Big Winds make Big Waves

It's really been snorting in the Pacific the last few days. This has impact on our trip beyond the obvious. Big wind means big waves. When big waves come rolling down the deck I had hoped Quijote would prove to be as water tight as she has proven to be on rainy days. Such hopes have been dashed by many small places of water intrusion. I guess green water rolling down the deck is more persuasive than rain. An indication of just how persuasive came when we checked the bilge and found more than a foot of water sloshing around under the floorboards. I'm not accustomed to finding any water in the bilge, so I've been somewhat cavalier about checking for it. Lesson learned. I also learned that my manual bilge pump doesn't work. Hmm... It worked well last year. Quijote also has been equipped with an emergency bilge pump, but for whatever reason, it's not designed to kick in until the water is deeper than it was today. It's probably a desire to keep the pump from ingesting whateve
r garbage finds its way into the bilge.

We had a quandary: how to remove all that water. The boat has several pumps onboard intended for other purposes. There's a fresh water pump (and spare), a deck wash pump, two foot pumps in the galley, and a shower sump pump. The latter turned out to be most suitable. It was designed for a more similar purpose and has an easily accessible inlet. We Mcgivered a couple of spare hoses together, fired up the pump, and fifteen minutes later the bilge water was all overboard. As successful as that was, when we get to Hawaii, I think I'll invest in a hand pump - and maybe a T for the shower pump inlet.

Another impact of the strong winds and big waves is that we've been able to generate as much electricity from the wind generator as we've been using. That's keeping the batteries full up without using the engine to keep them charged. Fewer engine hours is good for the engine and consumes less diesel. It's good for the environment too! One downside that came out of all that extra electricity is that we were more inclined to use the autohelm, which uses electricity and is easier to use, than the wind vane which is more challenging to manage but uses no power. In so doing, and because Otto has been working so hard, we used up his lifespan. It has the sound and feel of having failed berrings. We've ordered a new autohelm drive that will be waiting for us in Hawaii.

Without Otto, we been using the Hydrovane wind vane for self steering. Mark calls her Francene. More on Francene next time.