We decided to take a day off from sailing and get a few odd jobs done that had cropped up.
I've talked a lot about Mother Nature scheming against us in this post. Within an hour of us pulling in here, the winds shifted from the Northwest--the direction we had been heading-- to coming out of the South--a perfect wind that would have taken us where we had been heading. She just waited till we got where we needed to go before she shifted directions. It's been blowing out of the South ever since. That is until today when it shifted back to the Northwest--the direction we will be going today. Oh well. The forecast is for winds in the 10 to 20 knot range so that will make it interesting once we leave.
As to yesterday, I started with the problem with the bilge pump. As you may recall, on our trip to Selby Cove, I had turned on the bilge pump to get rid of a bit too much water down there. Well, it ended up being a syphon and just pulled more water back in instead of getting rid of it once I turned the switch off. We had the winds off the starboard(right) side and that made the outlet under water. I finally used the manual pump and that took out enough water to stop the syphon effect. I figured that the anti syphon valve was clogged. I opened the cabinets to get to the valve. I found the hose but there was no valve. It just went up above the water line to a clamp and then down to the through hull. This would explain the syphoning of the water. I did find a shut off valve that I didn't know was there so in the future if the same thing happens, I can shut off the through hull. I also now know to not run the bilge pump when on a starboard tack as that places the through hull under water plus to close the through hull fitting when on long passages.
Next, on the the "automatic" switch that is the safety switch that is supposed to activate the bilge pump if too much water gets down there. It had failed to turn on the bilge pump as the water rose in the bilge. Down into the bilge with with a volt meter to see if any contact was being made or if it was simply broken. The bilge pump worked fine when turned on manually but when the switch was engaged it never switched on--a bad thing. You need to know that even if you aren't looking at the bilge, any excess water that might get in there is being pumped out. It's a simple switch. As the water goes up, it swings the float up and the pump is turned on.
Now I will be in search if a new one in Nanaimo. I'm sure I can find a replacement there.
Next project--the seats on Zephyrs stern. Zephyr has two seats on the stern rails for nice
seating when we are under way and you don't want to sit in the cockpit. They were covered in blue canvas when we bought Zephyr and we thought that the fabric covered two pieces of plywood. Not so! When we stopped in to see Bill and Susan in Birch Bay, Susan told us there was beautiful teak under the covers. I pulled off the covers to see yesterday. Wow, they're beautiful! The covers looked horrible after the Winter (lots of green mold)so I started cleaning them in a bucket with soap and some bleach. I let them soak while I went on to other projects.
I'd installed a new bronze through deck fitting for the forward waste tank last May and it was beginning to look a bit tarnished so out with the polish and she cleaned up great. I went on and shined up the other fitting at the stern head and treated both with "Penetrol". It keeps the bronze looking great by stopping the tarnishing that comes with nature. I'd done the bronze bow rollers back in August and they still look great. Since I'd removed the cowl vents on the stern, the fittings for those is also in bronze so I shined them as well. The oldest one is still a bit discolored so I used some ketchup on it. The acids in it are supposed to eat away the tarnish "naturally". The first application cleaned the hole cover that had been in storage but not so much the ring that attaches to the deck so I put a second coat on it and it has been "soaking" all night. We'll see how she looks this morning. Meanwhile the other fittings look brand new.
I pulled the wall boards off in front of stern holding tank for the head for one last check to make sure the plumbing wasn't leaking after the repairs I did a month ago. I'd added chalk and extra hose clamps to make sure they were all sealed. A month later and they are still fine. No leakage!
I rinsed out the canvas covers for the stern seats and let them dry. After that, I sprayed on fabric waterproofing to make sure they will resist the elements and I'll be putting them back on today. No reason to have that beautiful teak exposed to the elements.
Two other boats came into the anchorage during the evening so we watched as they anchored. One big power boat anchored much farther out into the our little harbor. Not sure why but we're glad he's away from us. The other headed way into the inlet and anchored just off shore. We all must be anchored well as the winds are now up to the 20 knot range and so far, no one appears to have dragged their anchor. Let's hope it stays that way.
The DuoGen is eating up this wind making lots of amps for our battery system. With the Webasto heater and the frig running, we typically use about 80 to 90 amps every day. Thank goodness we have the Honda generator. It's much better at recharging than using the engine. It would take much longer using it than it does the generator and it costs less to run.
We'll be off later this morning once the winds calm down a bit. Of course we hope the winds change to a different direction but not much chance of that so we will see where we end up.
Have a great weekend!
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