Tuesday, March 6, 2012 Thompson Bay, Long Island

Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Thompson Bay, Long Island

Incredible winds today; sometimes reaching 33knots. Wow! I woke up at 12:30am this morning to the sound of the bilge pump going off again. I’m so not liking that. Yesterday it had a 6 hour cycle, and today it went off again at 6:30 this morning and again around 1pm. We were supposed to go to the Thompson Bay Club for the buffet but between the snubber that keeps coming off, the water leak that we couldn’t seem to find, and the winds, I pretty much wrote the day off.

We took the front berth apart to see if our water tank was leaking because it seems like whenever we fill our tanks, the bilge kicks on so we figured that maybe it was leaking near the top. We hadn’t filled it up recently but did put 20 some gallons in at Georgetown, so we emptied out the compartment of our toilet paper, paper towels, sail bags, and miscellaneous items that we stash under the berth, next to the water tank. No obvious leaks there and the floor under and next to the water tank looked dry. Checked the thru hulls, no leaks there;

Next we tore the floor boards up. The area around the mast was pretty wet; the area around the water pump was pretty wet; No visible leaks; Checked the thru hulls near the engine and the sink areas. No leaks; Took the stairs and cabinet off the engine to check the back of the boat and bilge area. Some wet but no visible dripping; the packing around the cutlass bearing looked good;

We decided to wait a couple of hours to manually set off the bilge pump and catch some of the water and give it a taste test. Wayne tasted it and said it didn’t taste salty enough for it to be coming from outside the boat. Ugh… my turn. I have sharper taste buds… No salt. So it must be coming from the hoses connected to the water pump or the water pump itself is leaking. Back to the middle of the boat to examine those hoses more closely and the pump. The good news is…it’s not water entering the boat from the outside. The bad news is…our fresh water supply is slowly being pumped outside the boat and we don’t have a cutoff valve from the water tank to the pump. There’s also no water to be gotten here on Long Island because there’s been a lack of rain and the water boat won’t be venturing over here in gale conditions. So if we dismantle the pump we’re going to lose a bit of water that at this point we can’t replace. We’ll have to clamp a hose until Wayne can put a valve on it so we’ll have to visit the hardware store and see if they have any valves we can use. Then Wayne can replace the water pump. At this time of the day though, it makes no sense to head into town; Odds are by the time we got there, they’d be closed and we’d be frazzled (more than we are now) from fighting the waves to get to shore in the dingy. It’s also time to go to the Thompson Club’s Cruiser buffet but to be honest; neither of us are in much of a mood to go. So we’ll stay aboard and rock in the 30 knot winds and watch the other boats dancing on their anchor chains too. Night Hawk said we looked like we traveled about 20-30 miles today. Yep, we probably have, we probably have. It’s good to see all the anchors set in the bay. Nobody has drug yet but as I recall, this is an awesome sandy/silty bottom. Probably some of the best holding in the Exumas!

I don’t feel much like cooking tonight (want some of Trapheena’s cracked lobster) but time to make dinner. It’s getting dark. I’m thinking pizza tonight.

The winds continue to howl like a wolf pack…