Once we put up sail, heeled over a bit and were at an angle to the waves the motion became smoother. Wecantu eats this stuff up and asks if she can please have some more.
During our outing we got approached by a U.S. Border patrol boat, which has never happened to us before. They were nice, asked a few questions, then went on their way. It was a bit disconcerting though, as both boats were bobbing around quite a bit, and we were trying to communicate, and the feeling was similar to getting pulled over by the police. Except you can't just pull over and stop - you have to continue to handle the boat and interact with them, which creates a lot of things to be aware of at once. With the Olympics in Vancouver B.C. in 2010 security is getting ramped up, so it is good to know that they are out there patrolling the waters.
We spent the rest of the weekend back at the marina. Matt was cleaning the outside of the boat, while I cleaned the inside. I opened up the floorboards to do a routine check of the bilge, and to my horror there were several inches of water there, and it was pink. I could think of four things that would be pink - kool aid, blood, coolant and diesel. Did someone spill kool aid? No. No dead bodies, so not blood. Oh, no, is the engine leaking coolant, or did the diesel tanks now have a leak? That would be a bad thing. And has it got into our water tanks? I called Matt down and we checked the engine - everything looked fine there. I thought and thought, then remembered that we had two containers of coolant stored under the nav station seat. Sure enough, I got them out and one had a drip at the bottom of it. We assumed that all the bucking around the previous day (see video above) tramautized the container a bit too much. Luckily none of the other containers of engine oil or coolant broke.
I used the handheld manual bilge pump and filled up several containers making a total of three gallons pumped. We had only lost maybe a gallon or so of coolant, so there was a bit of water in the blige it mixed with, which probably came from all the heavy rainfall we've had lately. Fortunately the water tanks were not contaminated. Later in the day we went into town and bought a tub to store all engine fluid containers in. So if anything else decides to leak, it'll be somewhat contained. Every time we go out on the boat, we learn something (or many things). Luckily all our lessons so far have been fairly gently taught, but well learned!
We kept ourselves busy this past weekend with projects inside the boat. First we chased some leaks. The heavy rains created some fairly active drips, rivulets, and a couple of small puddles. All boats leak, but we worry about the wood in the deck rotting. Matt put some silicon over the suspect areas up on deck for a temporary fix.
I tackled the project of removing the old insulation up in the v berth. (See photos - right photo has insulation removed, along with some paint, left side is partway done.) It's been there for at least 30 years and is rather musty - especially on the starboard side where there is a notable leak that drips down. This was not the nicest project; the insulation was behind wooden slats, 12 on each side, each slat having an average of 4 screws to remove. Then, the insulation had to be removed, and it did not come off cleanly - I had to do a lot of scraping because each square had been adhered completely to the hull. And since there isn't a lot of space to work in, a whole lot of uncomfortable contorting went on to accomplish all this. Hours of contorting...
Meanwhile, Matt worked on re-installing the Dickinson kerosene heater and attempted to get it to run. He replaced most of the old copper tubing with fuel hose, added a fuel filter, and reworked the wiring for the heater fan. After several very smoky tries, he almost got it going, but he turned on the fan which caused the flame to go out. It is obvious that the heater is going to be just as finicky to light as the kerosene stove and oven are. However, we are hopeful we can get it running next time. It will be nice to have a heat source that's not dependent on shore power.
Our current project is the boomkins. They were painted over grey, and we'd rather have the actual wood showing. We took the boomkins home and sanded them down. The wood is good with no rot, so we are treating them with several coats of cetol. (Wecantu currently has a rustic looking, temporary boomkin setup made of 2x4s from Home Depot. Rather unseaworthy, but she is being very patient about the whole process...)
