When it rains

How does that saying go?  “When it rains, it pours”.  That’s a little how we are feeling right now.  Need I remind you that Craig is studying for his 10-year board re-certification test that he is taking in 2 weeks.  He is definitely in cram mode.

We knew enough to expect the unexpected, but this is getting down right ridiculous!  As you know, we started our trip with a bang, literally, when the outhaul snapped at 2 in the morning on our first night on passage.  Then the autopilot abandoned us the same night.  Okay, not to worry, there were 3 of us to hand steer 800 miles to New England.  We had the autopilot rebuilt in Tiverton RI and it looks brand new and even better, it works!  

When Craig “unpickled” the water maker on our passage, it didn’t work.  Bummer…. we’ll need to conserve.  Once in RI, he worked on it for a couple of days and couldn’t get the (great tasting) water into our tanks.  After calling the manufacturer out to the boat to make a house call (cha ching), we were told we needed a new solenoid for the valve.  Great, the water maker is fixed and working.  Relieved, Craig gets some study time in.

Not a day later, the port engine starts to smoke every time we start the engine.  Each day the white smoke coming out the side of the boat gets thicker and lasts longer.  Craig abandons his studies to dive into the engine compartment.  We can’t have the engine failing.  Fricka Fracka is all I heard coming from under the hood and a lot of scratching of his bald head.  A phone conversation with his stepdad (mechanic extraordinaire), they decided it was air in the line and not to worry.  Low and behold, today when we started the engine, hardly any smoke.  So maybe it just needed to get that out of its system.  Let’s hope so.

But wait, there’s more.  Before the stepdad consultation, Craig was into the starboard engine running the fuel cleaner and discovered black oil all over the sail drive seals.  This is good and bad.  It’s good because he knew it wasn’t oil from the sail drives themselves (phew), the oil was leaking from the engine somewhere.  “Crap, Honeeeyyyyyyyy”.  To make a long story short, we still don’t know where the leak is, but Craig has his suspicion and he is watching it.  Craig gets in a little study time after the girls go to bed.

Oh, don’t think this story ends here….Craig wakes up the next morning and wants some coffee.  This is a daily event on our boat.  But there is no water and the pump just keeps running.  I wake up to this strange noise and ask what’s up?  Craig informs me that we have no water.  I thought to myself “okay, you don’t need to over exaggerate!”.  But he was right, as I saw for myself when he switched on the instruments and our water meter read (dah dah dah dah) EMPTY!  What, how could that happen?  Craig whispers (cuz the girls are still sleeping at this early hour) some profanity that I won’t repeat here.  But it had to do with the engine, the water maker, the autopilot and now the water tank AND he is supposed to be studying.  How do I expect him to get any studying in if he has to fix the #@$& boat all the time.  We can’t possibly get by with no engine and no water.  How could we possibly lose 50 gallons of water and not know it!  We conclude that it’s the water maker somehow syphoning the water out a thru hull into the ocean.  Okay, we’ll call the guy again (cha ching) and see what he thinks.  In the meantime, no studying got done.  We had to get to a dock and get water.  We may as well get fuel and pump out too.  We are in Newport after all, the land of deep pockets and lots of choices.  We mosey over to a fuel dock and call ahead – “no, sorry sir, we are waiting for a 143 foot mega yacht to dock for the night, we won’t have room for you”.  Okay, no problem, we’ll go somewhere else.  We mosey to the next place, call ahead – “sure, no problem”.  We get over there and just as we are about to swing into the wind and pull up, a fishing boat swoops in and takes our spot.  Fricka Fracka.  This day is for the dogs.  It will go down in history as the worst day ever (we hope).  Oh and one more thing, our fuel cap (that hangs on a leash) broke and fell into the water as Craig pulled the fuel nozzle out.  GREAT! 

We motored back to the anchorage with our tail between our legs feeling very sorry for ourselves.  And, Craig didn’t get any studying done!

I am sorry to say that there is one more little part to this story.  We woke up this morning and had lost another 50 gallons of water overnight (promptly after we put 100 gallons in).  This time the water maker was turned off!  What the hell!  We tear the boat apart (literally) looking for any sign of water or leaks or ANYTHING.  Finally, we (when I say we, I mean Olivia & Maggie) discover that the shower on our starboard swim platform is on ever so slightly.  Ah-Haaa, maybe that’s it!  We turn the water maker back on, make some water and so far, we are holding steady.  We’ll let you know if we have water in the morning.

AKA a "Boat Buck" - you boat owners can relate!!

Trying to figure out the issue (that's under our bed by the way)