We left Gig Harbor early in the morning and headed to Longbranch Improvement Club Marina. Cute place. Docks in good condition and plenty of room for us. We had a heck of a time getting onto the dock though because the wind was right on our beam blowing us off the dock while Dave was backing into the slip. Fortunately, two good samaritans came out to help us get tied down.
After that it was time for boat projects! Melissa has been wanting a wash down pump installed in the bow to clean off the anchor chain as it comes up from a muddy bottom to keep all the mud out of the anchor locker. We’ve been carrying around the parts for a couple of years now. On last year’s trip the guys concluded that they wouldn’t be able to snake a pipe from the available through hole in the bow bilge up to the anchor locker. But Dave bought a new tool this year for use in another project – snaking wires to install another solar panel – a borescope. It’s a device you hook up to your phone and you can see where you are snaking. So rather than blindly trying to run a snake through a wall, you can aim it where you want it to go (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MYTHWK4). With this the guys thought they might be able to snake the hose down to the through hole. A through hole is what it sounds like – a hole through the hull of the boat. They are capped with a valve that you only open when you want something either to go out the hole or water to come in the hole. The spare through hole hooked up to the washdown pump would allow the pump to pull up seawater when in operation.
Alas even with the boroscope, the guys couldn’t find a path to run the hose. They eventually decide to mount the pump in the anchor compartment and we will just have a hose we drop over the side into the water while in operation. But that means they need to test whether at deck level the pump will self-prime. Meaning can it clear the air in the hose and suck up water, or do you have to prime it manually because it doesn’t have the power to pull up the water unless the hose is already full of water.
So they decide to test the pump first. Here is Dave getting ready to connect the pump to a battery to test it. Right about now Dave looks at Jim and says with a grin, “You really want to stand there?”
Eventually the guys decide they know exactly how to install the pump, but lack all the necessary parts. So that project remains on the list.
Meanwhile, Melissa and Margaret inventory the remaining food. We have just enough food to make it through to Sunday lunchtime. After that things get pretty skinny. Though there is always some tuna fish in the cupboard, so if we were to get stuck out one more night for some reason, we can always make tuna casserole. At this point Dave’s ears perk up. Tuna casserole is one of his favorites. So might be that the frozen shrimp stay frozen.
As we are at the dock, where we can turn on the air conditioning, Melissa decides to cook up the artichokes. (You have to boil them for 30 minutes – so it generates a lot of heat and steam.) We had the artichokes with a pesto mayo for lunch.
Dave turns on the air conditioning. Click. Blows the dock side breaker on the shore power. Hmmm. Problem is the breaker is in a box that is padlocked so we can’t reset it. Dave suspects inductive load is causing a phase imbalance that looks like a current imbalance to the GFCI (ground fault circuit interrupt). We moved to another outlet on the dock. Alas, the hot water heater was on and as Dave plugged in, the second outlet blew its GFCI breaker because not all three contacts got connected simultaneously. Sigh. So we switch to a third outlet, and this time do Dave’s trick of connecting up to the battery charger and letting the battery power all the AC systems on the boat. This way he can turn on the air conditioning for a while and let the boat cool down before having to let the battery fully recharge.
As we plan to take the bog 20 HP engine out tomorrow and go for an adventure, Melissa digs out the dingy spares kit. We haven’t rigged it up since we got back from Panama as we haven’t been far enough from Apsaras with the dingy that we couldn’t row back. But we plan to do several miles tomorrow and that means we need to make sure the spares kit with the spare prop and tools to change the prop are aboard the skiff.
For dinner, Melissa marinated some lamb chops in red wine, garlic, and rosemary. Jim grilled them up while Margaret and Melissa made a risotto from some leeks, lobster mushrooms, and that beef stock Melissa made up before we left. A side of sauteed kale and shallots. Nice glass of Merlot to finish it off. Yumo.
