  Try that in Denver and the customers will have many bad things to say to you.

We expect to be heading back to Portland on Monday.  We know some battery experts there. I'd talked to them several times in the past and bought some electronic for Zephyr there back in December.  Nice couple of guys--ones an engineer and the other use to work for NASA if memory serves me right.  Getting batteries here is just a no win situation.  Anything you want just takes to long.  With two shipments coming in wrong, we have had enough and will be off to the big city.

The fun continues tomorrow.  Every day, we learn more and more about Zephyr and her many systems.  That's all part of the fun of going sailing.  It's not all fun in the sun, let me tell you but you do get a great feeling of accomplishment after seeing how things work and getting them back up and running.  We are learning what all her different sounds are.  Everything from the refrigerator coming on to the water pump to the bilge pump.  Each has its vibrations and tells you "hey--I'm still here". We've laid in a dozen of each filter for the engine.  Both diesel and oil.  We'll be prepared once we get off shore just in case we need to replace anything.

We order a new water pump today.  We've had a problem with pressurizing our water system.  Tanks full-runs fine.  Tanks half full-runs all the time.   We'd started isolating the tanks one by one to see if one of the tanks had a bad hose and that was why it was malfunctioning.  We'd close off three tanks and see if the fourth caused the problem. Tanks one acted up with the pump just continually running.  Tank two did the same.  Since we can't believe that both tanks had the same problem and since the pump was making really strange noises, we just ordered a new one.  We'll see if it corrects the problem once it gets here.  At the worst, I have a backup pump for the boat.  Can't have too many backup parts you know.  ;-)