We had a little stream of continuous water in the bilge. We could tell it was more than normal bilge water because the bilge pump was going off regularly. We have a Celectron bilge counter. It monitors how often and how long the bilge pumps run over a number of days. You setup conditions for it to blast out an alarm such as the high water alarm, which is particularly helpful with our shallow bilge.
With the boat recently loaded down with all of our cruising gear the ass end was low in the water and it was pushing up water through the rudder tube. There is a flange at the top that can be used to tighten down the packing. It requires emptying the cockpit locker and crawling back to the rudder. I headed back in
and snugged up the 8 bolts that hold the flange on. It seems to be water tight now.
That's why we do shake down cruises -to see what we can break. We'll see what's next..
We are out at Sucia Island now. It is weekend there are lot of boats out here. The anchorage is huge and could easily hold 100 more boats. It cracks me up when people complain about how crowded Sucia is. We are here on a peak summer weekend, and it is really pleasant to go take a hike on the island trails. We were at a BBQ with my friend's 80-something dad a while ago. He used to sail from the Puget Sound along the Inside Passage to Alaska during the Depression. We were talking about Sucia and the fun trips he used to have here. He said they quit going over to Sucia because it was getting too crowded. His daughter asked him when was the last time he was at Sucia. He said 1952!
While cruising around Echo Bay on the dinghy today we saw this mommy river otter and her pups in training.
Paul
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