Belay Pins from Thailand

One of Matt's projects to make pinrails for the boat. We decided to order up some belay pins rather than trying to make our own, and after a bit of internet research he finally found a place in Thailand that manufactures the size we needed.
They just arrived yesterday, and Matt can carry on with the project. He's made the pinrails, and now that the pins are here he can drill holes in the rails for the pins to go through. Oh, except that he discovered that the actual pins are ever so slightly bigger than the specs stated, so he needs an ever so slightly bigger bit for the drill press, which needs to be ordered, so we'll have to wait for that to arrive. Ah, boat projects.

The Mystery of the Pink Bilge Water

We had a few exciting things happen this weekend.

Our original plan was to head up to Lopez Island for a few days. But after a few hours of being under way we realized that Mother Nature wasn't really stacking the deck in our favor. Wind and waves were coming from a more Northerly direction rather than the forecasted NW, so we would either be motoring into the waves (uncomfortable), or tacking our way up to Lopez which adds up distance wise. (Wecantu's average speed can range from 2 to 6 knots depending on conditions and if we are sailing or motoring. The distance from Sequim Bay to our favorite Lopez anchorage is roughly 30 nm on a direct course.) Also, the currents would be against us later in the day. In the summer all of this isn't as much of an issue. However, daylight hours are limited this time of year and we didn't feel up to the challenge of anchoring in the dark. So our outing turned into a very good day sail. The winds picked up to a nice 20 to 24 knots, with waves around 2 to 4 feet.

We motored for a while, and in the video below you can see how Wecantu is bashing through the waves. We know it's bouncy when our ship bell rings. (You might hear it.) This is a clue to the mystery of the pink bilge water.

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!