In the two and a half weeks I spent in the Northern Enterprise’s boatyard I completed over 30 tasks, I’m not sure a single one is visible. The invisibility makes me feel as if I accomplished nothing; a lot of the work was physically taxing, and I was unsure whether some of the tasks were successful given I really wouldn’t know until the boat was in the water.
The largest item was replacing the wet exhaust system hoses. Each time we turned off the engine last year, 15 minutes later the bilge pump would kick on and pump perhaps a pint of water out of the bilge.
I decided that there was a leak on the bottom of the exhaust hose that would only leak water after the engine was turned off and the water sat, rather than being pushed out by the exhaust. I replaced the hose from the engine to a right angle coupling in 2016 in Ketchikan. I carried around the guilt of not replacing all of it since then and figured now was the time shed that guilt.
To do so required removing the waste tank, and all of the batteries.
The house batteries were stone dead when I arrived. My guess is that the diaphragm pump had turned on and stayed on though the water in the bilge was frozen. The year before, there was only the impeller pump in the bilge. It jammed on the ice and blew the fuse, rather than drain the batteries.
I charged the batteries for three or four days and then tested with a hygrometer. The house batteries tested little better than water – they were done. The cranking battery tested as brand new.
When I plumbed the waste tank, I plumbed it in such a way that the only way to remove the pipes was to cut them, meaning I needed to replace the plumbing from the toilet to the waste tank when I reinstalled the waste tank. On the advice of a friend, I had put a check valve in that run of pipe, which clogged easily and never worked. So re-plumbing would allow me to remove the check valve.
With the waste tank and batteries removed, I was able to pull out the two sections of wet exhaust hose, one running from the 90° fitting to the muffler, the other from the muffler to the through hull exhaust fitting: about 10 ft total.
It was remarkable the amount of physical effort removing the two pieces of hose and reinstalling them. The hose is quite resistant to bending and, with wire inside, it is completely kink resistant. Good about the kink resistance, bad about the resistance to bending at all.
I wasn’t surprised that I was tired carrying the old batteries down the ladder, and the new batteries back up. I was surprised that my quads weren’t killing me. 200 half knee bends carrying 40 lb in weights 6-days a week, I guess, does have its benefits.
With the muffler and hose in place, it was just a matter of getting Caro Babbo in the water to understand whether I had done it right. Any water I might have wanted to bring to the boat to somehow test the connections required me carrying it by hand 150 yards and then up into the boat. I was fairly sure of my work and had many many other tasks.
A newly discovered task was that the stainless steel water tank or one of the hoses leading from it has a very slow leak. About a quart every 24 hours.
When I tried to remove the water tank I found that I would need to remove an inch and a half valve connected to a through-hull nipple. Try though I might I could not get that valve off. I decided we would live with the small leak and move the repair of that tank to the top of next year’s list.
We have three water tanks on board: the 25-gallon stainless, and two 15-gallon water bladders, together with a water maker I think we’re fine.
I had a bit of a social life this year. I saw our friends Morgan and Douglas, and made friends with Don Keller, his spouse Brenda, and there two young friends Morgan and Ryan.
I spent time with Jennifer’s and my friend Tim Gervais and his wonderful child.
The list of things that was completed goes on forever. The list of things that I did not complete is manageable and while only one required task was still undone when Caro Babbo went into the water, I finished it at the dock.
For our initial shakedown, Jennifer took us over to Seldovia. It’s a town we know well, but we did not run into anyone who remembered us.
Jennifer took us out to dinner at the bar that is across the strip of water from where we tie up to the public dock.
We spent a few hours sitting in front of the public library setting up the IridiumGO and sending everyone who needed to be notified of our new satellite phone number and reminding them of the email address that will come to us via the satellite.
You can find both of these pieces of information on the front page of this website.
Jennifer’s ability to move Caro Babbo underpower has become innate. There is a confidence that shows in how she moves the vessel and a confidence that Caro Babbo will move as she intends it to. To me, this manifests itself most evidently in the amount of time Jennifer will wait while the boat does her bidding. At slow speeds, a vessel does not react quickly because there’s not a lot of water passing over the rudder. Additionally, the arc of a turn as the vessel begins to move will tighten as the force of the water over the rudder increases. I know to be quiet and to wait.
So far, everything we have expected to work on Caro Babbo is working.
Today, Sunday, Jennifer decided we should have a day of rest. I took two days off in the 18 that I was in Homer, and Jennifer worked hard every day she was there.
I have always wanted an enclosure for the cockpit for use when we are at anchor.
In part two of this post, I’ll tell you about the enclosure that Josh Kastelle made for us. It is exactly what I asked for. It does what I wanted it to do. Jennifer and I are deciding how much ambivalence we have toward it and when we will use it. It changes the experience.
Tomorrow, Monday, we will cover 60 nautical miles to an anchorage, depending on weather, we may stay for a few days.
When we were leaving Homer we saw that our tracking page said we were somewhere between China and Taiwan. We are not.*
Hopefully, by the time you read this, it will have been corrected.
In the next post, I will tell you about the room, more about the repairs and improvements made to Caro Babbo, very few of which are visible, and the improvement in solar panels since I started buying them 10 or 15 years ago.
Jennifer and I are well. We have 70 days to head west and then return to Homer.
Our warm regards to everyone and thank you for being our friends.
P. S. The software to use the IridiumGO is only on phones this year, meaning I am writing on a phone. I also did not replace my broken Bluetooth keyboard. This may effect my writing. Famously, a Japanese author wrote an entire novel on his first generation iPhone. I think the novel was only famous for how it was written, not what was written.
*I emailed PredictWind support, who provided the excellent support they always have. Shockingly, to me, it was actually a bug, which they repaired and changed my level of service on the tracking page to keep all of my tracks forever, instead of the limited time they normally allow. I love these people.
Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.
Isn’t that like so much of life? That the vast majority of what you spend your time and sweat doing remains invisible to everyone but you? Of course, in your case, still making sure it’s done right carries a lot more weight than things like making sure the bathroom is really clean.
Many thanks for bringing us along, as always!