Boat Maintenance
Pruth Bay
Sum It Up Sunday | Have I Mentioned It’s Been Raining . . . A Lot?
Sunday, July 10, 2016TheCambrians
The date on the calendar may read the 10th
of July, but it feels more like March. We’re in the midst of an atmospheric battle for dominance
and the low-pressure systems are winning. There’s really no other way to say
it: The weather sucks. And not just here at 51° N, it’s happening all along the
Inside
Passage
– the North Coast, the Central Coast, the Broughtons, Desolation Sound,
all the way down to Puget Sound. It’s been cold, wet and windy – not exactly the summer we
were hoping for, but it’s the one we’ve been handed.
Not every day has been bad. We’re seeing two or three decent
days, followed by four or five poor ones right now. When we anchored in Pruth Bay last Sunday, we were at the end
of one of these weather cycles and the first part of the week was somewhat nice,
allowing opportunities to get to shore and walk the beaches – the main reason
boats come to Pruth Bay in the first place. But by
Thursday, the clouds had rolled back in, the heater was on, and the rain was
falling once again. Even today, after the barometer has steadily risen over the
last two days to a reasonable 1015 Mb (up from 1001 Mb – quite low for this
time of year), it’s wet and dreary.
Our plan was to only stay a couple of nights but we received
an e-mail from some friends saying they were on their way north. I wrote back
to tell them where we were and that we’d wait for them. So, we waited. And then
waited some more. By the time we decided they weren’t coming, the weather had
turned so we kept waiting, using the time to look at our options and decide
where to go next.
We were thinking about making a run up Burke Channel to Bella
Coola, someplace we’d never been. But I ran into some folks on shore the other
day and, as luck would have it, one of them was from the area. I wouldn’t say
he talked me out of the idea, but the look on his face when I mentioned our
plans told me all I needed to know: Don’t bother. But he did give me the head’s
up on a natural hot spring pool that he claimed was better than Eucott Bay. And believe me when I tell you,
we’re ready for a long, hot soak. So, we scratched our plans for Bella Coola
and decided to go up Burke Inlet, find the Tallheo Hot Springs, spend a night
in nearby Larso Bay, sail up to Eucott Bay for a couple of days and then sail
down Dean Channel to Ocean Falls where I have a new charger for my camera battery waiting. Perfect! Until David tried to start the motor
and it wasn’t interested in our plans.
It wasn’t just the engine. The first to dig in their heels
and say no was the inverter, a piece of equipment that converts 12 volt direct
current (dc) from the battery bank to 220 volt house current (ac). Then the gas
detector failed, shutting down the entire LPG system in the middle of cooking
dinner. And the bilge pumps went on strike as well. Diagnosis: a bad battery
switch. Fortunately, we carry spares. Unfortunately, like with every other boat
in the world, a job that should take an hour or so, took all day. So, we’re
still anchored in Pruth Bay.
But the good news is that’s about to change. The bad news is
the stove still doesn’t work. It looks like a fuse may have blown, likely from
a power spike, and the gas detector alarm won’t reset or allow the solenoid to
open. In other words, we can’t cook until we find the fuse . . . shame it’s not
located on the control panel. David’s going to take another stab at it this
morning, if he gets it fixed, we’ll stick to our original plan. If not, we’ll
move up to Shearwater where we have access to a chandlery if we need it, a
store to buy some bread now that I can’t bake any, and start all over again.
8 comments
I am feeling your pain. So it Mike.
ReplyDeleteI know it'll get better and we'll at least have a few weeks where it feels like summer again but, man, it sure is taking it's sweet time!
DeleteOh, how frustrating on so many fronts :-(
ReplyDeleteLol. I'm not sure if you meant that as a pun, but I'm laughing! And yes, it is frustrating, especially when you see pictures of people online wearing shorts and stop to think, "oh, yeah, it's summer."
DeleteOh no... So sorry to hear about your boat issues. I was just going to suggest: "Time for some good books, because of the crappy weather" but it looks like you have other business to attend to. Good luck, and hopefully, you can fit in another sunny walk before you leave.
ReplyDeleteLiesbet @ Roaming About
Things are starting to look up and we might actually get a day or two of sunshine -- fingers crossed!
DeleteThe stove doesn't work! How are you baking brownies! And coffee! This is very bad news. I think we should swap boats for a few weeks... after suffering through 99 - feels like 113, we would love a cool down!
ReplyDeleteFortunately, we carry a spare sensor aboard for the gas detector. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. But David did manage to get the old one going and the oven's back online, so I baked brownies Sunday just in case! And we should swap boats! Or at least we should have when you were in Charleston. One of my sisters lives there and has a place off the Ashley River. But seriously, there's no way I could handle the heat. Anything above 85 degrees and I turn into a zombie.
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